Laura Bates BEM FRSL (born 27 August 1986) is an English feminist writer. She founded the Everyday Sexism Project website in April 2012. Her first book, Everyday Sexism, was published in 2014.
Laura Bates BEM FRSL | |
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Born | (1986-08-27) 27 August 1986 (age 36) Oxford, England |
Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge |
Subject | Feminism |
Notable works |
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Notable awards | British Empire Medal |
Spouse | Nick Taylor (m. 2014) |
External video | |
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Everyday sexism: Laura Bates at TEDxCoventGardenWomen, TEDx Talks, 16:05, 17 January 2014 |
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Shouting Back :Laura Bates, Caroline Criado-Perez and Samira Ahmed at Conway Hall 19:30, 9 October 2014 |
Bates was born on 27 August 1986 in Oxford to Diane Elizabeth Bates, a French teacher, and Adrian Keith Bates, a physician.[1] She grew up in Hackney and Taunton, and has an older sister and a younger brother. Her parents divorced when Bates was in her twenties.[2] She attended King's College, Taunton.[1] She read English literature at St John's College, Cambridge, and graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2007. Bates remained in Cambridge for two-and-a-half years as a researcher for the psychologist Susan Quilliam, who was working on an updated edition of The Joy of Sex.[2]
Bates then worked as an actress and a nanny, a period during which she has said she experienced sexism at auditions and found the young girls she was caring for were already preoccupied with their body image.[3][4]
The Everyday Sexism Project website was founded in 2012. Around the third anniversary of the website, in April 2015, Everyday Sexism had reached 100,000 entries.[5] Bates has said that she has faced abuse online.
Bates is a contributor to The Guardian and other publications. Her first book Everyday Sexism was published by the London subsidiary of Simon & Schuster in 2014.[6] She is contracted to write two further books for Simon & Schuster.[7] She is a contributor to the New York–based Women Under Siege Project.
Bates was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2015 Birthday Honours for services to gender equality.[8] She received Cosmopolitan magazine's Ultimate New Feminist Award in 2013.[3] In June 2018 Bates was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.[9] She is an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.[10]
Bates married Nick Taylor in 2014.[2][11]
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