Join us for the Annual Christabel Pankhurst Lecture as our guest speaker, trailblazing legal leader and equality advocate Dr I. Stephanie Boyce CBE FKC. reflects on what it truly means to lead as a woman within systems that too often reward conformity and resist change.
In “PUSHing for Justice: Women, Power and the Unfinished Fight for Equality,” Stephanie will draw on her lived experience – from growing up in a low-income, first-generation British household on a council estate to reaching national leadership – to examine how power operates within the legal profession. She will explore why progress for women remains uneven and how structural inequality persists even where representation has improved.
Using P.U.S.H. (Persevere Until Something Happens) as both a personal philosophy and a call to collective action, the lecture will examine the barriers women face in progression, pay, credibility, safety, and influence. Particular attention will be paid to the compounded impact of race, class, disability, and caring responsibilities, and why equality cannot be measured solely by access to the profession, but by women’s ability to shape decisions, culture, and the distribution of opportunity within it.
This lecture will challenge legal leaders, institutions, and allies to move beyond symbolism towards sustained structural reform – strengthening accountability, widening access to justice, and defending the rule of law – so that the next generation of women in law inherit not just open doors, but a profession redesigned for fairness, dignity, and lasting equality.
The lecture will be delivered as a hybrid event. Those attending online will be sent a separate online link closer to the event date. Online attendees will be able to submit questions via the Q&A function, which will be read to the speaker by a member of staff during the Q&A session.
The lecture will run for approximately 45 minutes, followed by a Q&A session, and will conclude with an hour networking reception for in-person attendees starting at 5:20pm.
