Mentoring Women
This is a very challenging topic to write leaving my male ego apart. However, over these many years I have grown to respect women from all parts of my life even more. People close to me would agree to it. Men respect women and they do want to see them reach higher in life. But sometimes they don't offer enough mentoring required for women to get excited and motivated. From a husband's point of view, who wouldn't mind seeing his wife succeed in life? Why wouldn't he mentor her? He should mentor her enough so that she achieves what she aspires for. And if I am right most men would do so. That is not the problem.
The problem starts when you have to mentor another woman which is not your wife or sister or girlfriend. What if she is a co-worker in your office? Or some woman or a girl junior to you at your job or your university? Will there be same level of mentoring? This is a very tricky pothole in which people fall often to distant themselves from such kind of mentoring. Such mentoring could look like an affair. And as mentioned by Harvard Business Review article cited by this article on NewYorker, "the greater the power disparity between the male and the female, the more intense the speculation becomes that the relationship is more than professional. If the woman is subsequently promoted, her achievement will be undermined by office gossip that she earned it illicitly."
The problem starts when you have to mentor another woman which is not your wife or sister or girlfriend. What if she is a co-worker in your office? Or some woman or a girl junior to you at your job or your university? Will there be same level of mentoring? This is a very tricky pothole in which people fall often to distant themselves from such kind of mentoring. Such mentoring could look like an affair. And as mentioned by Harvard Business Review article cited by this article on NewYorker, "the greater the power disparity between the male and the female, the more intense the speculation becomes that the relationship is more than professional. If the woman is subsequently promoted, her achievement will be undermined by office gossip that she earned it illicitly."
Many would not want to associate themselves with such office
gossip and the overall perception of the people. This is only one reason out of
many which prevents mentoring. Another and perhaps the biggest one would
be how the husband and wife deal with such mentoring taking place. How
much understanding and openness is shown from both is crucial to have this kind
of mentoring. To reach higher in life, women need to be ambitious and
carry a fighting spirit within them. They have to pass all kinds of
hurdles.
If women need to be educated and mentored then men also should be educated. Why? Let me talk about myself. I had a different take over women issues and such out of the house mentoring relationships. Sometimes the man inside me awakens and takes a very egoistic stand to prevent such kind of relationships from happening. But it takes a very big heart to move on and give an unconditional support to your counterpart. I learned that this larger than life attitude didn't come natural to me. It took a while. It took lots of questioning, self-confrontation, reading books, and looking at the larger picture of life. This is something not everyone would do. I am talking about both male and female. Both have to show equal maturity, support, openness, and shower some big time unconditional love.
This is a big and complex issue in our society. I mean around the world. It is impossible for me to do any justice to this issue. However, I would be glad if you would share your views on it to take the discussion further. I will write another post on it.
If women need to be educated and mentored then men also should be educated. Why? Let me talk about myself. I had a different take over women issues and such out of the house mentoring relationships. Sometimes the man inside me awakens and takes a very egoistic stand to prevent such kind of relationships from happening. But it takes a very big heart to move on and give an unconditional support to your counterpart. I learned that this larger than life attitude didn't come natural to me. It took a while. It took lots of questioning, self-confrontation, reading books, and looking at the larger picture of life. This is something not everyone would do. I am talking about both male and female. Both have to show equal maturity, support, openness, and shower some big time unconditional love.
This is a big and complex issue in our society. I mean around the world. It is impossible for me to do any justice to this issue. However, I would be glad if you would share your views on it to take the discussion further. I will write another post on it.
