Everyone will benefit from a world where men and women live equally. But if we think we've got there yet, we're kidding ourselves

Kat Banyard

Graffiti in Richmond Street, Dublin, earlier this year. Photograph: Aidan Crawley

LOOK AROUND YOU. Do today's women and men appear to live as equal citizens from where you are? Apparently, if you happen to be standing at the head of the boardroom at Marks and Spencer's headquarters the situation looks rather rosy. Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of the retail giant, recently surveyed the societal landscape and concluded: "there really are no glass ceilings despite the fact that some of you moan about it all the time ... You've got a woman fighter pilot who went on to join the Red Arrows ... I mean what else do you want, for God's sake? Women astronauts. Women miners. Women dentists. Women doctors. Women managing directors. What is it you haven't got?" Sir Stuart isn't alone in wondering this. Today it is widely believed that women and men have achieved equality. And feminism - the social movement designed to bring about that end - is frequently written off as outdated and even rather embarrassing, having been well and truly tarred and feathered over recent decades, and paraded around in popular culture like some strange little fad. Indeed, unlike their predecessors, women today can vote, they can own property, seek a divorce, go to university, work in all professions; the list goes on. The law no longer formally designates them as second class citizens.

But the colours start to run in this picture of post-feminist harmony when you consider the following realities:

The equality we see around us today is, quite simply, an illusion. While massive strides have been made over the past four decades, we are still very early on in the process of unpicking from our society the cultures and attitudes that have accumulated over millennia to enshrine women's secondary status. Many legal victories, such as the right to equal pay won in 1974, remain abstract pledges that are yet to translate into reality. Hard-fought gains, such as the right of women in the UK to seek a legal, safe abortion, are under continual attack. The constantly evolving economic and political world order means the ground we are working on for gender equality is constantly shifting, and new technological developments present challenges unique to this age.

Insidiously, though, the problems that remain seem to have become an accepted part of the landscape of our everyday lives - normal and inevitable. "Rape happens; women hate their bodies; and world leaders are usually male - that's just the way it is." The links between these problems and women's inequality have been hidden in the equality illusion. It is high-time to expose them.

The experiences of over 100 women and girls I interviewed recently for The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today put paid to any notion that we are "there" yet, that equality has been achieved. From the time they get up to the moment they go to bed, women's lives bear the stamp of inequality.

“I hate the fatness, the flesh, the excess. I can’t see myself ever liking it” – Ellen

When Ellen wakes up in the morning the first thing she thinks about is what she has eaten the day before. She is always cold and her limbs ache just getting out of bed. She has suffered from anorexia since she was 10 years old, and is just one of the 1.5 million people – 90 per cent of them female – who wake each morning in UK to an eating disorder. At the time I interviewed Ellen she weighed just 6 stone, 10 pounds.

What Ellen is experiencing is not the result of some random, unique set of circumstances. Today women’s bodies are denigrated as inanimate objects to be publicly scrutinised, maintained and manipulated for the benefit of others on a scale like never before. The result? An epidemic of body hatred, eating disorders, and a meteoric rise in the number of women turning to cosmetic surgery.

“On one occasion I fainted in class because I was so terrified of going to the next lesson which he shared with me” – Jena

Jena’s journey to school each morning has become increasingly stressful of late, and a few days ago she actually hyperventilated whilst in her mum’s car. The reason? She is being sexually harassed on a daily basis by Alec – a boy at her school. Yet when she told her head of year what had been going on the teacher’s response was . . . “boys will be boys”.

While the common perception is that it is boys being failed by schools, if we look behind the headlines we see a more complex picture. We find girls being taught a hidden curriculum of stereotyped behaviours, discouraged from maths and science, steered away from physical education, and subjected to sexual harassment. In fact, the World Health Organisation reports that school is the most common setting for sexual harassment and coercion.

“It is only a 40p [an hour] difference to the day shift, but I try and do the night shift so I can do the school runs. I cant make alternative arrangements or pay someone to take the kids to school” – Elizabeth

Elizabeth currently works as a cleaner in the City of London, working nights to juggle her responsibilities as a single mum, and earning just £7.60 an hour. She currently attends courses during the day so she can try and get into a better paid field, but this is proving extremely difficult to fit in, and on average she gets around four hours sleep each day. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth is struggling to meet all her household bills.

Despite discrimination against women in the workplace having been outlawed nearly 40 years ago, 30,000 women lose their jobs every year simply for being pregnant, just 12 per cent of FTSE 100 company directors are women, and many women – like Elizabeth – are trapped by the sticky floor of low paid part-time work because those are the only jobs they can fit around their caring responsibilities. And it’s no coincidence that the work Elizabeth is paid so little for has traditionally been seen as “women’s work”.

Jobs traditionally done by women are still paid significantly less than those traditionally performed by men. This is part of the reason that poverty has a female face in the UK: two-thirds of low-paid workers are women.

“He strangled me for real, with both hands. I knew it was for real because the more I struggled the tighter he squeezed” – Amy

Amy is usually filled with dread on her way home from work each day because of the physical, sexual and psychological abuse her boyfriend regularly subjects her to. But she hasn’t been able to tell family or friends about what’s been going on and feels like she has nowhere else to go. Amy described to me how she feels utterly isolated at the moment and frequently contemplates suicide.

Yet despite her feelings of isolation, one in four women will, like Amy, be subjected to domestic violence at the hands of a current or former partner. It is just one of many forms of violence against women driven by sexist attitudes and cultures. Yet all too often, the victims are blamed and the perpetrators escape justice, leaving the conviction rate for rape in the UK standing at just 6.5 per cent.

“Lap dancing is one of the hardest things Ive ever done. Ive found it tough, soul destroying” – Lucy

Lucy started working nights in a lap dancing club shortly after being fired from her secretarial job. But it wasn’t only because she was desperate for money that Lucy decided to start working at the club. Lucy had also been raped as a teenager, and saw lap dancing as a way of potentially regaining her “sexual power” – because lap dancing is so often portrayed as empowering and liberating for women. But the reality has proved very different. Lucy described to me how each time she goes to work she feels less and less like a human being.

Never before has the sex industry been as profitable as it is today, with prostitution, pornography and stripping taking place on an unprecedented scale and influencing the very heart of mainstream western culture. Yet behind the industry’s rhetoric of “choice” and “empowerment”, women involved reveal that exploitation and abuse are intrinsic to these practices. The sex industry transports its consumers to a land that feminism forgot, where the women are biddable and are there to sexually service men. And everyone is paying the price.

“He can have his own life, but Im stuck with that child for the rest of my life. I know that sounds really horrible, but Im stuck”– Latisha

Whilst her boyfriend and most of her mates usually spend their evenings at the pub, Latisha is invariably exhausted and curled up in front of the TV. She hadn’t wanted to have child as teenager, but describes sex education at school as being “non-existent” and had felt pressurised into having sex before she was ready.

Latisha was fully aware that her friends and family disapproved of abortion, so when she found out she was pregnant going ahead with it seemed like the only option. And now, like Elizabeth, Latisha is struggling to pay the bills because she is paying the poverty penalty for having a child.

Despite the much vaunted sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, women and girls today are still subject to a sexual double standard, frequently pressurised into sex, and hampered in their efforts to seek a free, safe abortion – whether by social stigma, practical road blocks, or the law. Unequal power relations between women and men remain present in every sphere – and that includes in the bedroom.

TODAY, GENDER equality is an illusion. But it can be made a reality. Body hatred, violence, sexual exploitation – these are things that can be prevented. And a burgeoning movement of women and men are stepping forward to do just that.

As an activist based in the UK, I have been extremely heartened to witness increasing numbers of feminist conferences, marches, blogs and websites springing up over recent years. British campaigning gender equality body The Fawcett Society reports a threefold increase in membership over the last three years and most recently thousands of women marched through central London on March 6th demanding an end to violence against women as part of the annual Million Women Rise march.

From changing the law on how lap dancing clubs are licensed to stopping a branch of Hooters opening, the achievements being racked up by these activists testify to the power individuals have to bring about change. That’s why I’m involved in setting up UK Feminista – a unique new organisation seeking to reclaim feminism for the 21st century and support everyone to get active in the struggle against sexism. Because only when feminism is recognised for what it is (one of the most important movements for social justice of our age), and with everyone engaged in the process of change, will we see an end to the injustices suffered by women and girls like Ellen, Jena, Elizabeth, Amy, Lucy, and Latisha.

Everyone will benefit from a world in which women and men live equally. What will you do to help create it?

Kat Banyard is author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today, published by Faber and Faber. She is director of UK Feminista. www.ukfeminista.org.uk