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Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates: ‘I wanted to force people to see how bad the problem was’

Fighting against gender inequality: Everyday Sexism’s Laura Bates

Did your education and home life make you aware of sexism and gender inequality at an early age?

No, it’s something I wasn’t particularly aware of at all until relatively recently. I was a debater at school so I was vaguely exposed to those kinds of ideas but it wasn’t until after university that I became really aware of feminism.

What was the trigger that led you to start the Everyday Sexism Project?

It was just a really bad week where loads of incidents happened to occur within a really short space of time. One of them was a man who followed me off the bus all the way home, sexually propositioning me and refusing to take no for an answer. Another was a man on a bus who started groping and stroking my legs. I was on the phone to my mum and stood up and said “I’m on the bus and this man’s groping me,” but everyone else just looked out the window. It sent such a strong message to me that this is just the way things are. Then I was walking past a couple of guys working on a construction lorry and one of them said “Look at the tits on that”. If those things hadn’t happened so close together I would never have thought twice because it would have been so normal. And that’s what made me think.

What action did you take from there?

From there I started talking to other women. Because one of the common responses is that you doubt yourself. So I started asking other women ‘have you ever experienced anything like this?’ and I could not believe their responses. It was every woman I spoke to, and it was hundreds of stories, so I suddenly felt completely overwhelmed by how bad the problem was, that people had this really massive sense of ‘don’t make a fuss it’s not a big deal, women are equal now and sexism doesn’t exist’ and that made it really difficult to talk about. So very simply I started the website to put all these stories in one place, to try and make people realise how bad it still was.

How did the project evolve?

Initially it was mostly about awareness raising. I wanted to force people to see how bad the problem was and I wanted to provide a safe online space for women where their stories could be believed for the first time, and where I could create a sense of solidarity and of being part of a community, so you know it’s not your fault and you’re not alone. But it grew so quickly that it became something I hadn’t anticipated. Because it had been in the press so much, and because we had built up such a strong social media following, it was able to develop into more of a campaigning tool. So we were able to campaign to change Facebook’s policies on rape and domestic violence content, and work with the British Transport Police on an initiative called Project Guardian, which has increased the reporting of sexual offences by 25 per cent on public transport. We’ve also been able to take what we started online into the community to try and create real concrete change. I’ve been spending a lot of time going into schools and universities, talking to young people about the issues, working with politicians and using real women’s voices and stories to influence their decisions.

How important is it for gender equality to be introduced in a meaningful way in schools?

I think it’s absolutely vital. If I could name one thing that I think could make a concrete difference it would be for it to be part of the curriculum in schools, for children in schools to be learning about gender equality but also about ending violence against women, about very simple principles like what consent means and what a healthy relationship looks like. There is a real lack of understanding about these most basic principles. I talked to teenage girls who say they regularly hear the boys in their year using phrases like rape is a compliment really or it’s not rape if she enjoys it. So why we aren’t giving young people the tools to find a way through this to deal with this kind of bombardment I just don’t understand.

What will you be talking about at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival?

I’ll probably be talking about the new Everyday Sexism book which basically grew out of a desire to reach a wider audience and hopefully raise awareness among some people who may not have seen the project online. We had reached this point where we had 60,000 entries sent in from women around the world. No one has time to sit down and read all of them so the book distills and crystallises all that information into a kind of snapshot; an overview of what women are dealing with now in 2014. Unlike the project website, the book separates entries thematically, so it looks at what women are dealing with in public spaces, in the media, in education, in politics, in the home, and it looks at kind of different aspects and areas of the problem and how closely interconnected they are.

In 1914 Sylvia Pankhurst established the East London Federation of Suffragettes in Bow. A hundred years on, what further changes to public life need to be made so that men and women are equal?

I think the media have a massive impact in terms of public life and public sentiment and have a large part to play. This is in part because of how the media objectify women. Seeing women, for example, on page three sends such a very clear message to young people growing up about the role of women in society, the way we should look at and treat them. Secondly, it’s the way the media portray women in public life, so regardless of the reason why they are in the news we still hear about what women look like and whether or not they’re sexy, whether it’s Amanda Knox being described as Foxy Knoxy, or whether it’s Reeva Steenkamp being flashed on the front page of the Sun in her bikini the morning after she was killed. So I think the perception of women in public life is hugely influenced by the media but I also think it’s about increasing the representation of women in politics, in business, throughout public life in areas like science and technology, and giving them that visibility as role models so that little girls growing up can look up and say I could be that because she’s doing it.

Hackney is a borough linked to Mary Wollstonecraft, regarded by many as the first feminist. But the word ‘feminist’ doesn’t seem to appear often in your writing – is the word ‘feminism’ no longer useful in the fight for equality?

It’s not a word that I use constantly perhaps because I think there’s a real pragmatism and sense of urgency and action about this new wave of activism, this new wave of feminism, and for young people particularly I think it’s quite accessible because they see an issue, they see how it impacts them, and they feel able to stand up and take action on it. They don’t necessarily feel that they have to be signing up to a big ideology, they don’t necessarily feel like it has to be academic or something that they’ve read books about. And I think that’s a powerful and positive thing. But I always feel quite hopeful that the word feminism, in its simplest meaning of believing everyone should be equal regardless of their sex, is having a come back.

Everyday Sexism is published by Simon & Schuster UK. RRP: £14.99. ISBN: 9781471131578

Stoke Newington Literary Festival
6-8 June, Various N16 venues

June 5, 2014
Eclectic mix of contemporary art on display at Shoreditch gallery

Rise and Fall by Natasha Kissell

East meets West at the Cock’n’Bull gallery in Shoreditch at new exhibition Eleven. In collaboration with Eleven Gallery, Belgravia, the Cock’n’Bull is displaying work by Kent Christensen, Cedric Christie, Adam Dix, Gerry Fox, Roland Hicks, Natasha Kissell, Natasha Law, Peter Newman, Jennie Ottinger and Jonathan Yeo.

The show is an eclectic mix with artists working across a wide range of media including oil painting, gloss paint on aluminum, sculpture, video and photography.

Many of the works on display respond in some way to the Tramshed restaurant, in which the gallery is housed. Kent Christensen’s oil painting series depicts various desserts that you might find in an East London restaurant. The playful application of paint makes for a delicious-looking canvas.

Natasha Kissell is another artist represented. She had a great start to her career – Charles Saatchi purchased her entire Royal Academy graduation show in 2003. Her latest paintings juxtapose serene landscapes and urban dynamism. Modernist architecture – harsh edges and empty windows – are surrounded by graffiti and the delicate details of the natural world.

Playful and mesmerizing, Gerry Fox’s After Three Girls by Schiele is a framed TV monitor of three women lying in bed while his Nudes Moving, on permanent display in the Tramshed’s washroom, provides a seductive twist on conventional photography.

May 23, 2014
The Trial of the Jew Shylock – review

On trial: Ashley Gunstock as Shylock (right)

Not all of Shakespeare’s works remain popular, but The Merchant of Venice is well-known and often performed today despite the cloud of controversy surrounding it. Perhaps the reason for this longevity is its capacity to keep audiences guessing. Is it a racist play, or a play about racism? Is the character of Shylock villainous or sympathetic? How did Shakespeare view him, and did he ever even meet any Jews?

The Trial of the Jew Shylock is a new adaption by theatre company Poetic Justice, now showing at the Rosemary Branch. But if the title and promotional blurb has led you to believe this is something fresh and different, you might be disappointed – this is Shakespeare dressed in contemporary clothes, and you’ve seen that before. But that’s not to say this version of the play has nothing interesting to offer.

As the title indicates, the play centres on the character of Shylock. But while it is hard to escape the conclusion that Shylock, with his merciless insistence on claiming his pound of flesh, is a bit of a baddie, this adaptation goes some way to suggest reasons for his behaviour. We see a man continually abused by his Christian neighbours, whose chief complaints against him seem to be his Jewishness and his perceived love of money. Their open anti-Semitism is jarring to a contemporary audience, as is the accusation of greed, since money, as this production is at pains to point out, is all anyone around here wants. His abusers despise him for being a money lender while availing themselves of his services, and his beloved daughter has abandoned him for a Christian man who loves her for her money as much as herself.

This Shylock spends most of his time on the defensive, bitterly conscious of the injustice of his situation, and his choosing to reject the offer of big money in favour of an essentially valueless piece of flesh suggests not greed, but rage.

Ashley Gunstock does a remarkable job of showing the humanity and complexity of a man consistently objectified by everyone around him. His delivery of the ‘Hath not a Jew eyes’ speech and the final forced conversion scene are particularly stunning, confronting the audience with questions about who is showing inhumanity towards whom. Perhaps the victim or villain? debate applies to more than one character in this play.

The Trial of the Jew Shylock is the Rosemary Branch theatre, 2A Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 1 June.

May 21, 2014
George Orwell’s East London footsteps

George Orwell. Credit: public domain

In the not so distant past, London’s East End was a place to be forgotten, an area readily associated with disease, overcrowding, alcoholism and crime. Either you had the misfortune of living in one of the area’s slums, or you simply stayed clear.

Or, if you’re George Orwell, you quit your steady well-paid job and hit the streets.

In 1927, after five years serving the British Empire as a police officer in colonial Burma, Orwell traded his uniform for rags and spent a few months living a life of abject poverty in two of Europe’s grandest capital cities. He recounts his experience in Down and Out in Paris and London, published in 1933.

In many ways, this experience defined Orwell’s writing career. The poverty he witnessed in London’s own backyard came as an eye opener after years of service in the Imperial Indian Police. Here was Great Britain preaching enlightenment to all corners of the globe, yet in Spitalfields and Whitechapel the living conditions were as bad as in the slums of Calcutta.

The seeds had been sown. Over the following two decades Orwell would use his words to fight social injustice and imperialist and authoritarian rule. His righteous causes would be developed novel after novel, and ultimately culminated in the publication – sixty five years ago next month – of 1984.

So what has changed since the time of Orwell’s writing? What has become of the East End lodging-houses that played such an instrumental role in his writing career?

The simple truth is that most of the squalor he experienced no longer exists here. Many of the buildings, however, do still stand – though under a very different guise.

The Providence Row Night Refuge “for deserving Men, Women, and Children” on modern day Crispin Street used to provide accommodation for more than 400 destitute people, and did so from 1860 until as recently as 1999. Inmates would get a bed for the night, as well as a ration of cocoa and bread. Nowadays it’s a student residence for the London School of Economics. Students may not have much money but it’s fair to say these are two very different levels of poverty.

Then: Providence Row Night Refuge in 1902. Credit: Bishopsgate Institute archives

The Brune Street Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor opened in 1902 and as it its name suggests used to provide nourishment for the Jewish community of Spitalfields. In the 1960s it was still regularly feeding 1,500 clients. The establishment has now been divided into expensive flats.

Fieldgate Street’s Rowton House, also erected in 1902, offered 816 beds. It is known for a fact that George Orwell stayed there, as did Soviet revolutionaries Maxim Litvinov and Joseph Stalin when they attended the London conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1907. American author Jack London called it the “Monster Doss House” packed with “life that is degrading and unwholesome”. Today it is known as Tower House and offers a vast array of luxury apartments, some worth more than £1 million – a far cry from the shilling Orwell had to pay for a night’s rest.

These are but three examples of the many East End establishments that have gone from rags to riches in less than a hundred years. Back in Orwell’s day these institutions existed to assist the poor, now the buildings they were housed in serve a wealthier class of person.

But times have changed and so has the area. Would Orwell roll over in his grave at the thought? Perhaps not. In many ways we have people like George Orwell to thank for this progress.

Jack the Ripper’s infamous murders in 1888 made international news and the area saw unprecedented regeneration thereafter. Orwell’s work brought East End misery back to the forefront of social agendas and ensured the regeneration triggered by the Ripper years didn’t stop there.

Whereas people used to avoid the area and even fear it, nowadays people of all walks of life flock to the area to tour the sites – a celebration of immigration, poverty and murder if you will. Thanks for your help George.

@raisimpson

May 20, 2014
Swimming London: The 50 Best Pools, Lidos, Lakes and Rivers from around the Capital – book review

“London is a city built on water” states the publicity bumf for writer and blogger Jenny Landreth’s exhaustive guide to the best places to swim in the capital. Our city gets its fair share of watery weather too, so there is a certain logic to the fact it boasts such a wealth of places to do the breaststroke.

Landreth is an entertaining and witty writer who does not merely dive into her subject but takes a running jump along the diving board and deftly somersaults as she plunges into it. It might seem like there is little to be said on the subject of swimming pools, but many have incredible histories, and the newer ones often have a controversial past (Hackney’s Clissold Leisure Centre is a case in point).

This book also allows readers to discover sumptuous and unusual pools within easy reach of the East End such as Virgin Active Repton Park – a swimming pool in a church (yes, really) and King’s Oak Lido on the cusp of Epping Forest. Closer to home, the pool at Shoreditch House and Walthamstow Forest College Pool are also included.

Then there is open water swimming and so-called wild swimming, both increasingly popular activities. At the risk of rhapsodising on the subject, the experience of propelling oneself through the water in a lake or reservoir surrounded by fish and diving water birds is an amazing way to connect with nature, and thank goodness this experience is available at places like the Hampstead Heath swimming ponds and the Stoke Newington West Reservoir, albeit that you have to pay and wear a wetsuit to swim in the latter.

No true wild swimming opportunities exist in London, unless of course you count the Thames, which Landreth does. Though swimming is banned in the busiest stretch through central London, this book details how and where to plunge into London’s mother-river.

Which begs the question: what about the River Lea? Sure, this notoriously polluted waterway is no doubt dangerous to swim in, and there may well be bylaws banning swimming here. Still, some foolhardy adventurer should try it anyway, if only for the sake of novelty.

Swimming London: The 50 Best Pools, Lidos, Lakes and Rivers from Around the Capital is published by Aurum Press. RRP: £12.99. ISBN: 9781781310960

May 15, 2014
Efendi review – ‘Like you’re sitting down to dinner at a friend’s house’

Homely Turkish fare at Efendi

My favourite restaurants are restaurants that don’t feel like restaurants. They have good, simple food, nice people and a well-stocked bar. They feel more like you’re sitting down to dinner at a friend’s house. Just with waiters.

That’s why Efendi popping up in the neighbourhood was such a pleasant discovery. It’s the latest venture from the team behind This Bright Field, which used to stand in its place on Cambridge Heath Road.

This time owner Emel Sumen is going back to his roots and serving authentic Turkish food. It’s billed as a neighbourhood kitchen and is just that – a light and airy restaurant full of scrubbed wooden tables and a long serving bar where you can see the chefs at work.

One wall is floor-to-ceiling windows, so it’s full of light all year round and outside there are plenty of tables to take in the evening air and watch the bustle as the days get warmer.

We took too long picking, so they started bringing out heaped platefuls to try.

We kicked off with a very decent carafe of house red, mopped up with some freshly baked bread and lemony, garlicky hummus goodness.

Next was a mezze plate laden with everything from sigara boregi – warm little cigars of crispy filo pastry stuffed with feta and herbs – to sucuk – grilled discs of spicy Turkish sausage, to crunchy falafel.

The icli kofte was another highlight – moist little balls of bulgar wheat with minced meat, herbs and walnut – as were the fried squares of juicy halloumi-like hellim from Cyprus. I fear there is no upper limit to how much of that grilled cheese I could eat.

Luckily the mains came out before I could find out for certain. We had an impressive platter of morsels from the grill including gently spiced chicken shish – and lamb too for good measure – as well as lamb ribs.

Emel says nothing goes on the menu without his approval and that’s clear. The food is simple, but delicious.

This is a wonderful, homely Turkish kitchen that will draw you in and post you back out into the night well-fed, well-watered and well looked after.

Efendi
270 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA

May 14, 2014
Counting down to Field Day

Field Day is gearing up to kick off the summer festival season in style, with an impressive array of established artists, as well as the cream of new talent, signed up to play at the weekend festival on 7-8 June in Victoria Park.

This year’s Field Day is to be spread over two days, with the inaugural Field Day Sunday featuring a headline set from Pixies, who are set to play their only London show of the year.

Other main acts confirmed for Sunday 8 June are psychedelic-adventurers The Horrors as well as act of the moment Future Islands, who in April wowed the US with an astonishing performance on David Letterman.

The line-up for the Saturday looks strong, boasting the icons such as 80s Swedish artist Neneh Cherry and the legendary Thurston Moore, formerly of Sonic Youth, who now resides in East London.

Headlining the main stage on the Saturday are melancholic electronica outfit Metronomy, who will no doubt be playing songs off their critically-praised new album Love Letters. Other acts joining them on the main stage will be Mercury Prize nominee Jon Hopkins and Seun Kuti, the son of Afrobeat creator Fela Kuti.

Although larger than in previous years, Field Day still has a village fete-style aesthetic and will be providing ample entertainment for those looking for respite from the music in their Village Mentality area.

Expect traditional side stalls inspired by country pastimes and fete games, from classic tug of war, sack races and egg and spoon races to more unexpected and fantastic ones like tea bag tossing and even winkle-picking contest.

Field Day will be at Victoria Park on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 June. For tickets visit www.ticketweb.co.uk/fieldday

May 13, 2014
Bones review: ‘Remarkably understated and un-gimmicky for Shoreditch’

Burrata with basil oil, chili flakes and sourdough bread. Photograph courtesy of Bones

Shoreditch has an excellent new eating and drinking hole to wrap your chops round.

You won’t find fussy dishes with overbearing flavours here. As the name suggests, the menu is stripped back to good quality meat, fish and vegetables gently seasoned and put together with light touch and an artist’s eye.

The pigeon salad is outstanding. Delicate slices of meat teamed with hazelnuts and vegetable crisps on bright green leaves. It’s short and sweet, with a perfectly judged combination of textures and flavours. I could happily have eaten it all evening.

Then there’s a plump chunk of burrata to tear sumptuous little mouthfuls off. The creamy mozzarella-like cheese would be beautiful on its own, but the splash of basil oil and scattering of chilli flakes and wafer of sourdough elevates it to glory.

Keeping it nice and light, we tried a lovely plate of sautéed baby squid thrown around in a pan with potatoes and cherry tomatoes. The chilli warms without burning and the lemon brightens each bite, pulling all the flavours neatly together.

At the heart of the menu is the ‘Bones’ section, offering everything from sirloin to salmon and including a stew from Provence made with pearl barley and chicken that sounded wonderful.

We went with a rack of lamb in a fragile herb crust with some braised baby gem that was great and the garlicky bowl of rosemary roast potatoes that came with it were even better.

Another highlight is the aubergine, thinly sliced and gently roasted, then topped with bright blood-red sequins of pomegranate seeds. Another well-judged dressing, this time with chilli and tahini, which adds a nutty layer of flavour and is topped off with a scattering of feta that cuts cleanly across the palate.

Remarkably understated and un- gimmicky for Shoreditch, Bones combines great food with an potent cocktails and is the perfect night out for dates, mates and lates.

Bones 52 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DP 020 7033 9008

May 13, 2014
Sofar so different – the gig movement coming to a living room near you

Benin City, fronted by Joshua Idehen play at a Sofar Sounds gig. Photograph: Sofar Sounds

Songs from a Room, or Sofar, is an East London-based start-up with a strong vision: to bring good music to eager fans.

Born out of a frustration of background noise at gigs, Rafe Offar and two friends set out to develop a concept to curate gigs in unusual settings. “You don’t connect with musicians at large gigs and stadiums and at smaller ones there are often dingy bars where people talk and text throughout performances,” explains Offar. “For me, hearing a trumpet or sax in a living room adds so much excitement and depth to the music.”

Sofar aims to bring unsigned and unknown musicians and artists to a wider audience. “We wanted to help new musicians get a boost by inviting people who love to spread the word about what they discover to our houses. The result was an atmosphere where you could hear a pin drop – an intimate connection between music and fan. It’s quite ‘pure’ and about the music rather than selling stuff,” says Offar.

Sofar is managing to hold 50 gigs a week hosted in spaces such as basements, living rooms and residential warehouses in over 60 cities around the world. According to Offar though, being based in East London does have its perks. “The music here is considered amongst the best in the world so it helps Sofar have impact,” he says.

There are two rules when attending a Sofar gig: firstly, you must listen thoroughly to the music that’s on offer and secondly, you have to stay until the end of the evening. These rules are gently emboldened at every gig out of respect for the music, but also for the audience to broaden and enhance their experience.

Offar gives the example of virtuoso cellist Oliver Coates as one of the favourite Sofar gigs so far. “I was moved at how he wowed an audience who do not hear classical music often at a Sofar gig. He showed us classical at its most dynamic.”

But in an ever-changing music culture where fast-paced, mainstream pop is ever more the norm, how is Sofar reacting to today’s current state of industry? “We involve art and music students and find a range of local community members and leaders with an appetite for innovation and encourage them to debate who is right for us.” Offar enthuses.

Plans to develop the concept are also underway with a festival under their belt in May last year which attracted over a thousand people. Offar adds: “We like to find music that is just plain good – and worry later about the buzz factor.”

sofarsounds.com

May 13, 2014
Hard times in Hackney as economic slump takes toll

Author and Guardian journalist Tom Clark

“I have to get this in… I like Hackney. It’s got a lot going for it.”

It’s an interjection begging for a caveat, as Tom Clark, a leader writer for the Guardian, finishes up a detailed analysis of precisely how the Great Recession of 2008 has manifested itself in his home borough.

While the relatively peaceful coexistence of cultures here may be praiseworthy, this is no egalitarian utopia.

“Hackney really does make the point about a divided society very powerfully, doesn’t it?” says Clark.

“You’ve got huge stocks of social housing, you’ve got a lot of recent immigration of people who are on very low pay, people on benefits and people who’ve been living in the same house for years and years and then they find out their house is worth £1 million plus – there are very different types of citizens in Hackney.”

And this had never been more clear than in observing the varied experiences of the recession here, and our attempts to eke our way out of it, as illustrated by Clark’s book Hard Times: The Divisive Toll of the Economic Slump.

It’s not a book about Hackney, and even London only gets a handful of mentions.

But the borough, Clark’s home for the past decade, provided endless case studies for his far-reaching analysis of the symptoms of recession in Britain and the United States during their darkest economic moments: the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In attempting to recover from this most recent slump, the two superpowers took very different approaches: Britain with austerity, the United States with a stimulus package.

And in the latter, Clark points out that for all its irresistible comparisons, likening our Great Recession to the Great Depression is only somewhat useful.

True, in both cases the bankers were to blame, with the concealment of debt via “financial wizardry” wielding disastrous global consequences.

But when it comes to sharing the doom, and sharing the recovery in these two “rich but unequal societies”, it’s not like back then.

That sweeping, universal fall of the Great Depression immortalised by Orwell here at home in The Road to Wigan Pier and by Steinbeck across the pond, sets it widely apart from from the varied experiences of The Great Recession – the one that displays itself, Clark says, in Hackney as well as anywhere, compounded further by two exceptional events: the 2011 riots whose “flaming heart” lay at the “grimy asphalt intersection of Mare Street and Amhurst Road”. And after that, the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The year the riots came to Hackney, Hackney’s dole queue as a share of the working age population had risen from 6.5 per cent in spring 2008, to 10.8 per cent. “Unemployment was peaking – at that point if you were young and you were black you were more likely to be unemployed than to be working and living on very inadequate benefits,” says Clark.

But far more visible on the streets of Hackney are the signals of ever-growing prosperity: the endless opportunities to spend money, and house prices rising faster than anywhere except in Kensington and Westminster.

Clark’s research shows that the slump hit Hackney’s black population harder than its white population, with a higher proportion of Hackney’s black and ethnic minority populations claiming job seekers’ allowance, and for longer (32 per cent of JSA claims lasted longer than a year towards the end of the slump, in 2013, compared to 27 per cent across London).

While the Olympic legacy is a target for debate about who’s making use of the pool and the velopark two years on, Clark credits it with creating jobs that “helped Hackney turn a corner ahead of the rest of the country.”

Even for those worst hit by the recession things are improving. The economy has grown 3 per cent in the past year. But where unemployment figures have improved, zero hours contracts and low pay continue to be hidden, unmeasurable culprits. “Where unemployment didn’t fall, quality work did,” says Clark.

“But if you go around the more prosperous streets” Clark adds, it’s ‘recession? What recession?’”

Look around, it’s all there.

Hard Times: The Divisive Toll of the Economic Slump by Tom Clark and Anthony Heath is published by Yale University Press, RRP: £18.99. ISBN: 9780300203776.

May 9, 2014