My dad gave me a copy of Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism a few months back now as a present. I read it in one sitting. Not because I enjoyed it, it was anything but enjoyable, it was horrific, upsetting and terrifying. Possibly the most frightening thing was that these women’s experiences – from being catcalled in the street to judged or defined by the way they look – were all around me. In a way that, as Bates states in ‘Everyday Sexism’ are so ingrained in modern day society that they’re perceived normal, part of everyday life and ‘just something you have to put up with’.
As I write this I’m babysitting a twelve year old girl, who just told me ‘I’m trying not to eat that much chocolate during the week because I really want a summer body’, and ‘Oh God, I’m supposed to be on a diet’ as she ate her dinner. She’s twelve. A few weeks ago I was sitting in a stuffy library at school, took off my knitted cardigan and tied my hair into a top- knot. Within five minutes a teacher came up to me and said ‘Rosie, please cover you’re shoulders- it’s a question of modesty’. At the end of my English Literature A Level, I was kept behind to be told that ‘no one should have to see your shoulders as you do an exam’ (they’re shoulders – bony and essential parts of the body which my arms are attached to… the very same right arm and hand which had been used to do the writing that will get me into university, but apparently they have to be hidden).
Because skin – that essential organ – on a female body is somehow distracting, inappropriate and should thus be concealed in a working environment. A few months ago, I was in an assembly where the head teacher stood up in front of the whole school and in attempting to address the issue of the length of girls skirts, announced that ‘when you see all the horrible things that happen to women across the world, well can you really be surprised?’. Then, after myself and a group of sixth form girls attempted to address what was said, we were told we were simply ‘too upset’. I will note though, he did apologise about what was said in a following assembly that week, taking back what he said and stating it was misinterpreted but nevertheless managing to throw in that horrible draconian word: ‘modesty’, as he apologised. I’ve constantly been told throughout my school career by some peers: ‘you’re not clever, you just work hard’, whereas with a boy possessing the exact same grades, work ethic, and university place: ‘oh yeah, he’s like, really clever’. I’m ashamed by the fact that we haven’t had any sufficient sex education throughout school and that I remember walking home from school every evening with my best friend in Year Ten, where almost once a week men would shout something out of their car – we were dressed in school uniforms.
Being aware of the project, and having read Bates’ book I was eagerly excited for her talk at Newcastle University this month. I saw her talk at Latitude Festival in the summer along about significance of literature in engaging with feminist ideals. It’s easier and more accessible to read a novel before bed than some hard-core feminist literary theory that’s for sure. So as my dad and I arrived to this lecture forty five minutes early (I saw on the Facebook group there was supposed to be around 500 people attending) we were already met by a endless line of people; women, and men of all ages. Laura began through looking at the representation of women in parliament, the representation of women in the legal profession and the representation of women in the media and arts industry, – shocking statistics, all of which were incredibly low. She talked about the extent of the abuse she received following her creation of the Everyday Sexism Project and the experiences of herself and others who had contributed to the site. Some of these experiences were more extreme than others. Yet the experiences of young girls who felt their body was under constant scrutiny, or were leered at walking down the street, or the girl who felt it didn’t matter how clever, or funny, or kind she was – what really mattered was that boys liked her- these are things that I see everyday.
Her talk was engaging, funny at times and incredibly thought provoking. As I came into school the next day I wanted to repeat everything I heard her say but, I felt like I couldn’t. Why? Because to say outright, ‘I went to a talk on feminism last night’ to a load of seventeen/eighteen year olds who deem ‘feminist’ a polluted word to describe a girl who doesn’t shave her arm pits or someone who just ‘overreacts to everything’ is a hard thing to do. I remember once when one of my best friends and myself were walking back from lunch and someone questioned us; ‘Wait, so are you like, feminists?’. As if to say yes we were feminists, ‘yes you know we might just believe that men and women should maybe just be equal’, was as bad as revealing you slept with your best pals boyfriend. I hopefully start University in October, and I really hope there will be more of an awareness and a platform to present these issues than there has been throughout my school days. I also really, really hope Laura Bates comes there to do another talk.
Words by Rosie Coleman Collier