Everyday Sexism, by Laura Bates

Everybody should read this book. It’s like Laura Bates has taken my muddled and raging thoughts, pieced the pieces together and, amazingly, created constructive sentences from them.

Everyday Sexism is shocking, yet unsurprising. There are things recounted in here that make me furious and are just so innately wrong on every level imaginable, but which I know exist and take place every day; things which by many people are considered to be both normal and acceptable. Before reading Everyday Sexism, I was under no illusions about the sexist world we live in, but by laying it out before us in all it’s terrible detail, Laura Bates succeeds in making what is often invisible, visible, and in making me question the world around me, my reactions to it, and my place within it even more greatly.

Men: this is not a book that rages against you; it is not about some existential feminist ideal, it is about the fact that everyone, male, female or trans, has the right to be treated with respect, care and equality.

Let me be straight: sexism is far from dead. Sexism is bad for men AND women. And sexism begins when we are tiny, tiny children. There are many different forms of sexism, from the seemingly innocent childhood stereotyping that teaches us that girls like pink and boys like blue, to the very serious, such as rape. All forms of sexism are abusive and demeaning, and can result in emotional and mental damage: the “innocent” forms forcing men and women into boxes that are not only completely absurd, but can be emotionally damaging; the serious ones, criminal.

If you don’t think sexism exists, read this book and hopefully you will understand why it does and what we are all fighting against.

Two years ago, Laura Bates reached breaking point. Sick of not being able to walk down the street without being whistled at – among other things – she started the ‘Everyday Sexism’ project, a simple website for people to tell their experiences of sexism, whether minor or more serious. She was shocked at the responses. Thousands upon thousands of them, from everyday derogatory comments to workplace discrimination, to rape victims being ignored. The sheer volume of response highlighted beyond doubt the endemic nature of the problem, in Britain and around the world.

Chapter by chapter, Bates brings to the fore the nature of the problem, from the way that girls are treated in primary school, secondary school and further education, the media abuse and media portrayal of women (or how women are "supposed" to be), assumptions made about women in the workplace, assumptions made about “woman’s natural/expected role” (i.e. motherhood), assumptions made about women as they walk down the street. It’s all pretty shocking, though the proliference of pornography and rape "jokes" in our children’s schools is, I think, particularly disturbing.

And the other biggest thing that Everyday Sexism shows? For me, the answer to this question is the hypocrisy of it all. Newspapers, T.V. and magazines all picture women baring skin and flaunting their femininity. But when we dress similarly in real life we are yelled at on the street, leered at, treated in a demeaning manner and then – if we complain about such behavior - we’re told we’re asking for it by dressing like that. But if we don’t dress like it we’re abused for not being feminine enough. When we are propositioned, whether we accept or not, we are branded a slag or a slut. If we have multiple partners, the same. But men? No. If men have multiple partners they are praised for it. This is not equality.

And it is high time we challenged the status quo. The little everyday things may seem small, but: (a) they create a level of acceptability of sexism that is not actually acceptable, and (b) they provide a basis for more extreme sexist behaviours to occur. We have to draw the line somewhere, right? No: there should be no line; the line should be at the bottom; none of it should be deemed acceptable. None of it. Not even the delivery driver calling me “love” – it’s demeaning and implies that I’m soft or worth less than a man. I am neither. As Bates points out, “Allowing those ‘minor’ transgressions gives licence to the more serious ones, and eventually all-out abuse.” He wouldn’t call a man “love” would he? Then don’t use the term for me, please. And there’s the key: if you’re not sure whether sexism is happening to you, ask yourself, “Would this be happening if I was a man?”

Does this make me a feminist? My dictionary says that feminism is:

“A belief or movement advocating the cause of women’s rights and opportunities, particularly equal rights with men, by challenging inequalities between the sexes in society.”

So, yes, I guess I would consider myself a feminist. But sexism is not just about feminism: I am for equality of all the sexes (and yes, there are more than two). Feminism for me means that girls are allowed to like pink – and that it should be acceptable for boys to like pink too. I am reminded of shopping with my cousin and her son, when he was about three years old, and we went into a toy shop that had some dressing up clothes. He, completely of his own volition, chose a pink “princess” hat. His mum said he could have a hat, but bought him the purple wizard hat because the one he had chosen was “for girls”. He was perfectly happy with the wizard hat, but I was appalled: he chose the “princess” hat. Why not buy him that one? It’s fine for boys to not like pink; it’s fine for boys to like pink. Whatever. The choice should be theirs and there shouldn’t be any greater meaning behind their choice. It’s just a colour, for goodness’ sake.

Which brings me to my favourite quote from Everyday Sexism:

“My gender is not an insult.”

Which, in turn, brings me to my one small quibble: on the back cover of Everyday Sexism, in capital letters, the publishers have printed this book’s categorization: “Feminist Theory”. This is kind of sexist in and of itself: sexism is not a ‘feminist’ issue, it’s an ‘everybody’ issue. So why not simply categorise it as sociology? Sexism is bad for men as well as women, boys as well as girls, and all women, not just feminists. You don’t have to be a feminist to be sexually harassed or sexually assaulted.

Please don’t ignore what Laura Bates has to say – and besides, Everyday Sexism is not filled just with what she has to say. Far from it: Bates’ writing is populated with facts, statistics and research carried about by a multitude of respectable organisations and agencies. It’s overflowing with testimony, too: from the Everyday Sexism project, from interviews, from the media. And it’s filled with evidence that cannot be ignored: the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the sayings we use – all of which attest to the endemic, everyday sexism in our world.

Men: sexism is not about women or feminists, it’s about everyone. Sexism puts you in a box too.

Women: read this book and know that you are not alone; know that it is not your fault when bad things happen to you – it is not your responsibility to dress a certain way or take a certain route to work to avoid being harassed; you shouldn’t have to change your ways: the other party/s needs to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame you.

Golden Boy, by Abigail Tarttelin

Golden Boy is, in every sense, a breath-taking book. Abigail Tarttelin’s mature and stunning storytelling is heart-rending and brilliant, and left me still thinking about the story, the characters and the subjects that she raises days after I had finished reading.

At its essence, Golden Boy is the coming-of-age tale of Max. When his supposed best friend betrays Max’s trust in the worst way imaginable, Max is forced to confront and rethink his identity. At sixteen years old, he’s mostly been okay with who he is, but suddenly all the things that were supposed to be worries for the future have arrived: will anybody ever be able to accept him? Will he ever be able to fall in love? How will the choices and decisions he makes today affect his future?

As the past is dug up and the future is pulled apart, Max has to fight for the right to choose who he wants to be, whilst simultaneously dealing with a traumatic event no one should ever have to go through, least of all on their own.

What labels and boxes do we put ourselves and others in? Male, female; sporty, nerdy; gay, straight; cool, uncool. What is my personal identity and what factors contribute to that? How do I choose to present myself to the world and what assumptions do others make about me? These are all questions that Tarttelin raises through Max’s story: gender, identity, sexuality, labeling. Every single one of this is bendable, there is rarely a clear-cut option of one or the other, yet we cannot help but set up neat little boxes for ourselves and try to force people to fit within them. As Tarttelin changes points of view from Max to his mum, his little brother, his doctor, these themes are reflected in each and every one of their parts of the story, the things they consider important, the way they react to events and people around them.

Max does not fit into western society’s average box. He is intersex. He presents himself to the world as a boy, but he has both male and female anatomy. How does he know which he supposed to be? His family doesn’t discuss his “condition”; he has memories of doctors and specialists, of being prodded and poked as a child, but nobody has ever really explained to him the details of his body. The terminology seems to change over the years, but rarely the understanding or the compassion.

“It doesn’t matter if I think like a boy or a girl. It doesn’t matter anymore if I’m either or both or neither. All that shit seems so petty and immaterial now. There’s so little difference between one human being and the next, it’s just hypotheses, human ideas about life and the world and words, that mean nothing; about definitions that mean nothing to the earth, to nature, to the universe.”

But now Hunter has not only committed the most heinous act, but is blackmailing Max, using Max’s identity against him to keep Max quiet. As Max tries, desperately, to seek help from his parents, a chain of events is set in motion that sends Max down a tumbling hill of fear and pain. His mum wants the best for him, but her version of the best is to find a way to squeeze him back into the box of perfect son, her progressively more desperate actions stripping Max of his choices and making him just as powerless as Hunter did. It is almost a form of torture to watch these events unfold and to not be able to help Max, or shake his mother back to reality.

Where will his inability to speak up take him as he looks for a way to regain control over his life? It seems like, gradually, everyone is betraying him, even himself, his own body. Sixteen years of being quiet and being good, of keeping off the radar, makes it practically impossible for Max to express or even fully determine what it is he really wants for himself; it is like he is drowning but no-one can see it. As he spirals, the tension of the story is palpable, electrically charged, and just so very emotionally powerful. Tarttelin is a masterful writer raising incredibly, incredibly important issues that are all too easily swept away beneath the stiff upper lip and ill-conceived pride of generations of society; and she does so with deft and balance and in a way that is hard to be ignored. This is a brilliant, must-read book.

Every Day, by David Levithan

Every Day is the story of A. Every day, A wakes up in a new body. Every day, A has to start again, to access the body’s memories, to learn the basics of who this person is, to walk a day in their shoes, blending in with their life and their lifestyle. It’s just the way A is, the way A has always been. A has accepted that this is simply the way his/her life works, but when A wakes up in the body of Justin he meets Rhiannon, Justin’s girlfriend, and everything changes. Even as A creates the perfect day for Rhiannon, and falls in love, he/she knows that tomorrow will bring another body, another town. Will A be able to hold onto her?

This book is a thoroughly modern and thoroughly excellent love story that keeps readers questioning and asks us all who we really are. David Levithan is an author who doesn’t flinch away from subjects that for many other writers and publishers are taboo, or that are tiptoed around within carefully constructed lines. He captures all the emotions of growing up and being alive, whether of being in love or struggling with simple, every day things, all whilst subtly and quietly opening his readers to new ways of thinking. His writing and stories are open, non-judging and equal, simply showing the world as it is – or as it should be. A contemporary of John Green, Levithan’s latest offering surely cannot fail to grip and engage teen and adult readers alike.

As A jumps from body to body, not knowing why or how, he/she experiences a multitude of perspectives, of ways of being and ways of living. Boy, girl, heterosexual, homosexual, high, sober, depressed, addicted, religious, agnostic, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, sporty, geeky, smart, slow, mean, kind, selfish, selfless. The only thing missing, really, are bodies with disabilities – A mentions being in a body that was blind once, but it’s not really something experienced within the confines of these particular pages.

The main concept that sticks out, though, is that of gender. A has no gender, and this can actually be quite difficult to get your head around. A spends pretty much just as much time being a girl as being a boy, and is equally comfortable in either shoes. In fact, it’s such a normal thing for A to switch gender on a daily basis that it isn’t even a thought, an issue, a concern. But for someone who is acclimatized to the concept of male and female, it’s very difficult to not try and pin a gender on A. My instinct is to think of A as a boy – albeit an extremely well-adjusted boy who can also think like a girl. Why is this? Is it because in the first chapter A is in a boy’s body? Because A is in love with a girl (or a being that lives inside a girl’s body)? Or because the book is written by a man?

There is also the question of whether or not what a person looks like from the outside has any impact on who they are on the inside. Most people strongly believe that appearance shouldn’t matter, but more often than not, when it comes to practice over principal it can be very hard not to take the outside of a person into account.

Once Rhiannon learns A’s truth, they begin to meet every few days or so, A in a different body each time. Although she knows who A is inside, she naturally responds very differently to each body that A shows up in. Studies have shown that the chemical make-up of a body – pheromones, etc – do influence how we react to different people, but Levithan’s attempt to strip all of this away and focus just on the personality is really interesting. Rhiannon, for instance. I don’t recall Levithan ever giving us a full description of her – I couldn’t tell you what colour her skin is, her hair, whether she is short tall, large or skinny. Instead, Levithan shows her to us through abstract details – the emotions she exudes through her body language, the type of shoes she is wearing. Not knowing her physical description makes her no less real to me as a reader, no less interesting or emotional or worthy.

In essence, Every Day is a love story. But there are many other questions here waiting to be answered. What makes us human? What makes us the same and what makes us different? A doesn’t have a body, so does this mean he/she isn’t human? As the story progresses, A and Rhiannon not only begin to face some tough decisions about their relationship, but A is pursued by Nathan, a boy who’s body A lived in for a day, and the mysterious Reverend, both of whom begin to question who A is, and what he/she is capable of. Because, after all, is A the only person to exist like this? What if there are others?

A does show us that bodies have a mind of their own sometimes, that a body’s chemical make-up has an impact on who we are and what type of personality we might have – it’s not the be-all and end-all, but it’s a contributing factor.  Personally, I do believe this is the case, but if A does not have his/her own body then how has he/she become the person he/she has become? Perhaps only because A knows that every body responds to the world and to it’s own chemical structure in a different way; perhaps the fact that A has experienced 6000 different bodies is as much of a determining factor to who he/she is as the experience of just my one body is in who I am. What, then, does living in 6000 different bodies mean? Having tasted a little bit of everything does this make A the most average a person can be?

A book that kept me turning the page to find out who A would be the next day, and the next day, and the next day.



[Interested in gender equality? Please read Maureen Johnson’s ‘coverflip’ discussion on her blog and gender coverup article in the Huffington Post, where she highlights questions surrounding boy books, girl books, boy covers, girl covers, and gender misperceptions.]