Is It time to Disrupt Mentorship?
The question of whether mentorship models
work for women and other equity seeking groups has unexpectedly preoccupied me
for the last 10 years. Sifting through
my research for my book The Feminist
Mentorship Gap, which is currently in progress, I am wondering whether
there is a need to completely disrupt mentorship in all its various modes. Is it time to disrupt mentorship?
Mentorship has been around a long, long
time. The first use of the word and depiction of a “mentor” appears in Book II of Homer’s Odyssey. Before leaving for the Trojan War,
Odysseus asks his friend Mentor to not simply look after Telemachus, his son,
but to prepare him to lead.
Right now, you may be thinking, “that’s
nice, but besides being a completely boring cocktail party factoid or possible Jeopardy question, so what?” Which is a
totally reasonable response. But it does directly relate to mentorship today. In addition to spawning the word
mentorship, this passage framed the way mentorship and formal mentorship
programs are viewed and function.
Mentor was not just a friend, but he was a
wise trusted advisor and teacher. The relationship dynamic between Mentor and
Telemachus was both top-down and paternal. Mentor was a counsellor whose role
was to train and prepare the young Telemachus to rule. He was the older
individual who gives his time, knowledge and energy to help a younger man grow his
potential.
Does this mentoring model sound
familiar?
While Homer didn’t invent mentorship, he
depicted a foundational form of human relations from which today’s mentorship models
flow. Across professions and cultures, contemporary mentorship continues to
embrace a top-down paternal power dynamic. Little has changed since ancient
Greece and that is the problem.
Over the past 7 years as mentorship program
and community builder, I have heard countless anecdotes and read research
papers on the failure of mentorship programs, and specifically the failire in meeting the
needs of women, LGBTQI2 persons and racialized persons. One common thread can
be traced back to this traditional top-down dynamic and model.
Mentorship models are stuck.
They are stuck in a one-way paternal pattern. The mentee is forever a child in
the eyes of their mentor. Putting aside the Freudian and psychodynamic
overtones, the crux of the problem comes down a lopsided power dynamic.
For women, LGBTQI2, racialized persons and
other equity seeking groups, the power dynamics of mentorship are doubly fraught.
These mentees entering a traditional mentorship relationship already contend with
empowerment inequities and institutional barriers. Traditional mentorship models
echo and reinforce the same power imbalance through their structure. No matter how
diligent the mentor, the imbalance is there.
Perhaps it’s time to disrupt mentorship
models. This means redefining or renaming mentorship. Specifically, how mentorship
is viewed as a top-down transmission of experience into something else. The coaching
or sponsorship trend may offer some insight and disruption. It’s too early to tell.
But perhaps it’s time to re-think the way formal
mentorship programs are designed.