Everyday Sexism comes to York

The eloquent and inspirational Laura Bates of the Everyday Sexism project came to York to give a speech about the position of women in public life and at University. Megan Ollerhead followed with a speech about Marxist Feminism.

Before Bates left University six years ago she wasn’t aware of sexism, she said. The things that she said she should have noticed, like sexual harassment from supervisors, and the supervisor who wore a black armband on the anniversary of the day that women were accepted into her College, were so normalized that she just didn’t notice them, or register them as sexism.

One day, something happened which caused her to start the project. She was very frank and honest, and told us that she had a bad day, and that when she was walking down the street men were shouting what they wanted to do to her. Then, when she sat on the bus, the man next to her stroked her leg and moved his hand up to her crotch. She was on the phone to her mother, so she stood up and vocalized what was happening. No one on the bus did anything. This sort of behavior was, and is, seen as normal. Because no one did anything, Laura said: “I felt ashamed, as if it was my fault. This sort of thing happens without us questioning it- talk to any woman and they all have stories of sexual assault or harassment which happens almost daily. We don’t talk about it because it has become so normal.”

Laura said that when she tried to talk about sexism, after she realized that the behavior that she had counted as normal for years was in fact sexism, the overwhelming response that she got was “Sexism isn’t a thing anymore. We’re basically equal to men.” People weren’t listening to her, and assuming that she was uptight or frigid because she didn’t want to put up with sexual harassment anymore.

This would normally silence people, this shame. This response has certainly made me doubt myself at times. I’ve thought that maybe what happens to me and other women is just everyday life, and not sexism and maybe I’m alone in thinking this. However, it didn’t silence Laura.

She got on her computer and looked at the statistics. Here’s some of what she found. It shocked even me, and there were audible gasps in the room. Of the people in parliament, only 1 in 5 are female. This gives us an equal position with Pakistan in terms of government gender equality, at joint 57th in the world. In the National Gallery, out of 2,300 works, 10 are by women, less than one in 10 engineers are women, women write less than a fifth of front page news articles. There is one rape every 7 minutes, and at least one quarter of women in the UK will be or has been a victim of serious sexual abuse. Don’t tell Laura or any other woman fighting for the feminist cause that women are “basically equal to men.”

Bates then spoke to us about the portrayal of women in the media. The blonde, big-breasted, thin, white woman. The submissive, sexualized woman. She said that we are sexualized constantly and held up to this unforgiving and impossible standard. Women in politics are defined by their gender in the media, said Laura. “If they are single they are seen as shrews, and if they have children, how ‘good’ of a mother they are is examined and extrapolated into their policies. Older woman politicians are seen as forgetful and incapable. Even if Forbes magazine labels you the most powerful woman in the world, it seems to think that it is okay to run an article on your ‘dowdy power suits’.” She pointed out that female politicians are sexualized by the media- called “Cameron’s Cuties” and “Blair’s Babes”, and their cleavage is fair game for public debate. Debates between two female politicians are called ‘cat fights’. Female politicians are discredited and demeaned for no other reason than that they are women.

Now for the topical bit. She had a go at fresher’s week events- including our very own Slag ‘n’ Drag . Other events included ‘Pimps and Hoes’, ‘Tarts and Vicars’, and ‘CEOs and Corporate Hoes’. Men got a wide variation of costumes but the women are always expected to dress provocatively. Laura made it very clear that she wasn’t slut-shaming- she said that it should be about choice and that women shouldn’t be pressured into dressing a certain way and that men shouldn’t be forced to view women as merely sex objects.

She then told us about fresher’s week ‘initiations’ that were sent in from young people from different Universities around the country (I don’t think that any of these happened in York, but I could be wrong), they included women being pressured into doing lap dances, deep throating hotdogs, stripping in clubs, and having to drink beer from a man’s crotch whilst other men shouted ‘down it bitch!’.

Women’s ‘initiations’ were always more sexualized than men’s, who had to eat gross combinations of food or drink copious amounts of alcohol. There were also competitions within older years for men to sleep with freshers, and extra points for taking virginities. One story that struck me was of the woman at Imperial College, who on the first day of University got an email from her supervisor, which was sent to her entire year, telling the men to ‘stake out their claim on the 1 in 5 girls’.

Laura then linked all of this to rape culture. Rape and sexual assault, she argued, are normalized and condoned in our society. She said that this is shown by pages such as Uni Lad, Confessions of a Uni Student and Dropkicking Sluts in the Teeth. Under a cloak of irony, a blasé attitude to rape and sexism is fostered. Facebook is part of this- pictures of women breastfeeding are censored yet pictures condoning domestic violence and rape are allowed, because it is ‘banter’. This is brought forward into society where rape victims are asked whether they drank at all or if they were wearing something ‘slutty’.

As if violent sexual assault can be condoned if your victim was intoxicated or was wearing a short skirt. Society tells us to put up with sexual harassment. Many women don’t believe that the law is simply ‘If A touches B sexually without B’s consent, then it is sexual assault.’ This, Laura said, is because it is normalized. Society tells us to put up with it. Because ‘sexism isn’t a thing.’ Because ‘we are pretty much equal now.’

People aren’t evil, Bates said. It is normalized so people don’t think about their actions when they commit sexual assault. She told us of a story that a man sent in, he saw another man heckling a woman and telling her what he would like to do to her. The man who sent the story in went up to the other man and asked him why he did it, and he had no answer. Society teaches us that women deserve to be sexually harassed and that men can’t help harassing them. It paints an ugly picture of both genders. Misogyny is internalized in all of us too. Laura admits to saying, when her friend talked about going to the Doctors; ‘What did he say?’ She said “I don’t know about all of you but I want more than a society that is more or less equal. I want more than a society where victims don’t acknowledge their own sexual assault and our brightest young men leave University with this damaging idea of women.”

So what do we do now? Do as Laura does. Shout back. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have shouted back on Everyday Sexism. We are showing that sexism is very much there. We are showing that we aren’t putting up with it anymore. And projects like Everyday Sexism give us the strength to fight back. As Laura said to close her speech – “Our voices are louder when we shout together.”

http://www.everydaysexism.com/