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  • Published: 1 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780857984272
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288

The Wife Drought




Why women need wives, and men need lives

'I need a wife'

It’s a common joke among women juggling work and family. But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women.

Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.

But why is the work-and-family debate always about women? Why don’t men get the same flexibility that women do? In our fixation on the barriers that face women on the way into the workplace, do we forget about the barriers that – for men – still block the exits?

The Wife Drought is about women, men, family and work. Written in Annabel Crabb’s inimitable style, it’s full of candid and funny stories from the author’s work in and around politics and the media, historical nuggets about the role of ‘The Wife’ in Australia, and intriguing research about the attitudes that pulse beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.

Crabb’s call is for a ceasefire in the gender wars. Rather than a shout of rage, The Wife Drought is the thoughtful, engaging catalyst for a conversation that’s long overdue.

  • Published: 1 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780857984272
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 288

About the author

Annabel Crabb

Annabel Crabb is one of Australia’s most popular political commentators, a Walkley-award-winning writer, and the host and creator of ABC shows including Kitchen Cabinet, The House With Annabel Crabb, and the upcoming Ms Represented, a documentary series on women in parliament. She's been a member of the parliamentary press gallery since 1999, working for various print titles as a political correspondent and sketchwriter. Annabel is the author of the bestselling nonfiction work The Wife Drought, and two cookbooks written with childhood friend Wendy Sharpe. She won a Walkley Award for her 2009 essay on Malcolm Turnbull, and was Australia’s 2011 Eisenhower Fellow. Annabel is an enthusiastic social media user and tweets about politics and food at @annabelcrabb. She co-hosts Chat 10 Looks 3 with her colleague and friend Leigh Sales.

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Praise for The Wife Drought

Crabb is an excellent writer, and the book is neither a polemical rant nor a statement of the bleeding obvious. She has presented the facts -- the Australian economy is being held back by the rigid gender roles of its employees -- in a new and interesting way, penned with the wry wit for which she is famous. One of the best chapters in the book involves the effect gender equalisation would have men, who would ultimately benefit from a realignment of their employment priorities. If you assume that there is more to life than work and that having a good relationship with your children is valuable, she writes, taking time off from work to have a family is a good investment. "Yet we live in a system that consistently, in one way or other, discourages men from even attempting to make that investment."

Margot Saville, Crikey

Annabel Crabb is a great writer...The Wife Drought makes an important contribution to the debate about women in the workforce

Kara Nicholson, Readings Carlton

Awards & recognition

Australian Book Industry Awards

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Australian Book Industry Awards - General Non-fiction Book of the Year

Queensland Literary Awards

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award

Russell Prize for Humour Writing

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  Russell Prize for Humour Writing

The John Button Prize

Shortlisted  •  2015  •  The John Button Prize