In our second extract from Laura Bates's book Everyday Sexism, she explains how sexism intersects with other prejudice and asks what feminists should do about it
Laura Bates will take part in a live Q&A on Tuesday from 12pm
Read the first extract from Laura Bates's book
Since the Everyday Sexism Project started, many of the stories we have catalogued have described not just sexism, but sexism intermingled with other forms of prejudice racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism, disableism, stigma around mental-health problems, and more. Again and again, we've heard from women in same-sex relationships being fetishised and asked for threesomes when they're just trying to walk down the street, trans women mocked and belittled and hounded from public spaces, Asian women being labelled as "easy" or "obedient", sex workers accus ed of being complicit in their own assaults, disabled women infantalised and patronised, and countless similar stories.
"Double discrimination" (or, indeed, triple or quadruple) has proved to be a major recurring theme within the project and is a crucial focus for modern feminism. Intersectionality means being aware of and acting on the fact that different forms of prejudice are connected, because they all stem from the same root of being other, different or somehow secondary to the "normal", "ideal" status quo. So, just as women suffer from sexism because our society is set up to favour and automatically take men as the norm from which women deviate, so the same is true for people who are different from other dominant norms such as being heterosexual, white, cisgendered and non-disabled. People also often face prejudice as a result of other characteristics, such as age, class and religious belief.
"I am Japanese. Freq uently told by white men that Japanese, Chinese, Filipina, Asian women are 'better' than the 'feminazis', 'femicunts' in the west and 'know how to treat men'; we will cook and clean."
"The dearth of any women in the media anywhere near my size (I'm a UK 18) who isn't a) a pathetic lonely loser, or b) the 'before' shot on a weight-loss show."
"A close friend of mine is a trans man and has been told many times by people who knew him before his transition (which began towards the end of his time at high school) or have seen pictures of him as a child that 'it's a shame such a pretty girl wants to look like a guy,' implying that his gender identity is a choice and deliberately neglecting the duty of anyone born with female organs to look feminine."
"Strangers saying: 'You're hot ... for a girl in a wheelchair."
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