Bhanu Priya Moturu

Many women experience discomfort when attempting to promote themselves as self-promoting women violate the gender norm of modesty and may experience negative consequences (Smith and Huntoon, 2014). When I saw the call for nominations for the Division 35 student representative and considered nominating myself, I experienced similar discomfort. I questioned whether it was okay to publicly express my confidence in fulfilling this position by nominating myself. Being aware of this discomfort and acknowledging it as a result of internalizing gender norms helped me push beyond the discomfort and nominate myself.

I started my career as an Electronics and Communication engineer, worked with Teach for India as a fellow, trained at Voice for girls before pursuing Master’s in Counseling and Mental Health at University of Pennsylvania. Post masters, I worked in a Methadone clinic providing individual and group counseling to individuals experiencing Opioid addiction. Currently, I am a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Maryland.

Growing up in India, a largely patriarchal society, I questioned why a woman’s well-being is not as important as a man’s or a family’s. In my interactions with 600 rural female adolescents, as a field coordinator at ‘Voice for Girls’- India, I realized that women’s agency in marriage, career choice, and family planning is highly curtailed by societal norms and resisting these norms is met with shaming and blame. The image of women as self-sacrificing and giving has impacted her ability to take care of herself and put her interests before others. My curiosity inspired me to do qualitative research on understanding cultural influences on the well-being of married Indian women. I found that women experienced themselves as caught in the middle between their own interests and their family’s interests, work requirements, and cultural norms. Interestingly, some of the women who were caught in the middle used this opportunity to influence societal change by advocating for themselves and becoming role-models for other women.

Understanding women’s ability to self-advocate can ultimately improve their well-being. This led me to want to understand factors influencing self-advocacy in women. Currently, I am developing a measure to assess women’s confidence in self-advocating in workplaces with the intention of assisting women in improving their work and life satisfaction.

My personal, professional, and research experiences motivated me to apply for the Division 35 student representative position. In this role, I aim to be fearless in promoting women’s needs, interests, and rights. I plan to accomplish this by continuing my research focused at the intersection of race, women, culture, and work. Additionally, I am interested in using the hopeful, secure space that Division 35 has already cultivated to understand the needs and concerns of the student members through anonymous surveys, campus representatives, and interactive webinars. Further, I want to use this information to design modules, information sessions, and mentor programs in collaboration with campus representatives. Also, I believe this position will help me learn from seasoned professionals about how to influence change at an organizational level and further develop my leadership competencies.

Overall, I see the role of a student representative as being an advocate, an influencer, a learner, and a role-model. I believe competencies like planning, envisioning, collaborating, communicating, and managing conflict that I inculcated in my prior experiences as an engineer, teacher, field coordinator, and a therapist along with qualities like courage, empathy, and honesty will aid in successfully fulfilling my responsibilities as a student representative for Division 35.