In good company: Alive with allies
Welcome to the first instalment of a three-part series for International Women’s Day. We’re so glad you’re here.
March holds a lot.
There are days that ask us to celebrate. To post. To show support. To mark cultural milestones. And for some people, those moments feel affirming. For others, they feel more complicated.
Because alongside the flowers and slogans are very real experiences – missed opportunities, uncomfortable conversations, being talked over in rooms where you’re the only one like you.
We wanted to talk honestly about what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, and what we’re still figuring out.
Creativity doesn’t sit outside power. It’s shaped by who gets heard, who gets promoted, who gets labelled “difficult”, and who gets described as “confident”.
We’ve heard things like someone “wasn’t quite the right fit” for a role. Later, she learned the real concern was that she might want to have children soon. It wasn’t said directly. It didn’t need to be. The message was clear.
Another creative shared how she was praised for being “so resilient”. What she actually needed was support – not admiration for coping.
These aren’t dramatic headline stories. They’re patterns that exist beneath the surface. The kind that chip away at confidence, influence progression, and subtly shape careers over time.
We don’t pretend to have solved any of this. But we do have experience – of navigating creative industries as women, of sometimes getting it wrong, of figuring out what helped us stay and what didn’t.
And because of this, we’re opening up something simple.
If you’re a creative (designer, copywriter, strategist, animator, illustrator) and you’d value a second pair of eyes on your portfolio, or just a space to talk through where you’re at, drop us an email at:
hello@alivewithideas.com
No pressure. Just a conversation.
Sometimes what makes a difference is being able to ask:
- Is this rate fair?
- Am I overreacting?
- How do I push back on this?
- How do I move up from here?
We can’t redesign the entire system. But we can share what we’ve learned inside it.
And we’re open to listening too:
- What patterns have you noticed?
- What’s felt hard lately?
- Who helped you when you needed it most?
Part two is coming soon – where we’ll talk about care, capacity, and what flexibility actually looks like in practice.
