Laura Bates: Misogyny, Machine Learning and The Manosphere

Full Disclosure with James O'Brien

Global

Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From founding the Everyday Sexism Project to unpicking how AI is entrenching misogyny, Laura Bates has become one of the UK’s most unflinching feminist voices. In this episode of Full Disclosure, she joins James O’Brien to explore how one devastating week in her early twenties sparked a lifetime of activism- and why storytelling, statistics, and school visits remain central to her mission.

Laura traces her path from a bookish childhood to acting ambitions, before recounting the moment a string of seemingly “everyday” experiences of harassment triggered a wider awakening. The conversation spans her battles with media hostility, the evolution of digital misogyny, and the personal toll of online abuse. With clarity and urgency, she discusses how sexism is coded into everything from CV-sorting algorithms to deepfake pornography, and why AI may be the next great battleground for gender equality.

Honest, analytical, and deeply human, this conversation delves into what drives Bates to keep going, and what gives her hope for the next generation.

Find out more about Laura Bates book,The New Age of Sexism, here

Transcript

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0:00.0	And off we go.
0:02.5	When you're a small business owner like me, every day is an adventure.
0:05.9	It can get pretty wild out there, but I'm used to fierce competition.
0:09.6	So I feel in my natural habitat out here on safari.
0:13.8	With an American Express business card, spend securely and earn points on business transactions.
0:18.7	To put towards a dream holiday.
0:21.2	Couldn't have said it better myself.
0:23.1	The card is for business, the points, are for pleasure.
0:25.8	Search Amex Business Card, terms and annual fees apply.
0:28.3	18 plus, subject to status.
0:32.3	This is a Global Player Original Podcast.
0:43.3	Hello and welcome to full disclosure.
0:47.7	A podcast project conceived pretty much entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio.
0:50.8	Laura Bates, welcome.
0:52.0	Thank you.
0:52.9	For some people, you will need no introduction whatsoever.
0:56.2	Some people will be well aware of the work that you've done, but may not necessarily have the name immediately associated with it.
1:02.8	And some people will need a proper introduction.
1:06.4	I'm author, feminist and founder of the widely acclaimed everyday sexism project.
1:13.5	How do you describe yourself?
1:15.3	I think as a feminist activist and everything else I do stems from that.
1:19.0	Okay.
	...

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