The Importance of Mentorships for Career Advancement Essay

The Importance of Mentorships for Career Advancement - Essay Example A positively-framed gender bias is that women cannot be managers because they are also homemakers, which means that they cannot provide the needed time and dedication to demanding management work (Foster). These biases are serious issues because they can become sources of gender/sex discrimination that will impede women’s potential for promotion and professional development. Two problems with lack of mentoring are non-promotion and poor social networks, both of which can be important in promotion decisions and individual professional development. Many executives are still men, so they have accumulated crucial knowledge and skills in doing their jobs. They are essential mentors to women who aspire to reach their positions someday. If these male executives do not want to mentor young women, they are denying the latter the chance to be groomed for executive positions, thereby contributing to gender discrimination and gender wage gap. In addition, male executives already have professional and non-professional social networks that may directly or indirectly contribute to the professional development and promotion of subordinates. Women who do not have access to male mentorship may lose access to these networks too, which can be essential in the politics of promotion and processes of individual professional development. Hence, male executives should not have biases against mentoring young women, in order to prevent gender discrimination and to increase women’s number in their ranks. "Despite the increasing participation of women in advanced education and managerial and professional ranks, they are still under-represented at the top levels of management and in expatriate assignments".   Why do you believe this is the case?   Please explain.