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Herlands

Lessons From Societies Where Women Make the Rules
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Herlands

By: Megha Mohan
Narrated by: Megha Mohan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A landmark exploration of women-led communities worldwide and what they can teach us about new ways to live, think and govern, from BBC global correspondent Megha Mohan.

Society isn’t working for women - or any of us.

But what if the rules were different?

Imagine a world in which women have all the power. A world in which they work together to shape their societies and their futures.

In reality, women's communities have always existed, and continue to thrive. In this vital and ground-breaking book, Megha Mohan goes in search of their roots, discovering a vibrant global history, brought together here for the first time. She also takes us into today's women-led spaces, where women live on their own terms, showing us how we can rethink society for new ways of living, working and collaborating.

Through extensive research and exclusive first-hand reporting and inspired by her great-grandmother’s own matrilineal community in South India, Mohan introduces us to fascinating and diverse groups of women. From the controversial feminist online trolls of South Korea to older women co-housing in Paris and North London and the Rain Queens of South Africa, this is a truly global look at women's community.

Essential reading for anyone interested in our collective histories, cultures, economics and governance, Herlands shows the power and possibility of new ways of living - and leading - for us all.

'An inspiration for the future' GLORIA STEINEM
'Much-needed and compassionate' MARY ROBINSON
'Fascinating' DIPO FALOYIN
'A must-read' MARCUS RYDER

© Megha Mohan 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Anthropology Gender Studies Social Sciences Women Inspiring Africa

Critic reviews

Since history is often literally His Story, it’s a helpful corrective to have books like Herlands that are about women who have always tried to control our own destinies. Herlands is a valuable introduction to some of them, an inspiration for the future (Gloria Steinem, writer and activist)
A deeply fascinating and wonderfully researched exploration of community that will broaden every reader's mind (Dipo Faloyin, author of Africa Is Not A Country)
Herlands is a much-needed and compassionate reflection on how different we could be if more women had the freedom to design their own environments (Mary Robinson, first woman President of Ireland)
A must-read that challenges prevailing narratives and sparks vital conversations about women's roles across cultures (Marcus Ryder, journalist and co-author of The Big Payback)
Herlands chronicles the courage and creativity of women building new worlds against all odds. It captures the values I hold most dearly - sustainability and sisterhood. This book is not only timely but transformative (Dr Hilda C. Heine, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands)
Megha is not your typical journalist. She is a storyteller who takes you by the hand and guides you into the closed and sacred spaces she has access to because people trust her. She approaches her work with warmth, integrity, empathy, deep attentiveness, and all the rigour of a traditional journalist. Herlands is a book we can all learn from - I only wish it had existed sooner (Karishma Patel, media critic and writer)
Brilliant. A compassionate and incisive journalist, Mohan has set a new gold standard for modern feminist writing (Monisha Rajesh, author of Moonlight Express)
What begins as a book about women’s communities quickly becomes a defiant and moving record of forgotten history, sidelined heroines, and strategies that have transformed the course of entire groups’ wellbeing and progress. In enlightening us on what is, and once was, Megha reminds us that a more empathetic and inclusive future is not only possible - it’s critical (Sophia Smith Galer, journalist and author)
Mohan takes a truly intersectional approach as she exposes how narratives about women-only spaces from the global south have been ignored by Western feminism, while her own personal story about her family in India or her interviews with women upholding the inherited traditions of women's spaces in Australia show that women building community is nothing new. I can't wait to buy this book for every woman I know (Sian Norris, journalist and author of Bodies Under Siege)
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