While not all men are sexist, all women face the impact of sexism in some way, so the point is there's a massive problem to be solved, and you can be a big part of the solution.
Laura BatesAs long as 85,000 women are raped every year and 400,000 sexually assaulted in England and Wales alone, it's hard to argue that there isn't a problem. Not to mention the fact that fewer than 1/3 of our MPs are female, that women write only 1/5 front page newspaper articles, that they're less than 1/10 of engineers and that 54,000 a year lose their jobs as a result of maternity discrimination... to name but a tiny sample of issues. It's not 'going too far' to demand equality, and we're certainly not there yet.
Laura BatesIt's true that the gender pay gap is complicated. It's true that it is very slowly getting smaller. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It would have to be a pretty HUGE conspiracy for every reputable major news outlet to report on it annually if it was a massive feminist lie.
Laura BatesNobody thinks quotas are a great win for women - the win would be removing the discrimination and inequality that creates under-representation in the first place. But in the short term, alongside other measures, they can be an effective way to make progress happen faster.
Laura BatesAs girls are given dollies and pushchairs while little boys are frowned upon for picking them up; while men are 'congratulated' for occasionally 'babysitting' their own children and women are castigated for daring to combine motherhood and career; while baby changing facilities are provided in women's toilets but rarely in the men's, is it any wonder we tend to take on the roles society stereotypically pushes on us when it comes to caregiving?
Laura Bates