Have you ever seen Laura Bates’s TED Talk? You totally should – the Everyday Sexism campaigner’s speech explains why no, men and women aren’t equal, more or less, and how stuff needs to change sharpish. Though loads of the facts are really depressing – there’s more sports coverage given to all of men’s darts than all of women’s sport – some are pretty uplifting.
One being that ‘in the past two years over 200 feminist societies have been set up in the UK’s universities and schools.’ And, in one university she visited, the entire meeting had to be moved because the organisers had underestimated how many people would get there: ‘We thought about 10 people might be interested, but we had 40 people turn up!’
It sounds like low-level stuff, but the more young people with developing minds realising that men and women should be equal, and properly equal at that, the better. We asked Laura, at Grazia 10’s talk on ‘Feminism: Now, Then & Tomorrow’, what the single biggest thing needs to change for women to gain equality, and she said: ‘Sex and relationships education; consent and healthy relationships. Basic stuff, because at the moment they won’t have anything but the basic mechanics.’
At present, young people don’t have to be taught consent, and Laura says it’s ‘inexcusable.’
Other speakers at the event were lawyer Miriam González Durántez, who said: ‘We’ve got, say, 80% equality, there are many women just two hours away on the plane and they’re at 20%, 10%, minus 5%’, writer Anita Anand, who said: ‘The individual is feeling more empowered but where are we as a collective’ and journalist Polly Vernon, who took umbrage at the way we treat ‘girly girls’: ‘Anything enjoyed by girls or gays is systematically derided. What's the difference between crying over Arsenal or Harry Styles?’
Certainly a lot of food for thought – check out GraziaDaily.co.uk for a full video of the inspiring talk!
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.