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“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
Audre Lorde
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by Jade - Founder of Cahoots
Practical skills and their associated spaces in Aotearoa are radically gender-segregated. This is something I spend a lot of time trying to explain but the reality is so extreme our brains have difficulty comprehending it; like the vastness of space or the speed of light. Lately I’ve been comparing women builders in 2026 to women doctors in 1926; you were twice as likely to find a female doctor then, a century ago, than a female builder today. The reality is, though, I need to tell you how it feels as a woman alone on a worksite, or a trans person walking into a trade supply store. That’s when I feel every one of the 714 male plumbers there are in Aotearoa for every one who’s not male: who’s outside, like me.
The exclusion that we—women and gender minorities—face in these spaces is deep and old and rooted in ancient patriarchy. It’s so baked in, so ubiquitous that we need to step aside and take time and care to cleanse ourselves of it. When I founded Cahoots Workshop, we were doing just that; stepping outside a system that we can’t change from within.
Cahoots Workshop provides a space exclusively for women and gender minorities to learn and develop practical skills. Here we see people grow from being passengers in a world not built by or for them—to understanding how the world is literally put together. We gain real and visceral empowerment through the realisation that we too can shape our world. This is a place where deep passion is kindled and nurtured. This is a place where tradies are born.
At Cahoots Workshop we choose transformational change, but our impact is still small. In the face of the overwhelming inequities that remain, we now choose to take our movement to industry, addressing systemic failings at every level.
We are building a company, Cahoots Tradies, driven entirely by women and gender minorities. We are once again stepping outside the system, this time to repair, build, and innovate both physically and spiritually. Cahoots Tradies will fix your whare, remodel your business, and one day build entirely new structures across Pōneke and Aotearoa. We seek to overturn the foundations of our culture, and so our interventions must to be sustainable, scalable, and proven. The following pages present the research, evidence, and implementation strategy that will underpin this change.
We’ve stepped onto this road with the support of BCITO, J R McKenzie Trust, the Centre for Social Impact, and Project Jumpstart. We are grateful for their vision, support, and mana. To our community, the foundation of our movement and the place I draw my strength; arohanui.
Jade Willow Buck - Founder & CEO April 2026
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“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy
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This document summarises the current state of gender equity and existing interventions in trades. It then details how Cahoots Workshop and Cahoots Tradies fit into the industry and how this ecosystem will effect change. This is the high level overview of the following two reports.
Building Gender Equity in the Trades
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This desk review provides a detailed snapshot of the state of gender equity in the trades and construction. It details research and reporting on interventions and their impact.
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