**2.6 Gender and mentoring**

Mentoring, both formally and informally, occurs primarily in dyads that are either same-sex or cross-sex. Overall, there are more male mentors, and this is primarily because men hold more executive and advanced positions. Further, same-sex mentoring occurs more frequently than cross-sex mentoring in business and academic environments [17], so more men are mentored than women. The preference for same-sex mentoring is easily explained due to the similarity in attraction principle. People are attracted to those who are like themselves [17]. These facts, however, create an environment in which it is more difficult for female protégés to find mentors.

There are other potential reasons same-sex mentoring occurs more frequently. One concern with informal cross-sex mentoring is the perception by others that there may be a romantic relationship between the two [17]. The public perception when older male mentors are paired with younger female protégés is especially problematic [2]. These rumors about cross-sex mentoring may be less common in formal mentoring programs than in informal mentoring [4]. However, these perceptions are particularly difficult to overcome for women working in traditional male occupations. In today's professional climate, fears about sexual harassment discourage cross-sex mentoring relationships from forming, creating what has been described as a "glass partition" ([18], p. 46) that prevents women from advancing and succeeding in predominately male organizations. "In contrast, men in predominantly male organizations have sufficient numbers of same-sex colleagues to befriend, further isolating women, and limiting women's ability to network and obtain information in informal settings" ([18], p. 46).

In higher education, researchers have found that women need support to remain in the field and succeed [19, 20]. Therefore, the lack of appropriate mentors for female academics creates a barrier for women in higher education to advance into leadership positions [18]. Furthermore, without adequate same-sex guidance, many women academics withdraw from higher education early in their careers [19, 20], and this consequence, in turn, will continue to perpetuate male dominance in the academy.
