Speaker, author, campaigner.
Joeli Brearley MBE is a British activist, author and public speaker, best known as the founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, the charity leading the fight against the motherhood penalty. Her campaigning has driven change at both societal and legislative levels, helping to secure a £5.2 billion investment in childcare and influencing reforms to flexible working laws, tribunal time limits and redundancy protections for pregnant women and new parents. In 2021, Joeli successfully took the UK Government to court for indirect sex discrimination, winning a landmark case that exposed systemic inequalities faced by mothers.
Joeli organised the largest protest of mothers in UK history. March of the Mummies saw more than 15,000 parents march across ten cities, capturing national attention and demanding workplace equality and better support for families.
She was named one of British Vogue’s “25 Most Influential Women”, ranked the 8th most prominent British communicator by PRWeek in 2023, and was awarded an MBE in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to women’s rights and equality.
Her book, ‘‘Pregnant Then Screwed: The Truth About the Motherhood Penalty,’’ was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster.
Speaker reel
‘‘I wanted to say a massive thank you for an incredible talk today. The feedback has been so positive with one person saying ‘it’s the best PepsiCo event I’ve ever been to’.’’
Pepsico, Becca Choudrey
Media Reel
Previous clients include:
“I am emailing on behalf of Maggy, the Parent and Carers Network, the Women of Wellcome Network and all who attended the totally wonderful event today. It is such a skill to present a subject that can feel quite a depressing state of affairs in such a totally engaging, fun and hugely impactful way. Feedback from colleagues who left straight after the Q&A told me that the lifts were buzzing with conversation. And it was good to see that we had so many senior people in the audience too. There were many more that had joined online. It really means a lot that you were able to join us..”
— Jeanette Ward, Media Manager, Wellcome Collection BBC News Interview
March of the Mummies triggered coverage on every news channel, with more than 900 items of press and media coverage across print, radio and TV. Here is the interview I did on BBC News straight after the march
“A heartfelt thank you from me for your inspirational talk this week. It was incredibly motivating to all those listening in and packed full of reasons and actions for positive change.”
Jane Cusdin, Associate, Automotive 30% Club
Pregnant Then Screwed 2021 impact video
The pandemic created enormous challenges for pregnant women and mothers, many of whom were forgotten in policy making. This video captures what we did to change that. Video was made by Sodium and scripted by me.
As featured in:
“Joeli’s work has had a massive positive impact on the lives of thousands of women. Here is a vital and urgent voice.”
— Laura Bates.
Sky News interview for March of the Mummies .
Good Morning Britain interview.
In the week leading up to the historic budget which pledged £5.1 Billion investment in childcare, I was invited onto Good Morning Britain to discuss our data which found that too many women were terminating wanted pregnancies due to childcare costs .
“The fearsome and funny founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.”
— Elle Magazine .
Keynote speeches, workshops, panel discussions…
“From taking the government to task on childcare legislation to fighting for flexible working for all, Brearley has made it her mission to make women’s working lives not just fairer, but feasible..”
— British Vogue