Undoing the Dyad: Re-examining Mentorship with a Feminist Lens

Abstract

Academic libraries consistently use mentoring programs to integrate new employees by sharing organizational knowledge and providing support to advance in their careers. Traditional models of mentorship are tools that help support existing power structures and keep in power those benefiting from the associated privilege. One way to interrogate traditional mentorship models and their inherent inequities is to apply a feminist lens in examining the expectations and actions of mentors and mentees. This chapter discusses how the traditional dyad mentoring model does not support everyone equally and explores alternative, inclusive models of mentorship, such as group mentoring and peer mentoring. We will connect historical context and theoretical models of mentorship with our own experiences through a feminist lens. Our goal is to highlight models that acknowledge the psychosocial aspect of mentorship, celebrate diverse identities and experiences, and seek to balance power structures

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