Recently, I went along to ‘Shouting Back’ one of the London Thinks events at Conway Hall, which featured talks and discussions between
prominent feminists Caroline Criado-Perez (co-founder of The Women's Room) and Laura Bates (of the Everyday Sexism
Project).
Despite having long considered myself a feminist, this was the first
organised, equality-focused event I’d ever been to. And I’m glad I did – aside from
the generous provision of free booze and snacks (which always get my seal of
approval), I learnt a heck of a lot. I hadn’t intended to, but as each speaker
took to the stage, I was so struck by the facts they reeled off that I decided
to jot some of them down:
- There are five men for every one woman in parliament.
- In the UK, 18 out of 100 high court judges are women – a statistic that makes us third last in the entire world.
- Just one in ten engineers in Britain are women.
- 80% of all experts quoted in the news are men.
- 84% of news articles are written by men.
- A woman is raped every six minutes in Britain.
Afterwards though, it occurred to me that in actual fact,
the very event it was posed at went a long way to answering that question. Most of the people
gathered at Conway Hall that evening had probably been following the work of
Criado-Perez – who last year led a successful campaign to get a woman’s image
onto the ten pound note – and Bates – whose Everyday Sexism project shines a
light on the sexism and misogyny that women are still subjected to everyday - for a long time.
And if they’re anything like me and the two friends I went
along with, they probably follow countless feminists on Twitter, read feminist
books and op-eds in the media, engage with the debate, and self-identify as
feminists themselves. In essence, the speakers were pretty much preaching to
choir.
There is undoubtedly a lot of good that can come from this.
Arming those already converted to the cause with solid statistical evidence of
inequalities can be helpful; from a personal point of view, I’ve already used
some of the things I learnt to call out sexist arguments. Some people might even
have come away from the event feeling mobilised to do something practical about
it – to start their own feminist campaign or project.
But this idea of preaching to the choir still persists. For
one thing, I could probably count the number of men at the event that evening on
one hand. And the friend who invited me along knew that this was
something I’d be really interested in – when perhaps our approach should
instead have been to invite a friend who has never really shown any interest in
feminism, who wouldn’t be able to tell her Germaine Greers from her Caitlin
Morans, to allow her to hear exactly why feminism is still necessary.
Campaigns like Emma Watson’s recently launched He for She
speak to this problem – helping to make feminism a palatable concept, rather
than one that conjures images of bra burning man-haters. The recent spate of
male politicians and celebrities sporting ‘This is What a Feminist Looks Like’
T-shirts may also (theoretically at least) be helping to raise awareness, and
feminism less of a taboo.
But however much of a fine dandy Benedict Cumberbatch might
look in his Whistles T-shirt, the fact remains that there’s still a lot to
be done. And sitting at feminist events and nodding vehemently in agreement,
then going home and doing nothing much about it, isn’t exactly going to help.
I’m not, unfortunately, suggesting that I’m doing anything
particularly revolutionary myself. For true change to occur, I think a
grassroots kind of approach would be best – for instance by providing an
awareness of feminism in schools (most of which are still hotbeds of sexism,
where talk of young girls being ‘frigid’ is still commonplace). Aside from a few
forward-thinking English teachers, I think I went through my entire school
experience having very little concept of it, and I think I would have been less
likely to accept a lot of the shit directed towards most teenage girls (and onwards), had I
been a little more aware.
But until I figure out a way of personally helping to effect bigger change,
I’m going to start simply by preaching beyond my own choir. Instead of limiting
the chats I have about feminist topics to those who I know will share the same sentiment, I’ll make a conscious effort to involve my other
friends. I won’t bother biting my tongue when I hear some bullshit sexist
remark, for fear of coming off as strident or shrill. And if
I do attend another event, I'll be looking beyond the usual suspects. So, if you're reading this and know me - prepare for a potential invite.