London-based author and activist Laura Bates, 37, is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a website that collates first-hand accounts of sexism from women around the world, using those experiences to press for change. She’s also the author of bestselling nonfiction titles including Misogynation and Men Who Hate Women, as well as novels for teens that grapple with issues such as revenge porn and slut-shaming. Her new YA novel, Sisters of Sword and Shadow, is the first instalment of a pacy duology set in the time of King Arthur, where heroine Cass is destined for an arranged marriage until she joins a mysterious band of female knights.
This is your first foray into fantasy writing. What inspired it?
I just needed a release from relentlessly horrendous news. I felt that a lot of my readers did too, and that there was a place for escapist feminist joy alongside the hard work and activism. In childhood I was obsessed with Arthurian legends. It was so exciting to honour their complexity and explore bonds of friendship and loyalty – but through women, who are such two-dimensional stereotypes in those other tellings.
Tell me about Cass, the novel’s young heroine.
She is somebody who doesn’t necessarily think she has it in her. So many of the girls I work with don’t know they have it in them, even though they are strapping on their armour every day just to go to school. I wanted to introduce the idea that there could be a spark of something inside you that you have never dreamed of, and which is totally different from what the world has let you believe you’re capable of.
Did you come across any historic precedents for the sisterhood of knights that Cass falls in with?
There is a medieval source that references a rowdy bunch of women who turned up at a joust and insisted on joining in. I love the idea that there might have been women out there doing this, and the reason we haven’t heard about them is partly because men were writing the history, but also because any men they defeated probably wouldn’t have told anyone about it.
I hear you learned to joust and fence as part of your research. How did that feel?
Very empowering. For the second book I’m going back to learn horseback archery, which I fear might be considerably more difficult.
Was there a lightbulb moment for you in terms of your awakening as a feminist activist?
In spring 2012 I had a really, really bad week. I was followed home by a guy who was aggressively sexually propositioning me, I was groped on a bus and everybody looked away, and a guy unloading scaffolding turned to another as I was walking down the street and said: “Look at the tits on that!” If those three things hadn’t happened in the same week, I never would have thought twice about any of them because it was so normal.
Coverage of news stories like the Russell Brand allegations can give the impression that things have improved in recent years. Is that misleading?
I find it bizarre that everybody now is pointing to the lads’ mags and Page Three and going: “Well, it was really sexist back then.” Almost as if that condones the allegations. And I just think: have you heard of Andrew Tate? Misogyny has always existed, but the algorithmically facilitated mass radicalisation of young men is lads’ mags on steroids. It’s pumping out extreme misogyny on a scale that we’ve never seen before in terms of reach.
What did you make of how Jenni Hermoso was treated after speaking out against Luis Rubiales’s unsolicited World Cup kiss?
The fact that he came out fighting, and the fact that the Spanish FA threatened to sue her when billions of people had watched it happen, just shows that we haven’t made the progress we like to think we have in terms of everybody recognising what’s wrong. Also, it was really telling that something like 82 of the women players said they wouldn’t play again until Rubiales had gone, and put their careers on the line to stand behind Hermoso, and one male footballer did the same thing.
You’re a contributor to Women Under Siege, an online initiative to investigate the use of sexual violence in conflict. How optimistic are you that it can ever be eradicated?
What people don’t realise is that the use of rape as a weapon of war is always connected to cultural sexism and sexist beliefs – it’s such an effective weapon because of the way that women are treated having been raped. One of the big pieces of the puzzle is women being involved in peacemaking, being given political power and authority.
What are we still getting wrong in terms of how we deal with violence against women? Is the phrase itself part of the problem?
It’s symptomatic of the way that we still focus on the victims instead of the perpetrators. As a society, what we find hard to confront is that a woman is probably safer in a short skirt in a dark alleyway, drunk at two in the morning, than she is at home in her pyjamas in her own bed, because 90% of the time the person who’s going to rape her is going to be a partner or friend or colleague.
How do we correct that misconception?
Partly it’s about institutional misogyny, about recognising it as a systemic crisis that needs systemic solutions. But also a cultural shift is needed in the most minor, normalised sexist behaviour and banter. That, I think, is where storytelling comes in – changing people’s mind by changing who we expect to take different roles within those stories and also what a hero looks like, what power looks like.
Are you still receiving death and rape threats online?
Yes. Last year the police reached a point where they basically said the threats were credible but they couldn’t trace them, so they put panic alarms in my house instead, which feels scary and reassuring at the same time.
You’re married. Your husband must worry.
He is extremely calm and extremely supportive. When we were engaged, a men’s rights activist wrote an open letter on the internet that said if my husband went through with marrying me, he would one day come home to find that I had burned down the house, stolen all his money, murdered our children and absconded with a coven of lesbian witches. That didn’t put him off.
Please tell us how you remain hopeful.
There are so many things that give me hope. Women supporting other women – feminism is so often portrayed as catty, divisive, and it’s just not, in my experience – or auditoriums packed with people who are prepared to give up their time for what isn’t an easy conversation; I aways joke that no one wants to invite me to dinner parties. One of the things that I feel really positive about is we now have a generation of teenage girls who are so much more politicised and aware of their rights. It doesn’t mean that they’re not facing absolute shit, but it does mean that they’re a little bit more armed to fight it than we were.
What advice do you have for anyone raising a son?
Talk to them. Don’t think that it has to be one big scary conversation when they’re 16, because it’s too late then. Start when they’re three and someone gives them a truck and their sister a doll – ask why, question it. Give them the tools to think for themselves and talk about internet literacy.
Let’s say you suddenly acquire Merlin’s magic powers. What three things do you do to instantly improve life for women in this country?
I would completely and sustainably, for ever, fund frontline specialist services for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. I would eradicate institutional misogyny and racism in the police – imagine! And I would give every child really, really high-quality, properly funded and trained sex and relationships education from primary school.
Sisters of Sword and Shadow is published by Simon & Schuster Children’s UK on 9 November. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
