Perspective Live event at The Arts Club, London

Rowan Pelling

Stellar line-up for our first Perspective event to mark International Women’s Day 2022, with a panel of extraordinary women.

Times Radio’s Ayesha Hazarika (one of the funniest and most politically astute women I know), the brilliant Daisy Buchanan author of Insatiable and Careering (a modern Helen Fielding) and lauded anti FGM campaigner Nimco Ali of the Five Foundation. We managed to cover politics, the glass ceiling, #MeToo, violence against women, erotic equality and, yup, men’s role in all this.

An audience member said she found it refreshing that there were a few civilised disagreements. I told her (in my role as chair) that Perspective aims to be determinedly centrist and field people from different sides of debates. But we’re tilted at finding the middle ground, not polarisation. Thank you to the Arts Club on Dover St for hosting us in their plush subterranean bar.

From left: Rowan Pelling, Ayesha Hazarika, Rosie Boycott, Nimco Ali OBE. Photo: Nico Lethbridge

Speakers

Ayesha Hazarika: leading Scottish broadcaster, journalist, stand-up comedian and political commentator, who worked as a political adviser to Ed Milliband and Harriet Harman (where she was instrumental in drafting the Equality Act 2010). Hazarika is the presenter of Times Radio’s weekend drive-time shows and writes regular columns for the Evening Standard and the Scotsman. In 2017 Hazarika was included in Iain Dale’s list of the “100 most influential people on the left.” Her most recent comedy show “Girl on Girl: the Fight for Feminism” played at the Edinburgh Festival and Soho Theatre in 2018 to stellar reviews.

Daisy Buchanan: host of the chart-topping “You’re Booked” literary podcast and author of best-selling novel, Insatiable (“gloriously rude and brave about the nature of women’s desire”, Sophia Money-Coutts; “as filthy as it is funny”, Dolly Alderton). Her new novel Careering, which explores “the exhausting push-pull or trying to pin down a career you love but that doesn’t love you back”, is published on March 10^th. Daisy has written articles for leading newspaper and magazines on subjects such as: body image, dieting, deciding to have a child-free marriage and toxic relationships.

Nimco Ali OBE: the Somali-born, UK-based co-founder and CEO of the Five Foundation, a global partnership that aim to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Ali underwent FGM in Djibouti and later formed Daughters of Eve with Leyla Hussein. She contested a seat in the 2017 General Election for the Women’s Equality Party, but in the 2019 election she campaigned for the Conservative Party. She was appointed as an independent government adviser for tackling violence against women and girls in 2020. Her book What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway): Women’s Voices From East London To Ethiopia was published by Penguin books in 2019.

Photo highlights from the event by Nico Lethbridge

(Click on photos to expand gallery)