In this solo-authored paper, I investigate how women creatives in male-dominated occupations achieve self-expression when the self is marginalized. Drawing on over 100 hours of participant observation at a women-only comedy festival, 25 hours of shadowing female comedians, and 60 semi-structured interviews with women working in stand-up comedy, I find that women experience forms of marginalization that target the self-expressive dimensions of their creative work. Contrary to expectations that they would conform to masculine norms, I find that these experiences prompt what I term generative reclamation: a process through which women embrace and amplify experiences of marginalization, as well as marginalized aspects of the self, through creative expression.