Quotes by Laura Bates

The very fact that it is necessary in the twenty-first century to explain why its not okay to publicly debate whether or not women are asking for sexual assault is mind-boggling.

This combination of ageism and sexism was also blatant in the Boston Heralds treatment of sixty-three-year-old Elizabeth Warren, whose 2012 Senate bid it sought to undermine by repeatedly dubbing her Granny in its pages, as if to imply that an older woman could not possibly be trusted with political responsibility.

One day, in the very early months of the project, I read several entries in a single week from girls who had been subjected to leering and shouting from men in the street while walking home from school in their uniforms. Dismayed, I posted a question on Twitter: Surely, I asked, this couldnt be a common occurrence? By the end of the day, a deluge of hundreds of tweets had confirmed that the experience was not only common but almost ubiquitous.

Girls are not only being denied access to scientific and adventurous toys, theyre also presented with such a narrow range of options that domesticity and stereotypically female duties are shoved down their throats before theyve even reached the age of five.

Disbelief is the first great silencer.