What would the world look like if it was led by women? Join us as we explore this idea during a panel discussion, looking at how matriarchal structures have organically formed and improved societies in the past and present day, before imagining what future matriarchal cities and worlds might look like.

With a mixture of non-fiction seriousness, literary imagination and not-so-serious speculation, join author and journalist Christina Sweeney-Baird, behavioural and data scientist Dr Pragya Agarwal, poet and artist Tice Cin and writer, sociologist and journalist Anne Karpf for an open discussion of feminist thought informed by literary work, societal changes, global affairs and science.

About The Speakers

Tice Cin

Tice Cin is an interdisciplinary artist from north London. A recipient of a London Writers Award for Literary Fiction, Cin’s debut novel Keeping the House comes out in September; a story set in Tottenham that explores community and isolation and heavily features cabbages.

Anne Karpf Headshot

Anne Karpf

Anne Karpf is a writer, sociologist and award-winning journalist. Her five books of nonfiction have been translated into 13 languages. Author of How Women Can Save the Planet (Hurst), Anne is Professor of Life Writing and Culture at London Metropolitan University.

Headshot of author Dr Pragya Agarwal stood in front of a brick wall

Dr Pragya Agarwal

Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, visiting professor of Social Inequities at Loughborough University in the UK, and founder of research think-tank ‘The 50 Percent Project’ that examines gender and racial inequities around the world. Pragya is the author of a number of scholarly articles, and three non-fiction books. ‘Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias’ was published in 2020 with Bloomsbury and was nominated one of best popular science books of 2020, Guardian Book of the Week and shortlisted for the Transmission Prize. ‘Wish We Knew What To Say: Talking With Children about Race’ was also published in 2020 and ‘(M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman’ was published in June 2021. Her next book HYSTERICAL is out in September 2022.

Besides non-fiction books for adults, Pragya has also recently written her first book for children titled ‘Stand up to Racism’ published by Hachette. Her writing has appeared in Guardian, Prospect, Forbes, BBC Science Focus, Scientific American and New Scientist amongst others, and her creative non-fiction writing also appears in several literary magazines. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and has appeared on BBC Woman’s Hour. NPR, Radio 5 live, BBC Breakfast, ABC and many other international media platforms.

Christina Sweeney-Baird

Christina was born in 1993 and grew up between London and Glasgow. She studied Law at the University of Cambridge and graduated with a 1:1 in 2015. Christina works as a corporate litigation lawyer in London. The End of Men is her first novel.

Khadijah Ibrahiim

Khadijah Ibrahiim was born in Leeds of Jamaican parentage. Educated at the University of Leeds, she is a literary activist, theatre maker and published writer, who combines’ inter-disciplinary art forms to re-imagine poetry as performance theatre. Hailed as one of Yorkshire’s most prolific poets by the BBC, her work appears in university journals and poetry anthologies.  Her collection Another Crossing‘was published by Peepal Tree Press 2014. Khadijah has performed and produced art programs in the USA, Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

About The Chair

Headshot of Sarah Shaffi

Sarah Shaffi

Sarah Shaffi is a freelance literary journalist and editor. She writes about books for Stylist Magazine online, is books editor at Phoenix, and is editor-at-large at independent publisher Little Tiger Group. She regularly chairs author events, and is co-founder of BAME in Publishing, a networking group for people of colour in publishing.