Misogynation Quotes

“But if schools pull girls out of lessons and publicly shame them for exposing too much of their bodies, they are only preparing them for a sexist and unfair working world in which women are constantly judged and berated on their appearance. Men, by comparison, get a free pass.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“Because it isn’t just about the individual incidents; it’s about the collective impact on everything else – the way you think about yourself, the way you approach public spaces and human interaction, the limits you place on your own aspirations and the things you stop yourself from doing before you even try because of bitter learned experience.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“No single example of sexism automatically gives rise to a specific incident of misogynistic violence, the picture is far more complex than that. But when you step back and join the dots between each of the different examples outlined in this book, it is very hard to deny that the bigger picture reveals systemic and widespread inequality”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“Leaving women out of the story isn’t a simple slip-up. It is a consequence of a world that tells us they just aren’t quite as important. That their achievements don’t really count. It means that even now, some of us do still need reminding that women are people, too.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“That a product intended as a weapon to fight off sexual assault can be described as ‘convenient and comfortable’ crystallizes just how blasé we have become about the idea that constant vigilance is a routine part of a woman’s reality. It is quite normal to come across products like this. Rape alarms. Pepper spray substitutes. Anti-rape underwear. Anti-Rohypnol nail polish. Anything to remind me to step up, open my wallet and pay the price for ‘safety’ as a woman in a man’s world.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“Meanwhile, the repeated use of the word ‘distracting’ centres the needs of men and boys above those of the girls, and suggests that girls’ bodies are powerful and dangerous, impacting on boys and teachers, whose behaviour is implicitly excused as inevitable. It is girls’ responsibility to cover up, not men and boys’ responsibility to restrain themselves.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“When we deny victims the words to describe and define their own experiences, we actively disempower them and distance them from justice. We owe it to all survivors to start describing ‘groping’ and ‘fondling’ by their real name: sexual assault.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“Language has such power. When we deny victims the words to describe and define their own experiences, we actively disempower them and distance them from justice. We owe it to all survivors to start describing ‘groping’ and ‘fondling’ by their real name: sexual assault.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“In June 2017, Page Six ran the headline: ‘T. J. Miller’s wife making a name for herself in New York’ – prompting tweeter Ari Fishbein to comment drily, ‘I’ve never seen a one-sentence headline contradict itself.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Free speech is not limitless. It doesn’t enshrine anybody’s right to abuse, to incite hatred or to threaten and terrify others. The right to speech is not the same as the right to be heard, to be given a platform or an audience. It isn’t the right to force a woman to listen to and tacitly accept your misogynistic, bigoted slurs or your fantasies about raping or killing her.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Freedom of speech’ is one of the most misused terms in modern discourse, wrongly used to excuse, cover up or defend abuse.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“This isn’t about men against women, it’s about people against prejudice, and everybody needs to get on board.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“It’s amazing how many men seem to confuse the idea of a woman’s right to live an autonomous, harassment-free existence with a vicious attack on their own rights and freedoms. But those who claim that equality will somehow ruin their romantic advances must have a pretty strange idea of what flirting looks like.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“The feminist endgame is not to publicly punish everybody who makes a rape joke, or ban every advert that uses rape as a titillating way to sell products. It is to create a society in which it would never occur to anybody to do either in the first place.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“We know that only around 15 per cent of victims of sexual violence feel able to report to the police. Isn’t it time we started asking why?”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Women do this every day, in hundreds of tiny ways. For most of us, it is automatic. When you’ve been shouted at, grabbed and made to feel afraid for your safety by men in the street a hundred times, responses such as crossing the street, doubling back, avoiding darker routes, clenching your fists, walking faster, and countless others, happen instinctively. It still doesn’t stop us from being harassed, assaulted and raped.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“By not pointing out how unacceptable this culture is, we become complicit in the message that victims are already receiving loud and clear: this isn’t really a big deal, you won’t be taken seriously, it’s not worth going to the police.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“It is telling that we are so used to such omissions that Murray’s simple statement of fact about the Williams sisters has received rapturous applause across the media and the internet. Under the circumstances, it is remarkable and hugely welcome to see a man in his position be so thoughtful as to acknowledge women’s existence. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was the norm rather than the exception?”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“It was not until 2013, for example, that scientists realized women’s bodies metabolized certain sleeping pills far more slowly than men, resulting in a dramatic reduction of the dosage instructions for women. Astonishingly, it was also not until 2013 that Swedish researchers created the world’s first female crash test dummy, meaning that all previous car designs had been based on best protecting the male form from injury.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation

“If these scenarios sound shocking to the male reader, try running them by some of the women you know – you might be surprised to find how common they are. For many women, this piece will read less like an article and more like a bingo card – how many did you cross off?”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Instead of telling victims how to react, we should focus on preventing it from happening in the first place. And we can start by debunking the myth that street harassment is just a bit of harmless fun.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Street harassment is no more about compliments than rape is about sex. Both are about power, violence and control.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism

“Each and every small feminist advance, from recording misogyny as a hate crime to putting the image of a woman on a banknote, is met with a backlash. The irony is that these responses, which allege hysteria and ‘PC gone mad’ are often far more hysterical and out of proportion than the developments they seek to criticize.”
― Laura Bates, Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism