This study seeks to understand how invisible work shapes Indonesian women academics' career progression amidst a neoliberal and bureaucratised higher education system. Using poststructural feminist discourse analysis, we critically analyse selected social media content, examining how the dominant discourse of the ideal woman academic affects perceptions. Interviews with selected women academics enriched our findings. Our findings indicate that this idealisation is both cultural and historical, linked to the state's long-standing gender ideology of ibuism, which positions women as appendages to their husbands and mothers to their children, and the notion of pengabdian, or selfless service work. As a result, women academics often shoulder the burden of bureaucratic housework. Additionally, the study explores how women academics navigate, negotiate, and resist the dominant discourse of the ideal woman academic within the context of the three pillars of higher education in Indonesia: teaching, research, and community service. This research contributes to understanding the impact of the neoliberalisation of higher education by discussing the lives of women academics in contemporary Indonesia.