Anne Helen Petersen’s latest newsletter was a free-form list of things that are part of “The Subtle Look and Overwhelming Feel of Today’s Misogyny.” Number 7 (“I survived it, you can too”) got me–I don’t think this way but I loved her take on mentoring (emphasis mine):
This sort of rhetoric — particularly when it comes from more senior women in regard to office behaviors, amounts of maternity leave, attitudes towards toxic work environments, and work flexibility — is Lean In status-quo reinforcing bullshit. To mentor does not mean showing another woman how to navigate your path. It’s highlighting what was broken about the path you had to navigate, and then using your accumulated power to try and make sure that others don’t have to replicate the suffering.
Now I just need to get another woman on my team to actually mentor…