It’s Wisdom

Surely we can ditch the label “lived experience” — which so often feels clinical, tokenistic, or like some kind of mental health diagnosis — and just call it what it actually is: women’s wisdom. Hard-earned through life, struggle, survival, and insight. The term “lived experience” might have started with good intentions, but somewhere along the way it became a polite way to keep women’s stories at arm’s length — acknowledged, but never fully respected as expertise.

The dominant narrative still clings to the idea that real authority comes from formal qualifications, research, or data you can graph. Meanwhile, the hard-won insights of women — from surviving domestic violence, to navigating unequal workplaces, to rebuilding after financial ruin — get reduced to “personal stories” or “lived experience,” as though they’re just interesting side notes in the broader discussion. Even in mental health spaces, “lived experience” often lands like a diagnosis, labelling women by their trauma instead of recognising the intelligence it has sharpened.

The Creative Women’s Association refuses to play along with that. A woman who has lived through systems that fail her is not just experienced — she’s educated, in the deepest, realest sense of the word. Her wisdom is as valid as any academic research or policy report. Her story isn’t soft data — it’s frontline evidence. We won’t accept women’s voices being framed as fragile, anecdotal, or optional. Their wisdom is essential to building better systems.

It’s time to stop filing women’s insight under neat, clinical categories designed to diminish their authority. When a woman speaks about inequality, discrimination, or survival, she isn’t providing “lived experience” — she’s providing the roadmap for change. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s wisdom. And the world would do well to listen.