Laura Bates is on a mission to make women feel heard, validated and ultimately safe when they are faced with bouts of sexism, sexual harassment, rape or assault. She has been working with publications like The Guardian, The Independent, and TIME where she addresses the kinds of inconveniences women face and the causes behind these atrocities. The woman behind the Everyday Sexism Project, Laura is now available to speak at a range of events about how organisations can foster a safe and inclusive environment for women.
Laura is best known for pioneering the Everyday Sexism Project in 2012 which allowed women to talk about sexist remarks passed at them, sexual assault instances they had been through, stories of rape and sexual misconduct meted out against them. This served as a way to record, report, and in an attempt to alleviate some of the trauma they might have experienced. The findings that came from the Everyday Sexism Project served a bigger purpose as well in that they were shared with the British Transport Police so that the necessary actions could be taken to avoid further occurrences like these. The Everyday Sexism Project gained a lot of traction from media all over the world and was covered in publications like the Times of India, the New York Times, and French Glamour. Laura has written several books on what kinds of issues women must face daily namely Girl Up and Misogynation, but her debut book Everyday Sexism was awarded the Waterstone’s Book of the Year title and was even shortlisted for Political Book Awards Polemic of the Year category.
An initiative that garnered support from household names like Beyonce, James Cordon, Simon Pegg, and Rose McGowan, the Everyday Sexism Project has really taken off since its inception in 2012, receiving over 100,000 testimonials of harrowed women relaying events that never should have happened in the first place. For providing these women with a safe space to tell their stories, Laura has been awarded the BEM in 2015, the title of Woman of the Year by The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, and Red Magazine, Oxford Internet Institute’s Internet and Society Award, and Cosmopolitan’s Ultimate New Feminist Award in 2013.
No stranger to stating the findings of the Everyday Sexism Project, as she has done it even at the United Nations, Laura is now available to speak about the entire initiative, as a means to raise awareness about what women go through. She contributes regularly to the Women Under Siege Project and is a Patron of the Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support cause as well. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is bound to make an excellent speaker at events, presenting with passion, confidence, and stone-cold statistics. Book Laura Bates for your next event today!
