There's often a conception that only transgender and gender-diverse employees are affected by limited, binary notions of gender. But the fact is that all of us — to different degrees and to different extents — are impacted by narrow, outdated views of gender. This is why the concept of Gender Stories is so powerful. By reflecting on our own Gender Stories, and listening to others’, we start to see how gender intersects with so many of our day-to-day experiences in the world. That’s true for all of us.
We’re looking forward to using the Reimagine Gender platform to share the Gender Stories of dynamic individuals. Below, we share reflections from Maricella Herrera Avila, the VP of Operations & Strategy at Ellevate and self-described “professional feminist.”
At Reimagine Gender, we talk a lot about the importance of understanding and exploring our own gender stories. What is your earliest memory of how gender defined or impacted your life?
When I was a kid, I got my hair cut very, very short. What you’d traditionally call a “boy haircut”. It was normal to me, there was nothing odd about it - my mom has always had short hair (she was a swimmer growing up and found it easier for the upkeep) so to me, short hair was just being comfortable and looking as beautiful as my mom did. Plus, it was just a comfortable way to deal with my wild, curly hair.
But kids can be mean, and I quickly found out my haircut fell outside of what was deemed acceptable by my classmates. Which meant it had to be called out. I let my hair grow after that. I let it grow as long as I could, ending up with a (not very healthy) mane of curls that came down to my lower back. Though I gave it little thought then, I realize now that my decision to forgo my comfort for a look that fit in with what was expected of me was very much rooted in the social expectations of gender.
Many people think of race and gender as distinct identities they hold but often do not see how they interplay. In what ways has your race, ethnicity, faith or other aspects of your identity influenced your gender?
My mom didn’t go to college - she got married at age 18. Her mother didn’t go to college either. She got married when she was 16. It wasn’t uncommon back then for women to be housewives and dedicate their life to their families.
These two women are some of the smartest, most resilient and strongest people I’ve met. And, maybe because of how they saw their lives evolving, they pushed me from a young age to believe there were no limitations for me - not for my gender or any other reason.
But despite their best efforts, when I moved to the US in my mid-20s, I realized I still had internalized many ingrained gender norms while growing up in El Salvador and starting my career in Mexico.
The cultural expectations of me still included the subservient view of a female caretaker, regardless of whatever else I was achieving. These were not the same for my brother, and it was evident that growing up, there were different rules for us: I was cared for more, even at points treated like I could crumble more easily, but I was also expected to show more of the nurturing and service-oriented qualities that are assigned to women and girls (even if we don’t really feel or identify those qualities in ourselves). I recall a time when I was home from college, when my grandmother and I had an argument because my father said he was thirsty and I did not get up to get him water. That was expected of me, but not of my brother. And truthfully, that’s just not who I am.
Things were a lot harder in Mexico, I would say. When I used to work there in finance there were many challenges because of my gender — it was a cultural understanding that as a woman I would not go out drinking with clients in the middle of the day, although my male colleagues did. It was expected that I would work for a few years and then leave to get married and have a family - in fact, this was a common interview question I faced during job searches. All of this predicated solely on the outdated notion of what my gender represented. I often tell the story about how I ended up working at Ellevate. I had met the founder while I was in business school, and she became my mentor. Back then, I was still thinking about going back to banking, and was far along the interview process with a boutique investment bank in Mexico. On my last phone call with the team, they told me it was pretty much a done deal - I only needed to fly down to Mexico to meet the CEO. But before we could schedule the trip, they had a question for me - was I planning to get married or have kids any time soon? See, it was important to them that I committed fully to the company for at least the first couple of years. It felt icky to get this question. Why would I have to choose between my family life or my career? And yet, I didn’t react. I responded the way they wanted me to - I said, of course not, I have only plans to focus on my career. It wasn’t until talking with my mentor after the call that I realized why it didn’t sit well with me - they would have never asked a man that question. It was wrong of them to make assumptions about my life, and even worse, to think that a woman should not be supported or hired regardless of whether or not she chooses to pursue a family. I immediately reached out to my contact and pulled out from the recruiting process. I then took my job at Ellevate because I knew it was a place where those questions wouldn’t be asked, in fact we work so that nobody has to face these challenges again.
As we get older, our understanding of gender identity, expression and expectations evolve (hopefully). In what ways would you say your views on gender norms/expectations have evolved? Does this differ from others in your family and the community you grew up in? If so, has it been a difficult tension to navigate for you?
My views on gender are now completely different from what I believed growing up and as a young adult. Thankfully, I’ve had the opportunity to meet people who have opened my eyes with their own gender stories. I have come to understand gender not as something fixed, determined at birth and directive of your path and future, but as a much more fluid social construct that can and should be challenged. The difference between sex and gender is not something that was explored or talked openly about in the culture I grew up in. Explaining gender as a social construct to my family, and most importantly to my older relatives, has been interesting. They have never met a trans person, or someone who does not identify as male or female. I’ve told them stories of people who I know, and I think with our open conversations their view has also expanded.
Ellevate’s focus is professional women. How do you see evolving understandings of gender impacting your work and that of the organization?
This is not something we’ve publicly announced to the media - so you’re getting an exclusive. Although Ellevate did start 20+ years ago as a community for women, we’ve changed our views to adapt with the times and the reckoning of gender as a social construct. In the last year we’ve begun to use the term women+ instead of just women to define our community.
To us, first and foremost, women+ represents all women, non-binary people, and anyone who identifies as underrepresented because of their gender identity.
But the “+” in women+ also represents those who are willing to work towards gender equality, those who are advocates of equality on the basis of sex and gender, and those who are active allies to women and non-binary people - because gender equality can only be achieved with the collective effort of women, non-binary people, and men.
Our community continues to be a safe space where we can have honest dialogue about our careers and about the challenges we face. It’s still about supporting one another, but we now invite everyone who believes in gender equity, regardless of how they themselves identify, to be part of this movement.
Finally, discussions often focus on the difficulties and inequities related to gender. I’m curious, is there something you love about gender, either your own or what you see happening with others?
Personally, as a cisgender woman, I love the empathy and resilience brought about by my gender identity. I believe I view things differently than a man does, and that’s powerful. Research shows women can see things more holistically, are more able to multitask, and have higher levels of emotional intelligence. I love seeing more people coming into their own gender identity and embracing it, because just as I believe my gender identity enables me to see things in a certain way, this is also true for others - and the beauty of diversity of perspectives that comes from these changes and acceptance make conversations more rich, decisions more thorough and things better and for all of us.