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The
Unusually High Incidence of Women Mentors for Gay Male
Protégés
Robin
Church
Ted
Rogers School of Business Management
Ryerson
University; Toronto
Canada
The author will present
findings from a recent study exploring the workplace
experiences of gay men and lesbians in Canada and the
United States. The author will also discuss the journey of
including studies including sexual orientation and gender
identity and expression in the established human resource
management literature. This specific paper will explore
the unusually high incidence of woman as mentors for gay
men who reported having a mentor in their workplaces.
Mentoring has been shown to
be beneficial to protégés, mentors and their
organizations. Protégés with mentoring relationships
report more promotions, have higher incomes, and are more
satisfied with their pay and benefits than those with
little or no mentoring. Researchers have argued that
cross-sex mentoring relationships may be necessary for
women to advance in organizations since men still hold the
majority of power positions in organizations (Ragins,
1997).
Research indicates that
career advancement for women and ethnic minorities is
related to the strength of mentoring that addresses their
professional development (Ragins & Cotton, 1999;
Dreher & Chargois, 1998). If access to male mentors
makes a difference in career advancement for women because
of men’s greater power in organizations, then access to
male mentors is likely to make a difference for gay
protégés as well. In a recent study (Church, 2006)
examining the effects of perceived workplace
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation on the
mentoring relationships of gay protégés, the majority of
gay men (56.5%) reported working in workplaces where the
women were the majority. A near majority (46.1%) of the
gay male protégés in this study reported having female
mentors. Contrast this with more typical results such as
Ragins & Cotton (1999), who found that only 9.3% male
protégés reported having female mentors. A number of
research questions arise from the unusually high incidence
of female mentors for gay protégés.
Drawing on careers and
mentoring research, we aim to explore the antecedents and
consequences of the gay men being more likely to be
employed in organizations that are majority women and more
likely that their mentors are women. This is not to
suggest that women are not able or willing to mentor but
rather that since men still hold the majority of senior
positions in organizations that there access to power and
resources may be limited. There are no published studies
yet addressing any of the issues surrounding mentoring and
sexual orientation. This paper will be an important
starting point for future research and theory building
both in mentoring and in gay and lesbian workplace issues
in general and specifically in the area of mentoring
relationships involving lesbians and gay men. Given the
importance placed on mentoring in organizations and the
sometimes divisive issue of sexual orientation, future
research is required to continue exploring this topic to
derive more meaningful, practical suggestions for mentors,
protégés and organizations so that these important
developmental relationships can flourish to the benefit of
all involved.
About Robin Church
Robin Church is an
Assistant Professor of Human Resources Management &
Organizational Behaviour at the Ted Rogers School of
Business Management, Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.
His research is focused on the workplace experiences of
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans employees. He completed
his PhD at the Rotman School of Management, University of
Toronto. His dissertation, completed in 2006, was entitled
“The Effects of Perceived Workplace Discrimination on
the Basis of Sexual Orientation on the Mentoring
Relationships of Gay and Lesbian Protégés”.
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