Challenging Our Gendered Idea of Mentorship

Conversations on the topic of sponsorship, mentorship, and allyship are often about how male leaders can help women. These narratives are important and necessary, but they also offer a narrow definition of leadership, portraying men as the heroes in a story where women need help. The reality is that just as women benefit from male mentors, sponsors, and allies, men also gain from the mentorship, leadership, and sponsorship of women. But we rarely tell these stories; as a result, this imbalance reinforces negative bias about the ability of women to lead and contributes to the scarcity of women at the top.