Field Notes from the Frontlines

When policymakers sit down to write the rules that shape our lives, they often turn to numbers. Charts, statistics, and economic models dominate the conversation. But numbers can’t tell the whole story—especially not the stories that live in the daily realities of women. For generations, women’s lived experiences have been dismissed as anecdotal, emotional, or irrelevant to the “serious business” of policy. Yet it’s precisely these raw, unfiltered accounts—the field notes of everyday life—that carry the wisdom needed to fix broken systems.

The dominant narrative in politics and research has long been that hard data—numbers, percentages, and pie charts—are the most credible form of evidence. They’re measurable, they’re tidy, and they give the illusion of objectivity. By contrast, personal stories, lived experiences, and qualitative research are often sidelined as subjective, messy, and emotionally charged. The result? Entire policies are built on incomplete pictures. The voices of women, particularly those from diverse backgrounds, are reduced to footnotes in reports that claim to speak for them.

The Creative Women’s Association calls time on this outdated model. If you want real change, you need real stories. Women’s lived experiences are not a side note—they are the essential field notes of our society. They reveal the cracks in systems designed without us in mind. They expose how policies that look fine on paper fail in practice. When a woman shares her story of navigating unaffordable childcare, systemic pay gaps, or healthcare that ignores her needs, she is not being “emotional.” She is delivering frontline data. These stories are not just narratives; they are qualitative evidence that demands to be heard.

Imagine a world where policies weren’t shaped solely by numbers, but also by the field notes of lived experience. Where a working-class single mother’s account of juggling three jobs to stay afloat carried as much weight as an economist’s spreadsheet. Where migrant women’s stories of navigating systemic barriers shaped immigration policies. Where the lived realities of First Nations women guided health reforms. We already know this works. Initiatives like “Sparking Change” from the National Women’s Law Center put the lived experiences of women and non-binary people at the centre of policy conversations about income security and caregiving. The “Truth Be Told” storytelling guide is arming communities with the tools to influence decisions through narrative, not just numbers.

When women share their lived experiences, they aren’t just swapping stories over coffee—they’re building a body of evidence that policymakers can no longer ignore. These field notes, when collected, amplified, and woven into policy, hold the potential to dismantle systems that have kept women’s realities hidden for far too long. If we’re serious about meaningful change, we must stop treating lived experience as secondary. It is, and always has been, the real frontline data.