Laura Bates

Bates was born in Oxford and studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge, where she remained as a researcher for several years. She went on to a found the award-winning Everyday Sexism Project, an online collection of the experiences of over 100,000 women who have encountered misogyny and discrimination in both overt and subtle ways.

Bates is now an established feminist writer for publications including the Guardian, Time and the Independent. Her writing covers numerous issues, including the gender pay gap and sexual abuse in schools. She was named one of Huffington Post’s Most Inspirational Women of 2012.

Recently, she has turned her attention to the younger women among us. Her non-fiction book Girl Up was a bold and hilarious guide to entering modern womanhood and before that Misogynation collected essays on the scale of sexism. Bates makes her fiction debut with YA novel The Burning which draws a potent comparison between the witch hunts of the past and cyberbullying today, when a topless photograph of a young girl is circulated and dangerous rumours spread.