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I have feelings about this paper telling us that there are drawbacks to women mentoring women in science. It's been well put by @millerjm86 and others why this is ridiculous, painful, patriarchal, bunk science.
I'm reminiscing about all the times I'm glad I had a female mentor.
I'm reminiscing about all the times I'm glad I had a female mentor.
After the meeting where an extremely senior male colleague told us all about how he imagines sexual assault victims must feel, in extreme detail, with a smile on his face, and my female mentor asked me if I was ok (and I asked her. We were not). #gladIhadafemalementor
After the email came the day my thesis was due telling me that if I didn't get those revisions done pronto, and my female mentor told me it was okay to pull out of the project and take out data with us, because we wouldn't stand for bullying. #gladIhadafemalementor
When I won a departmental award for 'most aggressive question answerer' after I pointed out that a male colleague hadn't actually asked me a question after my talk, he'd just rambled about his stuff, and a female mentor told me that it was sexist bullshit. #gladIhadafemalementor
After a different departmental seminar, when my female mentor told me to hold my own space when senior male PIs in the department would compete to ask the scariest questions of graduate students #gladIhadafemalementor
When I wanted to have a baby during my postdoc, and was able to look at multiple women who had successfully had babies and great careers, and those women with and without kids who supported them, who were all telling me I could do it too #gladIhadafemalementor
When I was asked at yet another conference who had done the statistics in the project I was presenting (spoiler, it was me), and I was able to tell female friends about it, and they got it #gladIhadafemalementor
I have had some great male mentors too. I'm lucky to have benefited from great mentorship in general. And there are some moments where it's fantastic to be able to look up at where I want to be and know that other people like me have managed this. #representationmatters
I'm still early career, but I want to hold the door for other people who have been harasses out of STEM. And I recognize that I am privileged.
But if you told me that having male mentors throughout would have led to more papers or citations, I wouldn't consider it for a moment.
But if you told me that having male mentors throughout would have led to more papers or citations, I wouldn't consider it for a moment.
This paper is reinforcing a certain kind of evil. I suspect it's the same sort of evil that tells us to act more like them instead of telling them to make way for us.
It tells us to smile less, not to wear feminine clothes or make up. And not to mentor each other.
It tells us to smile less, not to wear feminine clothes or make up. And not to mentor each other.
Sorry not sorry for the rant. I learned a long time ago that I should take up more space #gladIhadafemalementor
