Written by Maiya B. & Iffy S.
What the heck?! Did someone just say that? Now before you go all feminist on me….read the whole post.
When my crazy friend first mentioned this, I was infuriated. How dare you, as a woman, say something like that!?! It was nonsensical. …But after listening to her explanation, it kinda made sense, or did it?
So the gist is, in comparison to men, women make the worst mentors. …If you are a male or female with a female mentor, you will not gain as much opportunities to live and thrive in your career than if you had a male mentor. What?!
Here’s the thing, it’s sad to say this living in this century and time, but our society still does not value women more than they value men. If two equally
qualified persons of opposite genders walked into a job interview, it is almost always going to be the male who will be hired. …Unless the company is obliged to hire women to make the workplace diversified and nondiscriminatory.
Unlike men, women have to work twice as hard and prove themselves and their capabilities at work before they are considered worthy and an asset to the company. This is why when you have a female mentor, they will always have a wall guarding them. They will be friendly and helpful, but definitely not helpful to the extent where you will gain an atrocious amount of knowledge that will help you go higher up in your career. It will probably be even worse if you are a female with a female mentor. According to the American Management Association, 95 per cent of women have felt undermined by other women at some point during their career. Women have a harder time breaking that glass ceiling and have a lot more competition in trying to gain recognition compared to males. So they have to be fierce to be taken seriously!
Now look at this scenario, a woman defies all odds to make it to the position of the assistant manager in an organization. Then a guy who just joined the organization decides to make her his mentor. You seriously don’t expect this woman to give out all her trade secrets to this new man and watch him skyrocket pass the glass ceiling that’s keeping her in the assistant manager position to become her boss. I mean, that doesn’t seem fair. Even in our various places of work, nobody likes it when a new person, whom you mentored, gets in and all of a sudden becomes your boss.
So now do you kinda sorta get why women make the worst mentors? I sometimes still don’t get it myself.
I’m not saying all women are worst mentors. That’s not true! There are amazing ones out there. Rather, I’m saying that the value that society has put on men make it difficult for women to succeed, thus, they are always having to compete for everything and work twice as hard for recognition. This is what makes them bad mentors sometimes. A male is far less threatened by someone getting higher up than himself than a woman and therefore, are more likely to help you succeed and give you more opportunities to learn, thrive, and make it to the top.
What do you think? …Do women really make the worst mentors?! Yea or nay?