Date/Time: 30th April 2015

Laura Bates has collected over 80,000 testimonies of gender inequality through the Everday Sexism Project. In this talk, she will discuss the origins of the project, and its initial aim to expose the 'invisible' problem of sexism.

She charts the shocking findings the project has uncovered, from 'lad culture' in education to workplace discrimination and sexual abuse, including the revealing testimonies submitted by young people. And looks at the ways in which the different types of inequality submitted to the project are closely interrelated, the links between different forms of discrimination and the entries submitted by men.

The lecture reveals the sometimes shocking responses Laura has received since launching the project, including waves of vitriolic online abuse. She discusses concrete ongoing work with schools, universities, police forces and politicians, describe how we can all be involved in the fight against sexism and explain why there is hope for the future.

Speaker biography

Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, an international collection of over 80,000 testimonies of daily gender inequality. She writes regularly for the Guardian and the Independent, and her work has appeared in, among others: 

• TIME magazine
• the Financial Times
• Grazia
• The Times
• The New Statesman
• Marie Claire  

Laura was the winner of the Georgina Henry Women In Journalism award at the 2015 British Press Awards.

She works closely with politicians, police forces, schools, universities and businesses, and has addressed organisations from the Council of Europe to the United Nations to tackle gender inequality.

Laura is Patron of Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support (SARSAS), part of the Rape Crisis network. She is also Contributor at Women Under Siege, a New York-based organisation tackling the use of rape as a tool of war in conflict zones worldwide.

She was named 9th on the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List and was named a Woman of the Year by the Sunday Times and Cosmopolitan magazine in 2013 and by Red Magazine in 2014.

Her first book, Everyday Sexism, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2014 and shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and Political Book Awards Polemic of the Year.