**6.3 Gender differences in the mentoring experience [RQ3]**

Finally, data supported the third research question by showing that there were gender differences in the perceptions of leaders. A one-way ANOVAs was performed with gender as the independent variable and results showed four significant gender differences in this study. First, females were more likely to report having been criticized for being too assertive, *F* (1, 94) = 9.46, *p* < .01 and were also more likely to have been criticized for being too sensitive/emotional, *F* (1, 95) = 5.36, *p* < .05. Next, women were more likely to report having been passed over for a promotion because of their gender *F* (1, 95) = 7.43, *p* < .01. In addition, women were more likely to report that their positive mentoring experience involved a woman as opposed to a man, F (1, 71) = 6.40, *p* < .05. Finally, there were three open-ended questions: (1) What is the most important thing you have learned from your mentor? (2) Describe one positive mentoring experience. (3) Describe one negative mentoring experience. For the positive and negative mentoring experiences, they were also asked whether that mentor was male or female. For the positive experiences, 62% reported this mentor to be a female, and for the negative experiences, 50% reported this mentor to be male and 46% reported them to be female.
