Fix the System, Not the Women

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I was haunted by the story of a woman attacked by her ex-husband, who smashed her head so hard against a BMW that it dented the bodywork and left her needing hospital treatment. Woefully I think it’ll be many men in our lives we love who won’t want to accept this book’s message because it holds a very painful mirror up to their own entrenched learned behaviour.

Or, the ten year old girl that was raped in Ohio, became pregnant due to that rape, and then had to travel across states to find a clinic that would treat her and give her an abortion. Sebuah kritik tertulis dari Bates kepada 5 ekosistem institusi yang menindoktrinasi, memaksakan, dan menormalisasi inequality. She has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, Red Magazine and Grazia among others. My eyes are firmly now open to how deep-rooted the problems really are and I will be shouting from the rooftops where possible to try to make at least a tiny impact. She was awarded a British Empire Medal for services to gender equality in the Queen's Birthday Honours list 2015 and has been named a woman of the year by Cosmopolitan, Red Magazine and The Sunday Times Magazine.Though perhaps not as hard-hitting as 'Men Who Hate Women' Bates' new book is further proof of the prevailing misogyny of Western society. Never before have I felt her formidable and brilliant voice more than in this book — and my god has she delivered some sardonic sentences in her previous offerings! Saber dónde estoy parada, no precisamente hablando de la situación de UK, porque hacía ahí me dirigía/estaba cuando lo leí, sino en general: qué me tocó vivir. The saga of Boris Johnson and Brexit frequently crops up in this author's narrative as a vivid, if Lilliputian instance of the same phenomenon.

She is also contributor at Women Under Siege, a New-York based organisation working to combat the use of sexual violence as a tool of war in conflict zones worldwide. I read it with rage and anger at the injustices and inequalities, at how women are shamed and how they internalise this shame, and how they are held responsible for creating change rather than holding the systems and societal structures accountable for their oppression. The book unpicks systemic injustices, highlights their endless overlaps and makes for a brilliant and essential read (I only wish it didn’t need to be! And it’s sad and infuriating reading all these stories of abuse, harassment, abuse of power, exclusion, and rape.It's about the need to equal -up the opportunities and behaviours deeply ingrained in our culture, and other cultures, that do not consider women as being equal to men. The idea that the solution is for women to “better track our movements” or “stay home after dark” is absolutely unacceptable . Laura Bates has brilliantly put into words many of my own experiences where I have never had the words for them before. Por la naturaleza del libro, en un inicio me resultó un poco difícil; tenía que detenerme cada cierto tiempo. people seem to be saying it’s not a good book as it’s nothing they didn’t already know but as woman of course we already know it, it is us, it is how we live what could you possibly read that was something you didn’t already know.

Thank you Laura Bates for writing such an important book and for advocating for those of us who had not yet been able to, or might never, find the right words. I find this to be a powerful, thought-provoking opener, as I think some women, myself included may not realise that certain behaviour, is actually sexism, and we were the victims of that. It was brutally honest, not to mention sickening to read, but I was so glad I pushed through, because I felt like I needed to, and I feel that this book is equally important to men and women alike. This is as close to the truth, to the real story of the corruption, vulgarities, horrors, and lies of the Kingdom and its current despot as we are likely to get. Real change needs to happen, and it’s not our fault as women if this does not happen fast, it’s the system and the hierarchy of this that need to take note and make action.

We need to stop policing and blaming women for everything - their own safety, their own assault, their own discrimination and essentially most things they ever do - and hold our white male privileged figures of authority to account. Lo he sentido como un combustible en el alma porque según iba leyendo me iba enfadando, y/o activando (Como prefieras interpretarlo) He sentido frustración, enfado, ira, pena y empoderamiento con cada página que pasaba. Maternity discrimination, workplace sexual harassment, the gender pay gap “and so much more” lie somewhere in between. Bates also reminds us that if we want to tackle oppression in one sphere, we need to be aware of its overlap with others.