Thinking Thrice: A Feminist Response to 'Mentoring' That Marginalizes.

Although mentoring is a popular practice in academia, mentor-protegee relationships are, for women faculty, problematic in several areas including power dynamics and cross-gender interactions. This paper discusses mentoring among academic faculty in the context of a feminist analysis of mentor-protegee relations, and suggests a feminist mentoring approach. Untenured female faculty often encounter marginalization, and affiliation with feminism may increase that marginalization. The paper discusses marginalization and looks at mentoring from four perspectives: 1) myths about mentoring, 2) liminality, 3) transforming sexist culture, and 4) mentoring with female values. In typical mentoring programs, inherent inequalities lead to imbalanced mentor-protegee relationships. Many mentors do not have adequate training in cross-gender mentoring. Feminist mentors should help to identify sex bias as problematic. Mentors of both sexes should participate in understanding, working within, and transforming sexist culture. Feminist mentoring emphasizes interpersonal relationships, empowerment and personal development, self-esteem, promotion of enhanced knowledge, skills and political awareness, personal autonomy, and politics of gender. (HB)