Advice for a mentor?

Gregorian_Tree · 2017-11-12T16:04:35+00:00

Be vocal about promoting talent and hard work so that it's audible what your foci are. When you praise someone, make sure you're doing it to male mentees as often as you'd do it to female mentees. We all tend to rhetorically rub bums more often when it's a female we're praising. Hold all your mentees to the same standards, regardless of sex, and if you'd call one out for poor work, do it fairly but religiously, so there's no chance at perceived favouritism.

In other words, live by example.

You could also use the fact that STEM promotion for women is on high alert and argue cogently for sex neutral documentation and programs, citing that 'with more inclusiveness in our mentee pool, we need to be aware that we're going to see men and women, gay and straight, cis and trans ... so we need to neuter our language'. Sure, you'll sound like an SJW on the surface, but you'll be taking the department to a neutral standpoint, rather than a gynocentric one.

Imnotmrabut · 2017-11-12T17:12:10+00:00

You should remember that as a mentor you work one to one, so using this role to influence mass groups is inefficient.

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Charles Mackay (1841). *Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.* R. Bentley. p. 3.

It is best to ignore dealing with the herds and work on training the herdsmen.

I would personally advise looking at the works of scholars such as Eilean Gambrill, professor of the graduate school at the School of Social Welfare, Berkely. Her sanding and expertise in dealing with "Critical Thinking" is second to none.

Her book "Propaganda in the Helping Professions" is invaluable for its scope and depth in debunking Cliche, Meme and SJW rantings.

As propaganda methods have become more sophisticated, the inﬂuence of propaganda becomes more subtle, pervasive, and difﬁcult to detect and resist. Misleading claims are often effective in inﬂuencing our behavior and beliefs because we do not critically appraise them. Rather, we are patsies for others’ bogus claims because of our own inactions - our failure to ask questions—to be skeptical. The environments in which we work may discourage asking questions. Indeed the questioner may be drummed out of the organization. The importance of thinking carefully about claims of knowledge and ignorance and the means used to forward them is highlighted by harming in the name of helping. This book will increase your awareness of how you may be mislead in making life-affecting decisions and how you yourself may contribute to being mislead. It will help you to be more informed about what questions to ask about claims of what is true and what is not.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PSEUDOSCIENCE The term “pseudoscience” refers to material that makes science-like claims but provides no evidence for them. Pseudoscience is characterized by a casual approach to evidence (weak evidence is accepted as readily as strong evidence). Pseudoscientists make use of the trappings of science without the substance. The terms “science” and “scientiﬁc” are often used to increase the credibility of a view or approach, even though no evidence is provided to support it as illustrated in the ﬁgures in this chapter. The term science has been applied to many activities that in reality have nothing to do with science. Examples are “scientiﬁc charity” and “scientiﬁc philanthropy.” Prosletizers of many sorts cast their advice as based on science. They use the ideology and “trappings” of science to pull the wool over our eyes in suggesting critical tests of claims that do not exist - cures that elude even the rich. The misuse of appeals to the grand narrative of science to sell products and encourage beliefs is a key form of propaganda, even in the professional literature as illustrated in chapter 9. Examples of pseudoscience in published journals include vague scientiﬁc-sounding jargon and precision of ﬁgures not warranted by data (e.g., “There is a correlation of 1.23”). Classiﬁcation of clients into categories included in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lends a misleading aura of scientiﬁc credibility to this system in view of questionable reliability and validity of this technology.

A critical attitude, which Karl Popper ([1963] 1972, 1963) deﬁnes as a willingness and commitment to open up favored views to severe scrutiny, is basic to science, distinguishing it from pseudoscience. Indicators of pseudoscience include irrefutable hypotheses and a continuing reluctance to, revise beliefs even when confronted with relevant criticism. It makes excessive (untested) claims of contributions to knowledge. Results of a study may be referred to in many different sources until they achieve the status of a law without any additional data being gathered. Richard Gelles calls this the “Woozle Effect” (1982, p. 13). Pseudoscience is a billion—dollar industry. Products include self-help books, “subliminal” tapes, and call-in advice from “authentic psychics” who have no evidence that they accomplish what they promise (Beyerstein, 1990; Druckman & Bjork, 1991). Pseudoscience can be found in all ﬁelds. '
Eileen Gambrill (20 February 2012). *Propaganda in the Helping Professions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-971717-0.*

Title	Advice for a mentor?
Author	vedasis
Upvotes	7
Comments	3
Date	November 12, 2017 3:44 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/7cg22l/advice_for_a_mentor/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/advice-for-a-mentor.911286 https://theredarchive.com/post/911286

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