UnPinked

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Work or dissent? This is the question

When creative work trains us to confuse our worth with our productivity and to call passion what is, in reality, just exploitation.

In a world that demands constant performance, where do we place dissent? Work or dissent? That’s the question we want to put at the centre of this new season of We Hate Pink events and conversations.

The Inner Systems

We often think of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy as external systems, something “out there.” But their logic of domination doesn’t stop at geopolitical or economic relations: it becomes a way we inhabit ourselves.

Colonialism, with its history of conquest, corrals lives, resources, and possibilities into hierarchies that turn into internal narratives of lesser value and built-in inferiority. And this dynamic isn’t only historical; it repeats today in global relations, for example, in U.S. involvement in Venezuela, described by many analysts as a return to *Monroe Doctrine politics, with military incursions and economic pressure on Venezuelan sovereignty for strategic and oil-related interests. (Taylor & Francis)

Capitalism, beyond being an economic system, is a device that ranks the value of our lives by productivity, speed, and profit. It teaches us that being useful is synonymous with being worthy, and that lesson sinks in until it becomes an internal voice that never shuts up.

Patriarchy works the same way. It’s not merely an external structure of dominance between masculine and feminine; it becomes a learned logic that organises our desires, behaviours, and expectations. It teaches us to take up less space, to be agreeable, available, tireless; to confuse endurance with professionalism and self-erasure with maturity.

In the workplace, especially in creative work, this becomes the idea that we must constantly prove our value, work harder to be legitimate, and accept unbalanced hierarchies as if they were natural.

Like colonialism and capitalism, patriarchy doesn’t need to impose itself forever from the outside. Once internalised, it operates through us. It becomes the voice that normalises exploitation, that transforms dissent into guilt, that convinces us the problem is our lack of resilience, not a system built on inequality.

When these three structures converge, resistance stops being easily collective and becomes internal: fatigue, self-doubt, and self-monitoring. That’s how hierarchy perpetuates itself, not only colonising territories and economies, but also bodies, time, relationships, and imagination.

*The Monroe Doctrine (1823) is a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy that, under the guise of rejecting European colonialism in the Americas, has historically legitimised U.S. intervention across Latin America. In practice, it turned the entire region into a U.S. sphere of influence, justifying political, economic, and military interference in the name of “security” and “stability.” It is widely considered a form of informal colonialism — or straight-up neo-colonialism.

What we’re doing

This season at We Hate Pink, we want to dissect these dynamics through critical voices, collective experiences, and practical tools.
Because creativity, advertising and media too often adapt, normalise, and reproduce the same capitalist and colonial logics they claim to resist.

An industry that loves to call itself progressive, yet continues to operate through hierarchy, value extraction, cultural appropriation, and unrecognised emotional labour. An industry that talks about impact, inclusion, and purpose while remaining tied to production models that consume bodies, time, and imagination.

This isn’t abstract theory. It’s about recognising how these logics move through us, how they become habits, expectations, self-exploitation, and about creating spaces where dissent isn’t a luxury or a radical pose, but a daily, professional, collective practice.

In 2026, We Hate Pink will focus on a series of events and mini-talks designed for people working in creativity, advertising, and media who feel the need to pause, name things clearly, and question them again.

• Online mini-talks on creative work, care, and value • Conversations on personal and collective self-determination in industries that thrive on our constant availability • Spaces for practical resistance to exploitation and internalised self-exploitation in creative and cultural work

If our industry keeps reproducing the system without ever interrogating it, creativity stops being a space of possibility and becomes just another language in service of control.

Your voice matters

If you work in creativity, advertising, or media, we'd love to hear from you. We’ve put together a short survey to better understand how you're experiencing creative work today, and which conversations you’d like to open with We Hate Pink in the coming months. It’s anonymous, takes only a few minutes, and will help us shape events and content grounded in our community's real experiences.

📚 What we’re reading

Women, Race and Class — Angela Davis. A foundational classic for understanding how capitalism, racism, and patriarchy are deeply intertwined systems. Essential for dismantling the idea that oppressions are “separate,” and for recognising labour (paid and unpaid) as a political terrain.

The Problem with Work — Kathi Weeks. A crucial text for anyone working in the creative industries. It challenges the moral centrality of work, the mythology of passion, and the idea that productivity should define our worth.

Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale — Maria Mies. A key work of eco-feminism that shows how global capitalism and patriarchy rely on the extraction of invisible labour, often performed by women. Perfect for understanding why exploitation “isn’t a bug — it’s a feature.”

Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World — Kumari Jayawardena. A cornerstone of postcolonial feminism, tracing women’s struggles in colonised contexts. It helps bridge external colonialism with internalised colonialism, and reveals global dynamics that still shape our everyday working lives.

Tensions of Empire by Ann Laura Stoler. A collection of essays exploring how colonialism continues to shape cultures, desires, and social hierarchies. Useful for recognising the colonial logics that survive today in media, creativity, and the language of power.

Dissent isn’t a pause, it’s power.

Every time you reclaim your time, your care, your limits, you are breaking a pact with a system built to consume you. That's not failure, that’s dissent.

With anger and care,

The We Hate Pink team

We Hate Pink is a Community Interest Company that does not receive sponsorships or any form of financial support from organisations or companies. Our strength lies in the commitment and dedication of the people who make it what it is, driven solely by activism.

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