You can trace a lifetime of gender inequality through Everyday Sexism
You can trace a lifetime of gender inequality through Everyday Sexism
(http://www.everydaysexism.com/)
From office Porn Fridays to gropings in the street – in the three years that the Everyday Sexism project has been around, Laura Bates has heard it all
In early 2012, I was groped on a bus in London. I was vocal about it and made sure everyone around me heard what had happened. Every other passenger looked out of the window.
Soon after, on 16 April 2012, I started a simple website where I asked people to share their experiences of gender inequality. Today, just three years on, 100,000 testimonies have been submitted to the Everyday Sexism Project from around the globe. They describe humiliation and harassment, prejudice and discrimination, domestic violence and rape. These stories have been used to work with ministers and parliamentarians in various countries; to teach about consent and healthy relationships at schools; to help police forces improve their response to sexual offences; and to tackle workplace discrimination in businesses.
Among the 100,000 stories submitted, near-identical experiences emerge again and again. Stories of women being masturbated at in public spaces came in their thousands, from Spain to Turkey, Germany to India. Women in Japan, England and Israel were told not to bother with higher education as it was their sole destiny to become homemakers for their future husbands. A woman was grabbed between the legs in a souk in Morocco and another had her crotch groped in a nightclub in China. A woman in North Africa was demoted by her boss for refusing his requests for sex, and an employee in Europe was sacked when she turned down her superior’s offer of a threesome.
Experiences shared by men and boys, such as being ridiculed for asking for parental leave, or suffering homophobic bullying for trying to stand up to lad culture, revealed the damage gender stereotypes do, not just to women, but to everybody.
The stories came from people aged eight to 80, be they wearing hijabs or bikinis, about sexism on aeroplanes and trams, at home, work and school. You can trace an entire lifetime of gender inequality through the experiences women have shared through the project …
It starts young. At 11 or 12 you begin to experience harassment …
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http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/apr/16/you-can-trace-a-lifetime-of-gender-inequality-through-everyday-sexism