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Mentoring and its dangers: beyond the ‘male’ paradigm

By Jocelynne Scutt - posted Friday, 20 May 2011


As Living Generously – Women Mentoring Women (Scutt, 1996) confirms, this – the traditional ‘male’ form of mentoring –will not truly assist women to go anywhere, at least not to the top. Traditional ‘male’ mentoring has an older male promote a younger male, who then grows to become a rival. Ultimately, one or the other must go, for there is no room for two at the top. Even where the mentoree is promoted into a post in another organisation, the rivalry at the heart of the corporate world will play itself out in the proverbial slash of the rapiers or pistols at dawn.

Like Mary Cunningham, women caught up in this mentor-mentoree scenario are vulnerable. By placing all their energies into one mentoring relationship, they run the risk of oblivion if their mentor loses the rivalry struggle. They run the risk of being written off as ‘handmaidens’ by corporate players who may be, and could be, vital to their career plans. They almost inevitably will be cast into a sexualised role by middle-managers and mischief-makers, colleagues who seek their own advancement or simply cannot abide by the advancement of others – particularly where those ‘others’ are women.

Is this to say, however, that mentoring lacks value for women? Should mentoring be dismissed, so that out we must go into the world of research, projections, proposals and predictions yet again to find ‘the answer’ to ensuring optimal performance and quality in both the private and the public sector? Must we search yet again for the solution that will see equal numbers of women and men at the top, in middle-management and in support and other roles?

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The problem lies with the idea that there is one answer. Networking remains relevant when done not on the basis of a glorified business-card exchange or ‘how can I promote myself to the detriment of others’, but as a creative means of ensuring positive exchange of ideas and recognition of skills, on a shared basis. Quotas on boards and in workplaces generally must be compulsory and affirmed through contract compliance.

If the numbers are not equalised and there is no assured plan actively designed and effected to achieve this outcome, companies will lose government contracts and heads of government departments will be brought to book for quota compliance failure within their own organisation.

As for mentoring, this must avoid the mentoring dyad that permeates mentoring today.

Mentoring schemes take many guises:

  • The ‘mirror mentor’, matching mentor and mentoree is a one-on-one approach to mentoring. One is a ‘mirror match’ with the mentor and mentoree working in the same field, with similar interests, enabling mentoree to consolidate in a particular field, learning what is available, what possibilities arise, what avenues may be followed. The other is a ‘contra match’ with mentor and mentoree working in different fields, with different interests, providing mentoree with different ideas, possibilities, avenues not envisaged or imagined as open to her.
  • The ‘serendipity mentor’ is the potential mentors and mentorees brought together through seminars, discussions, coffee-casuals, presentations of work and field discussions, so each comes to know the nature of others’ work and working styles, capacity for providing support, and possibilities as to how support may best be given. Mentors and mentorees find their way to the relationship/s best suiting them and their potential.
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  • The ‘self-selection mentor’, rather than serendipity mentor, the self-selecting mentor sees mentors and mentorees come together with formal offers and requests, so that each knows what may be given, what needs require fulfillment, what pattern of ‘giving’ is expected, and what requests can be sustained.

Yet the overriding principle in any mentoring scheme, whether organised or entered into informally, must be to avoid the one-on-one sole mentor-mentoree dyad that so poorly serves women, and that leads to, creates or consolidates rivalry at the top.

One mentor is not the answer. One mentor cannot provide all the answers in any event. Mentoring requires multiple scenarios, multiple possibilities and multiple mentors:

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About the Author

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a Barrister and Human Rights Lawyer in Mellbourne and Sydney. Her web site is here. She is also chair of Women Worldwide Advancing Freedom and Dignity.

She is also Visiting Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jocelynne Scutt

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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