Laura Bates had an unsettling moment recently after clicking on an article entitled "How to tell if your cat loves you". Scrolling to the end, the Guardian columnist and Everyday Sexism founder noticed that there were more than 800 comments. "I felt immediately that kind of clench in my stomach that I feel when there are 800 comments on my own articles," she says. "My eyes sort of drifted down them and it was things like, 'Thanks so much for writing this lovely article' and I was like, 'What? People say things like that?'"
The most benign of Bates’s online critics call her humourless. Yet over afternoon tea in London, where we are taking a break from the Southbank Centre’s WOW – Women of the World Festival, she is remarkably good-humoured. Especially given the number of rape and death threats she has received since setting up the Everyday Sexism Project in 2012 as an online safe space for women to share their stories of discrimination and harassment – and hundreds of thousands have.
When Ashley Judd, Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow and others called out sexual harassment using the #MeToo hashtag last year, it seemed the apotheosis of her idea. Yet Bates remains cautious. “It’s certainly an exciting moment, but we need to make sure that the momentum translates into real change,” she says. “Throughout history the women’s movement has seen backlash after backlash: every time it seems like we’re making some progress, the patriarchy reasserts itself.”
Consider as an example the election of President Donald Trump in the United States. “What has been quite shocking and galvanised many people into action is the realisation that he didn’t get into office in spite of his sexism and racism and Islamophobia – he got into office because people agreed,” says Bates.
What she has tried to achieve with her new book Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism, which is an anthology of her writing for The Guardian, is a joining of the dots between casual sexual assaults of the kind that led her to found Everyday Sexism and the assumptions and power structures that underly them.
“I was sick of being told that it’s OK to talk about some of these issues but don’t make a fuss about others,” she says. “It’s OK to talk about rape and sexual violence but don’t make a fuss about sexual harassment. It’s alright to discuss the underrepresentation of women in politics but don’t make a fuss about media sexism.”
Most of us barely register a news story that a woman has been killed by her partner in an “isolated incident”. But for Bates, who spends her days reading stories of sexism, everywhere from the home to the streets we walk down, violence against women is hardly isolated. “Until we see the connections between all of these different issues, we can’t solve any of these problems,” she says.
The problem is that the bigger picture is so vast. Misogynation links sexist toys like Engineering Barbie (sold with a pink plastic washing machine and clothes rack) with the underrepresentation of women in science, technology and engineering. It draws a line between airbrushed advertising images and pressure on girls as young as 10 to lose weight. It argues that blaming a murdered female backpacker for travelling alone feeds into the idea that violence against women is inevitable.
To the converted it all makes perfect sense, but others will read it and cry hysteria. A review in the London Evening Standard called the book a "relentlessly grim picture of what it's like to be a woman today", mocking the idea of an "epidemic" of sexual violence. That reviewer may have had an axe to grind, having titled her own book Women vs Feminism – a volume for which there is surely a special shelf in the special place in Hell reserved for women who don't help each other. But her argument is one that we hear a lot: this is all terribly exaggerated, and women need to shut up and get on with it.
Bates disagrees. “You can’t solve a problem if you can’t label the problem,” she says. “You can’t fix something if people don’t even acknowledge it exists.” The revelations about Harvey Weinstein, whose abusive behaviour, which he denies, seems to have gone unchecked for decades, show how true this is. Now, she argues, the solution will come from all the people who have listened and been shocked: “The problem is collective and it cannot be fixed by individual actions.”
For her part, Bates is using posts from Everyday Sexism in talks at schools and workplaces. The stories of women on buses and trains were used to retrain 2,000 British Transport Police officers, increasing the reporting of sexual offences on the transport network by 35 per cent. And Facebook changed its policy on moderation of sexual violence images after an Everyday Sexism campaign.
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It’s a strong record, but has come with a personal cost. Bates and her husband had to take security measures at their wedding after details were stolen from her Facebook page, and at one point moved out of their flat after receiving violent threats from someone who had found the address.
The book reveals that at one point she consulted a counsellor. “One of the difficult things is there’s not a lot of empathy,” she says. “When you say that people’s fantasies of raping and abusing you are having a mental health impact people say, ‘You know it’s just to scare you?’. As if you can switch it off in that case.”
I wonder what kind of person you have to be to stick with a project like this, but Bates quashes the image of herself as a virtual Joan of Arc. "The honest answer to that is that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought I was setting up a tiny website and I would carry on with my own life. If I had known what I was getting myself into, it probably wouldn't have started."
She puts her success down to the sheer volume of posts on her site: 100,000 in the first three years alone. Yet she understands enough about media sexism to know that her voice is heard where less attractive or non-white colleagues’ might not be and she does her best to compensate, for example, by demanding diversity on panels or TV and radio programmes where she is invited to appear.
As an example of how factors such as race and religion can exacerbate sexist treatment, we talk about discrimination faced by Muslims in the UK, especially in relation to the hijab. “We hear from Muslim women who have been harassed, threatened, spat at and physically assaulted in public space, including having their headscarves forcibly removed,” says Bates. “For many, race is another intersecting issue.”
Despite all these layers of complexity, Bates is clear about how to start solving the problem. “You start in schools because it’s the most effective way to reach everybody before it’s completely normalised,” she says. “Because people will go on out of that environment to move into politics, to move into academia, to move into the media and they will take those ideas with them.”
Later we return to the Wow Festival, where Bates is headlining the Friday-night programme alongside the Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and gives the crowd a similar action point. “It’s easy to feel disempowered but every one of us can have an impact in our own small sphere,” she says. “Every one of us can have those conversations with the young people in our lives and make a difference that will grow with them.”
Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism by Laura Bates is out now, published by Simon & Schuster
Match info
Newcastle United 1
Joselu (11')
Tottenham Hotspur 2
Vertonghen (8'), Alli (18')
BlacKkKlansman
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: John David Washington; Adam Driver
Five stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
South Africa v India schedule
Tests: 1st Test Jan 5-9, Cape Town; 2nd Test Jan 13-17, Centurion; 3rd Test Jan 24-28, Johannesburg
ODIs: 1st ODI Feb 1, Durban; 2nd ODI Feb 4, Centurion; 3rd ODI Feb 7, Cape Town; 4th ODI Feb 10, Johannesburg; 5th ODI Feb 13, Port Elizabeth; 6th ODI Feb 16, Centurion
T20Is: 1st T20I Feb 18, Johannesburg; 2nd T20I Feb 21, Centurion; 3rd T20I Feb 24, Cape Town
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Profile of VoucherSkout
Date of launch: November 2016
Founder: David Tobias
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers
Sector: Technology
Size: 18 employees
Stage: Embarking on a Series A round to raise $5 million in the first quarter of 2019 with a 20 per cent stake
Investors: Seed round was self-funded with “millions of dollars”
If you go
The flights
Emirates (www.emirates.com) and Etihad (www.etihad.com) both fly direct to Bengaluru, with return fares from Dh 1240. From Bengaluru airport, Coorg is a five-hour drive by car.
The hotels
The Tamara (www.thetamara.com) is located inside a working coffee plantation and offers individual villas with sprawling views of the hills (tariff from Dh1,300, including taxes and breakfast).
When to go
Coorg is an all-year destination, with the peak season for travel extending from the cooler months between October and March.
Fourth Arab Economic and Social Development Summit
As he spoke, Mr Aboul Gheit repeatedly referred to the need to tackle issues affecting the welfare of people across the region both in terms of preventing conflict and in pushing development.
Lebanon is scheduled to host the fourth Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in January that will see regional leaders gather to tackle the challenges facing the Middle East. The last such summit was held in 2013. Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told The National that the Beirut Summit “will be an opportunity for Arab leaders to discuss solely economic and social issues, the conference will not focus on political concerns such as Palestine, Syria or Libya". He added that its slogan will be “the individual is at the heart of development”, adding that it will focus on all elements of human capital.
Iraq negotiating over Iran sanctions impact
- US sanctions on Iran’s energy industry and exports took effect on Monday, November 5.
- Washington issued formal waivers to eight buyers of Iranian oil, allowing them to continue limited imports. Iraq did not receive a waiver.
- Iraq’s government is cooperating with the US to contain Iranian influence in the country, and increased Iraqi oil production is helping to make up for Iranian crude that sanctions are blocking from markets, US officials say.
- Iraq, the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped last month at a record 4.78 million barrels a day, former Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi said on Oct. 20. Iraq exported 3.83 million barrels a day last month, according to tanker tracking and data from port agents.
- Iraq has been working to restore production at its northern Kirkuk oil field. Kirkuk could add 200,000 barrels a day of oil to Iraq’s total output, Hook said.
- The country stopped trucking Kirkuk oil to Iran about three weeks ago, in line with U.S. sanctions, according to four people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak to media.
- Oil exports from Iran, OPEC’s third-largest supplier, have slumped since President Donald Trump announced in May that he’d reimpose sanctions. Iran shipped about 1.76 million barrels a day in October out of 3.42 million in total production, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
- Benchmark Brent crude fell 47 cents to $72.70 a barrel in London trading at 7:26 a.m. local time. U.S. West Texas Intermediate was 25 cents lower at $62.85 a barrel in New York. WTI held near the lowest level in seven months as concerns of a tightening market eased after the U.S. granted its waivers to buyers of Iranian crude.
Scores
Day 2
New Zealand 153 & 56-1
Pakistan 227
New Zealand trail by 18 runs with nine wickets remaining
Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
CREW
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Oppenheimer
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Results:
6.30pm: Handicap (Turf) | US$175,000 2,410m | Winner: Bin Battuta, Christophe Soumillon (jockey), Saeed bin Suroor (trainer)
7.05pm: UAE 1000 Guineas Trial Conditions (Dirt) | $100,000 | 1,400m | Winner: Al Hayette, Fabrice Veron, Ismail Mohammed
7.40pm: Handicap (T) | $145,000 | 1,000m | Winner: Faatinah, Jim Crowley, David Hayes
8.15pm: Dubawi Stakes Group 3 (D) | $200,000 | 1,200m | Winner: Raven’s Corner, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
8.50pm: Singspiel Stakes Group 3 (T) | $200,000 | 1,800m | Winner: Dream Castle, Christophe Soumillon, Saeed bin Suroor
9.25pm: Handicap (T) | $175,000 | 1,400m | Winner: Another Batt, Connor Beasley, George Scott
Major honours
ARSENAL
BARCELONA
- La Liga - 2013
- Copa del Rey - 2012
- Fifa Club World Cup - 2011
CHELSEA
- Premier League - 2015, 2017
- FA Cup - 2018
- League Cup - 2015
SPAIN
- World Cup - 2010
- European Championship - 2008, 2012
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
Meydan card
6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 (PA) Group 1 US$65,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
7.05pm: Conditions (TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,400m
7.40pm: UAE 2000 Guineas Trial (TB) $100,000 (D) 1,600m
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 1,200m
8.50pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 (TB) Group 2 $350,000 (D) 1,600m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,900m
10pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 1,600m
Mia Man’s tips for fermentation
- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut
- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.
- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.
- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.
ENGLAND%20SQUAD
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Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Alaan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Parthi%20Duraisamy%20and%20Karun%20Kurien%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%247%20million%20raised%20in%20total%20%E2%80%94%20%242.5%20million%20in%20a%20seed%20round%20and%20%244.5%20million%20in%20a%20pre-series%20A%20round%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight (Wednesday), BeIN Sports
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Global institutions: BlackRock and KKR
US-based BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with $5.98 trillion of assets under management as of the end of last year. The New York firm run by Larry Fink provides investment management services to institutional clients and retail investors including governments, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, banks and charitable foundations around the world, through a variety of investment vehicles.
KKR & Co, or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, is a global private equity and investment firm with around $195 billion of assets as of the end of last year. The New York-based firm, founded by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, invests in multiple alternative asset classes through direct or fund-to-fund investments with a particular focus on infrastructure, technology, healthcare, real estate and energy.
Sonchiriya
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Producer: RSVP Movies, Azure Entertainment
Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Manoj Bajpayee, Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar, Ranvir Shorey
Rating: 3/5
Scotland's team:
15-Sean Maitland, 14-Darcy Graham, 13-Nick Grigg, 12-Sam Johnson, 11-Byron McGuigan, 10-Finn Russell, 9-Ali Price, 8-Magnus Bradbury, 7-Hamish Watson, 6-Sam Skinner, 5-Grant Gilchrist, 4-Ben Toolis, 3-Willem Nel, 2-Stuart McInally (captain), 1-Allan Dell
Replacements: 16-Fraser Brown, 17-Gordon Reid, 18-Simon Berghan, 19-Jonny Gray, 20-Josh Strauss, 21-Greig Laidlaw, 22-Adam Hastings, 23-Chris Harris
Surianah's top five jazz artists
Billie Holliday: for the burn and also the way she told stories.
Thelonius Monk: for his earnestness.
Duke Ellington: for his edge and spirituality.
Louis Armstrong: his legacy is undeniable. He is considered as one of the most revolutionary and influential musicians.
Terence Blanchard: very political - a lot of jazz musicians are making protest music right now.
Scoreline:
Manchester City 1
Jesus 4'
Brighton 0
Match info
Champions League quarter-final, first leg
Liverpool v Porto, Tuesday, 11pm (UAE)
Matches can be watched on BeIN Sports
MATCH INFO
Serie A
Juventus v Fiorentina, Saturday, 8pm (UAE)
Match is on BeIN Sports
