Maren Gelb deeply regrets the violent language she posted on Twitter yesterday in regards to a family member of POTUS. Her tweet does not in any way reflect the values of Richual, the most inclusive community platform for women to cultivate the practice of self-care and change the world by changing ourselves. CEO Devin Avery assures the Richual community that Maren’s joke was meant to be perceived as “dark humor,” like “Melissa McCarthy,” and not as a threat to the health or safety of the first daughter.
“Maren is the most selfless, empathic person I know,” Avery says. “I could not have done this without her as my work wife, and I’m sending so many good vibes her way.”
In the words of one of our faves, Audre Lorde, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare,” but “warfare” is up to each person to decide for herself, and at Richual, we believe that all people are human beings. We trust the community will join us in support of Maren, while she realigns her spirit and health with our core values of respite, recalibration, and resilience. #Namaste
About Us: Richual is a pioneer in the wellness space, using social technology to connect, cure, and catalyze women to be global changemakers through the simple act of self-care.
Devin
Women are people.
All people are human beings.
Believe women.
Do better.
Self-care is not selfish.
Don’t read the comments.
You are more than a digital footprint.
The political is personal.
Stay woke.
Calm the fuck down.
With a single tweet, Maren had broken at least two of Richual’s Ten Commandments stenciled in fuchsia and sherbet on the wall by reception. How could she say she believed women when she didn’t believe that having a woman who could advocate for better family leave policies to her dad was a good thing for women? A girl I knew in college was now doing marketing for a startup using nanotechnology to build air filters that eradicate mold toxicity on the molecular level and the guy who had the job before her had a younger brother (adopted) who once dated Tiffany and that was how I was able to get a meeting with someone on Ivanka’s team about inviting her to join our exclusive sorority of Richual influencers, after it came to me in a dream one night, the kind of high-quality native content related to juggling entrepreneurship, motherhood, politics, and gardening she could put out there as @Fir$tDaughter, but Maren flushed that potential partnership down the toilet.
When I asked her to at least explain the tweet to me, why she thought it was funny, she just sent me a link to an article about “punching up” in comedy and said, “Educate yourself.”
I wasn’t mad, not after I did my rounds of kapalabhati this morning, but I was concerned. Maren practiced the least amount of self-care of anyone I knew. Imagine if the COO of Sweetgreen ate McDonald’s for lunch every day. You’d be like, Wut?
I’d seen Maren like this before. When I met her at a retreat for solopreneurs in New Orleans, she was in a very dark place. You could tell she was one of the scholarship recipients by how I found her during the continental breakfast wrapping mini muffins in paper napkins to save in her purse for lunch. Now that I think of it, it wasn’t really a purse so much as it was a “Free Pussy Riot” tote bag. “I want to mentor that one,” I told the organizers. She was working for a charity and had come to the retreat to learn entrepreneurship so she could get better at fundraising. I wanted to do a full makeover, starting with the food types that suited her dosha, but when she showed me the charity website, we had to start there.
“Honestly? You need to invest in a redesign,” I told her. “You only have one chance to make a first impression on me and this is not mobile-friendly. I can’t share this link with my friends and ask them to donate if it’s not cute, you know?”
Maren put her head in her hands. I could tell I was breaking through to her by the way she was breaking down. “You want to make money, don’t you?” I asked. She nodded her head without looking at me. “Like, a lot of money, right?” Another nod.
Overnight, she redesigned the website herself, so that it was more pink overall and the Donate Now button stood out in mint green, the color of money, not in an aggressive way but in a way that made you feel generous, like you were building Barbie’s Dreamhouse for women who were less fortunate than you.
No matter what I suggested Maren do—including actually ask herself if she wanted to be leading a nonprofit where everyone took her for granted—she did it. We roleplayed different scenarios where she would find herself one-on-one with a woman with a high net worth. I told her the secret to asking for money was to never actually mention money at all.
“Pretend I’m seventy-eight, I’m a widow, my name is Frances but all my friends call me Fifi, and I have a bichon frise on my lap.
“Pretend I’m the young heiress to an alcoholic beverage distributor fortune and I grew up in a household that values philanthropy and you happen to run into me at SoulCycle in East Hampton.
“Pretend my family built their wealth doing something very bad for the environment or something and I feel very, very guilty, and you can help me feel better.”
Finally, I said, “Before she died, my mom started a small foundation that gives art grants in New York City. I know she would have been interested in the work you’re doing and I’d like to donate five thousand dollars.”
“Is this part of the roleplay?”
“No! I’m being serious.”
Maren’s nose turned bright red and then she started to cry. I’d never seen someone so genuinely grateful about so little money. It was super satisfying, like when you’re trying to get the last glob of jelly cleanser from a tube and you’re shaking and shaking it upside down and it squirts out all at once. I wondered what it would be like to collaborate on something, if I could find us some funding. Maren could resign from her pointless job and we could do work that actually made a difference—at scale.
The only story sexier than a woman under thirty starting a company was two women under thirty starting a company. Cover story in Fast Company, profile in the Styles section, slideshow on Vogue dot com: “Workplace as Vulva—And Why Not?” Our interior designer conceptualized our layout and decor to be a visual representation of our brand: female-facing, luxurious yet accessible, and totally transparent. Break boundaries by literally having none. My office was one of the few with walls and a door, but they were glass walls, and the door itself was just a glass wall with a handle.
From my desk, I could see the entire floor of my small but dedicated kingdom, a dozen ladies wearing noise-canceling headphones, sitting at long marbled-pink tables, or ruining their thoracic spines on jewel-toned velvet couches. Emerald and sapphire, garnet and citrine. Even the girl we hired to be the receptionist was usually wearing headphones, which someone should really do something about.