Why Does Mentoring Women in STEMM Matter?

Do you know what a Mentor is?

A mentor is a person who, by choice, shares experience and takes an interest in the long-term advancement of a person to reach personal/professional fulfillment in life.
Mentoring is not coaching.
Mentoring can help build self-esteem and resilience and create a positive impact when involved in life-changing decision-making.

So, why is mentoring Women in STEMM* IMPORTANT?
(*here, STEMM is defined as Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and Medicine)
Mentoring creates opportunities and possibilities:

1. To encourage and promote talent
2. To create awareness of gender-related disadvantages
3. To develop solutions for more equal opportunities
4. To create and expand networks
5. To transfer knowledge
6. To build the leaders of tomorrow
7. And ultimately, to INSPIRE

Opinions like these are heard:

“It is hard to believe in yourself.”

“Lack of information makes more challenges.”

“Maybe the best is to change my career.”

“Science is not for me anymore.”

“Where am I going with my career?”

Mentoring can change and shift paradigms by providing positive transformation pathways.

First, let´s look at what is reported and published:

How important are female mentors?

Answer: VERY IMPORTANT

Accordingly, a study ⁽¹⁾ in 2021 from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, USA, showed that female mentors influence the undergraduate research experience of both male and female students in STEM. Moreover, it was revealed that if students wanted to fully benefit from their undergraduate research experience, then undergraduate research opportunities for students should include an equitable representation of female mentors.

Does the “Lineal STEMM pipeline” meet the NOW needs and expectations?

Answer: NO

Evidence suggests that women faced a wide range of shifting responsibilities during the pandemic, like balancing strength and time when raising children in parallel with the virtual work commitment from 9 to 5 pm ⁽²⁾. Studies suggest that women with caregiving responsibilities had less time to engage in active collaborations, and unfortunately, the consequences were the fewer shares for authorships and general representations ^(2,3,4).

So,

How to follow a linear model for career development when it is impossible to follow?

Is it realistic to maintain building up a monothematic (single dominant theme) career life when possibilities are becoming less attainable?

Now, including to the long list of challenges (inclusion, equity, gender-pay gaps), there is this:

1. Problem: the restructuration of the career path
2. Problem: going green and getting a green job
3. Problem: where are the mentors?

Second, let´s look deeper:

These terminologies are commonly heard nowadays within the context of career and development:

• Career Diversification, and
• Green Energy and Energy Transition

What does career diversification here mean?

What about going green? Green Energy and Energy Transition?

What does all that mean within the context of non-linear career development?

Answers:

1. “Career diversification” means that we live in a new age of skill diversification and going out of the career track might help to adapt to the new green economy.
   • How do we do this?
     • Taking the new sets of skills learned and practiced during these last two years. They are important portable skills.
2. “Going Green, Energy Transition?” is a whole new set of terminologies that are here to stay:
   • Going green within the concept of energy transition (from fossil-type to renewable-type of energy) is linked within the NEW -types of “green business models”, and sustainability in business.
3. How do we merge points (1) and (2) into the context of non-linear career development?
   • ANSWER: take advantage of the re-skilling process that the Pandemic forced to do.

Does the latter make sense?

Answer: YES, it does, and here is why:

Last year, a modern career development path was described in the EOS opinion section of the AGU Advancing Earth and Space Science named: The Braided River Model ⁽⁵⁾.

This insightful approach shows career diversification (river braids: pathways to evolve, support, other disciplines) supported and guided by mentoring (the sedimentological substrate: the mentor). Even though it is based on a geoscientific analogy, the approach can easily be adapted to many other career fields. Moreover, visualizing the career path as a river takes us to imagine the profession within the natural world linked to green energy. Why?

Water = Life = Renewable Energy

Third, having set the ground…let´s elaborate more:

In this NEW GREEN ERA:

How to Mentor?

Where are the Mentors?

How are mentors mentoring to help transition within the energy transition?

Here are some suggestions:

1. To mentor, after the pandemics, is important to take in account that:
   • Exhaustion is a reality on all personal and professional levels, making it very difficult to rationalize the next path to follow.
   • The “You can do it!” statement is not a matter of the past but is an issue of today because it is needed now more than ever to say it and hear it.
   • There is a need for a safe space and a place to go and talk about similar difficulties.
   • More than ever, there is the need for “Voices of Affirmation” and to hear: “I Believe in YOU.”
2. If there is a mentorship program that does not fit your needs, then, why not to ask someone to be your mentor?
3. How to mentor someone to help transition within the energy transition? The main clue to resolve lies in deciphering which portable skills are tools for going green, and how the non-linear career development facilitates to work within the concept of the energy transition.

CONCLUSION

Remember: “the value of mentorship is long-lasting and is irreplaceable.” not only for the mentee but also for the one who serves as a mentor.

Remember: ANYONE can be a mentor because all experiences are valuable.

Remember: Mentoring is by choice.

Remember: If you mentor someone, it can change their WORLD.

Remember: MENTOR to INSPIRE.

References

1. Moghe S, Baumgart K, Shaffer JJ, Carlson KA (2021) Female mentors positively contribute to undergraduate STEM research experiences. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0260646. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260646 , Open Access, Accessed on 19 May 2022.
2. Davis, P.B., Meagher, E.A., Pomeroy, C. et al. (2022) Pandemic-related barriers to the success of women in research: a framework for action. Nat Med 28, 436–438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01692-8 , Accessed on 20 May 2022.
3. Blowers, T., Johnson, E. & Thomson, J. (2022) Resilient women scientists and the COVID-19 pandemic: an OWSD analysis. Econ Polit 39, 225–248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40888-021-00256-2 , Accessed on 20 May 2022.
4. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26061. Accessed on 30 May 2022.
5. Batchelor, R. L., H. Ali, K. G. Gardner-Vandy, A. U. Gold, J. A. MacKinnon, and P. M. Asher (2021) Reimagining STEM workforce development as a braided river, Eos, 102, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EO157277 . Published on 19 April 2021. Accessed on 13 June 2022.

Afterword

Dr. Gabriela Marcano is a Mentor by choice for women in STEMM.

She has successfully mentored many students, co-workers, and field-related professionals throughout her life. Currently, she is a volunteer to mentor undergraduate students in geosciences within the program of GeoLatinas.

Keep yourself INSPIRED