Using Feminist Mentoring to Deconstruct Privilege and Power in Developmental Relationships: A Narrative Inquiry

Mentoring is an important human resource development tool for the professional growth of individuals, especially as it relates to identity development (Dobrow and Higgins, 2005; Germain, 2011). However, marginalized individuals (such as women and racially minoritized individuals) receive inconsistent mentoring support (career and psycho-social support) as compared to their white/male colleagues due to power inequalities between diverse mentees and their mentors (McGuire, 1999; Ragins, 2007). The purpose of the current chapter is to utilize feminist mentoring as a theoretical lens to present, analyze, and interpret narratives of the authors. The first author is an Asian-American woman Ph.D. candidate with an immigrant background, while the second author is a gay White male tenured professor from a conservative background. Specifically, we use components of narrative inquiry research methodology (Clandinin andamp; Rosiek, 2007) to analyze our own experiences with mentorship as people who identify with marginalized groups. The authors based their narratives on questions adapted from (Shuck et al., 2016) exploration of issues of privilege and power in employee engagement to sense-make on the role of privilege and power in their developmental relationships.