#MeToo Mania Completely Screws Up Concept of Mentoring

In today’s post #MeToo era, a recent survey reveals that men are getting more fearful about mentoring women in the workplace, wary of being targets of sexual harassment or sexual assault allegations.

The survey was done by Lean In, a U.S.-based international women’s organization which tackled the attitudes of men in the workplace earlier this year. Survey results show almost half of the male managers are uncomfortable either mentoring, working alone or socializing with women in the workplace in the aftermath of the #MeToo world.

Lean In says in its website: “The number of male managers who are uncomfortable mentoring women has more than tripled from five percent to 16 percent. This means that one in six male managers may now hesitate to mentor a woman.”

The survey also reveals that nearly 30 percent of male managers are now uncomfortable working alone with a woman, almost twice as many before.

Senior men in the workplace are 3.5 times more likely to reject the idea of having a business dinner with a junior-level woman than with a junior-level man. The survey also finds out that the senior men are five times more likely to hesitate to travel for work with a junior-level woman.

The survey was conducted as part of Lean-In’s #MentorHer project.

An opinion piece by Melissa Lamson for Inc. discusses gender parity being on everyone’s minds these days still as a result of the controversies that shook the entertainment industry following a spate of sexual assault allegations by multiple women against powerful men in Hollywood and the media. Lamson stresses that while there are a lot of talk at present about women mentoring women and men mentoring women, what should be pushed is women mentoring men to really achieve gender diversity.

Lamson cites researchers who say that “gender inclusiveness means involving both men and women in advancing women’s leadership” since at the end of the day, “any solutions that involve only 50 percent of the human population are likely to have limited success.”

Source:

http://www.journalpioneer.com/business/None/after-metoo-men-wary-about-mentoring-women-in-workplace-in-post--survey-191623/

https://www.inc.com/melissa-lamson/how-women-can-and-should-mentor-men-in-metoo-era.html