International Women’s Day makes me uncomfortable…
International Women’s Day makes me uncomfortable. This year, that feels important.
The posts have started. I post every year about struggling with the one day hotspot of IWD, but based on current reality, I feel drawn to this year’s theme: Give to Gain. A call to generosity and collaboration.
I’m currently in a liminal space. Between leaving a role and consciously exploring what to choose next. It’s an indulgent present of time.
And it’s also crunchy.
Space doesn’t always feel like a gift.
If you’ve ever been in the in-between, can you relate? There are days where it feels like you’ve stepped off the whirring roundabout of corporate life and fallen into a small crack in the earth. The metronome of back-to-back meetings disappears, and with it the familiar signals of relevance and belonging.
Some days, without a clearly defined role, it can feel like you’ve lost your identity. Others, you feel more connected than ever to what really makes you, you.
What’s your experience?
This space has also shown me that what feels disorienting and a bit lonely right now is not a temporary in-between for everyone. For many, this sense of being unseen, unanchored, or slightly outside the frame is constant. Not having a role that grants automatic legitimacy. Not fitting the template. Being present, capable, contributing, and still having to work harder to be noticed or believed.
Its made me more aware of how conditional belonging can be, and how easily systems give visibility to titles rather than humans.
IWD’s mission calls us to give support, challenge stereotypes and bias, and celebrate the success of women. To share. To encourage. To give.
I try to give by sharing a smidge of wisdom along the way. When you find insight, I believe there’s a responsibility to pass it on. It’s why I write and show up here even when it can feel like whispering into a cave. Because if it resonates with just one person, makes them feel a little less alone, it’s a gain.
So a week or so from this IWD, I’m choosing to embrace the theme and encourage a bit of generosity.
Before the purple backdrops and hashtags take over, I encourage you to name one woman who has given you something this year.
As just a start, here are 10 incredible women. Different in their gifts, linked in the generosity of their time, insight, and connection they’ve given me:
• Tracey Hill 🧠🫀for being a voice of positive momentum
• Helen Buttery for being a cheerleader, always
• Kirsty Mac for gentle nudges and reframes
• Julie Van Es for friendship, laughs and reason
• Catherine Plano PhD, MCC for wise encouragement
• Emma Lloyd for new connections and daily insight gifts
• Caroline MacPhail for consistency in living a life by design, not default
• Emma Heal for opening doors to her vast connections
• Emma Woods for unvarnished insight
• Sharon Brown, for enabling me to publish my book
#givetogain
Create spaces for women’s names to be said in rooms they are not yet in.
#iwd2026
