Women perform the majority of unpaid labour and creative production, yet authorship and economic recognition remain structurally denied. This article examines how unpaid care, creative work, and enterprise are extracted without return — and why the issue is one of system design, not culture.
Tag: Unpaid Labour
Counting Cultural Contribution
Australia’s creative economy is already carrying significant economic weight, but much of that value remains unmeasured and unprotected. Without recognising domestic and care load, creative labour—particularly women’s—continues to subsidise the economy invisibly, resulting in systemic loss rather than shared wealth.
1969 Was Supposed to Change Everything.
In 1969, Australia recognised equal pay for equal work. What never followed was the infrastructure to support women’s real working lives — particularly where creativity, care, and economic security intersect.
When Did Art Stop Being a Trade
What does “creative” actually mean — and when did art stop being a trade? This article explores how arts shifted from skilled, trade-based practices into performative spectacle, and how that transition reshaped value, labour, and women’s work in the creative economy.
Why We Built Trades for Boys
Australia has spent decades building trade pathways for boys while leaving women’s creative labour without workforce infrastructure. This article examines why the creative economy emerged from women’s historical trades — textiles, design, and cultural production — and how the failure to formalise these as certified professions has created systemic economic insecurity for women.
If Life Were Golf, Women Would Be Starting Four Suburbs Back
A humorous, relatable exploration of the Domestic Load Handicap (DLH) — a new model that uses real-world data to measure the domestic and mental load carried by women. This piece reframes women’s overwhelm as a predictable structural outcome, not a personal weakness, highlighting how DLH can transform women’s health, economic security, and daily life.
This Is Not a Workforce Gap — It’s an Abyss
A national data review shows that 76% of unpaid labour performed by women creates an unmeasured economic abyss rather than a workforce gap. The CWA argues that Australia’s largest structural deficit is invisible creative and care labour, and proposes a certified creative workforce to transform and formalise this missing sector
Explore how redefining “domestic”—from unpaid drudgery to shared, dignified care—can reclaim women’s well-being and quiet power, backed by groundbreaking stress research.
We keep calling it feminism — like it’s a theory, not a fact. But women aren’t living a debate. We’re living a daily system of unpaid labour, structural inequality, and rebranded oppression. From workplace bias to burnout dressed as empowerment, nothing has changed. And if nothing changes — structurally, measurably — then nothing will.
The Creative Equity Index is a blueprint for measurable, enforceable workplace standards that reflect the real economic load women carry — not just theory, but policy.