Laura Bates

Too often, we blame women. For walking home alone at night. For not asking – or asking forcefully enough – for a place at the table. For not overcoming the odds that are stacked against them. In this explosive book, feminist writer and activist Laura Bates lays bare the patterns of misogyny that harm and endanger us all. She exposes the systemic prejudice at the heart of five key institutions in our society. Education Politics Media Policing Criminal justice Combining stories with shocking evidence, Fix the System, Not the Women is a blazing examination of sexual injustice and a rallying cry for reform.

Fix the System, Not the Women

Jemima Scott

Nothing will truly change until we acknowledge that the problem is with the system, not the women.

Karolina

It is incredibly difficult to grow up in a world in which this individualised focus and blame on victims of abuse exists without internalising it. 

It's like we just can't help ourselves. We cannot stop finding excuses for male violence. It starts with 'boys will be boys', it morphs into 'just a compliment', 'he couldn't help himself and 'she was asking for it', and it ends up here.

Now, tell me again that women are not being systemically, outrageously failed by a criminal justice system that treats their lives as worthless and their deaths as minor infractions, depending on the likelihood of a misogynistic, victim-blaming jury to convict their rapists and murderers.

It is too much to demand that those bearing witness to their oWn trauma and abuse also present trite, simplistic fixes on a gold platter.

Fix the System, Not the Women quotes

Join the club