Everyday Sexism Project

Everyday Sexism Project
Slogan By sharing your story you’re showing the world that sexism does exist, it is faced by women everyday and it is a valid problem to discuss.
Commercial? No
Type of site
 User-generated content
Registration None, and posters may use a pseudonym
Available in At the discretion of the poster
Users Over 50,000
Content license
 Hosted by Blueshot Inc
Owner Laura Bates
Created by Laura Bates
Launched 16 April 2012
Alexa rank
 Increase 503,117 (Global 07/2014)
IP address 173.254.82.184
Current status Online
Some of the stories have been collated into a book - Everyday sexism by Laura Bates.

The Everyday Sexism Project is a website founded on 16 April 2012 by Laura Bates, a British feminist writer. The aim of the site is to document everyday examples of sexism as reported by contributors around the world. Both men and women may submit an entry directly to the site, or by email or tweet, but it is mainly aimed at women. The submissions are collated by a small group of volunteers led by Emer O'Toole, a researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London.[1] By December 2013 the site had 50,000 entries.[2]

History

Bates set up the Everyday Sexism Project after finding it difficult to speak out about sexism: "Again and again, people told me sexism is no longer a problem – that women are equal now, more or less, and if you can’t take a joke or take a compliment, then you need to stop being so 'frigid' and get a sense of humor. Even if I couldn’t solve the problem right away, I was determined that nobody should be able to tell us we couldn’t talk about it anymore."[3]

Campaign founder Laura Bates

Bates's work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Guardian and Independent, among others. She is also a contributor to Women Under Siege,[4] a project that examines sexual violence as a weapon of war.[5] She has an MA in English literature from the University of Cambridge.[6] In April 2014, she was named as one of Britain's most influential women in the BBC Woman's Hour power list 2014.[7]

Other activities

In January 2014, Everyday Sexism successfully campaigned for the removal of the mobile app Plastic Surgery & Plastic Doctor & Plastic Hospital Office for Barbie Version from the App Store and Google Play, for its promotion of a poor perspective on the concept of body image to those of a young age.[8]

The Everyday Sexism Project has advised British Transport Police on the training of police officers to respond to complaints of unwanted sexual behaviour as part of Project Guardian, an initiative to increase reporting of sexual offences on public transport in London.[9]

Influence

Inspired by the Everyday Sexism Project, Diva editor Jane Czyzselska launched the Everyday Lesbophobia campaign in 2013 to document instances of lesbophobia.[10]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Bates, Laura. "The Everyday Sexism Project: a year of shouting back", The Guardian, 16 April 2013.
  2. ↑ "BBC Radio 4: Woman's Hour Power List 2014 - Top Ten revealed: 9. Laura Bates, campaigner". BBC. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  3. ↑ Klassen, Anna (9 April 2013). "Everyday Sexism creator Laura Bates on helping women speak out". The Daily Beast.
  4. ↑ "Women under siege". Women's Media Center.
  5. ↑ "Laura Bates". The Independent | Biography. 16 April 2013.
  6. ↑ "Laura Bates", uklinkedin.com.
  7. ↑ "Woman's Hour Power List 2014 – Game Changers". BBC Radio 4.
  8. ↑ Murray-Morris, Sophie (15 January 2014). "Apple and Google pull plastic surgery apps for children following Twitter backlash". The Independent | News | Technology. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
  9. ↑ Bates, Laura (1 October 2013). "Project Guardian: making public transport safer for women". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  10. ↑ "Diva magazine launches campaign against ‘lesbophobia’". 10 July 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2014.

External links