Scholars Call for an Increase in the Number of Women Mentoring Men

Much attention has been paid to the value of junior women in business working with a mentor, and to the responsibility that male executives share to help women break the barriers they face. One problem is that due to a low percentage of women in high-level executive positions, there are few women mentors available to guide young women.

In a forthcoming paper in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, Cindy Schipani, the Merwin H. Waterman Collegiate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, and her co-authors argue that flipping this dynamic around – with women mentoring junior male mentors – could benefit the mentor, the mentee and society as a whole.

The authors state that “by mentoring men, women may be able to reduce gender bias, normalize interactions between the genders, and create a new generation of allies. Women mentors will also receive the same benefits that all mentors traditionally receive from the mentoring relationship, including the opportunity to gain from the success of the mentees and shape culture in their respective institutions.”

“We’re hoping that if we encourage more women mentoring men, maybe we can generate more empathy, more cooperation, and just more willingness to see each other as people and to work for everybody’s success,” said Professor Schipani.

The full study, “Overcoming Gender Discrimination in Business: Reconsidering Mentoring in the Post #Me-Too and Covid-19 Eras,” may be accessed here.