This semester’s Student Interest Group fair hosted many new student groups, making it even harder for eager freshmen to choose which ones to commit their time to. Among these fresh desks of passionate leaders was MENtorship, a new student organization working with the Career Development Center to offer mentorship opportunities. When members of WeSTEM approached the table, we were told it was male-only and therefore there was no benefit for us, as women, to receive more information about the SIG. At the desk right next to them, we saw an interested male student receiving a similar reaction from a women-centered program.

As students who are passionate about gender issues in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, we, as the leadership of Women Empowered in STEM, found this exclusivity to be problematic. So, we tried to find out why both mentorship programs decided to be gender-exclusive. We understood Women’s Leadership Network to be a network of support for women to battle sexism and tackle women-specific issues in the workplace. We got the impression that MENtorship's only focus was career advising, and that it was created mainly as a response to Women’s Mentorship Program, a program under the umbrella of WLN, that was exclusively for women. It was unclear to us why MENtorship’s program focused on males only when all students could benefit from their program, as they did not discuss any gender specific issues.

While there are other gender specific SIGs already on campus, generally they are always very clear about their reasons for being so. One example is the Girls’ Education Network and the Boys’ Education Network. While sharing the same goal, their reasons for being separate initiatives align closely with the work they are doing — schools in Abu Dhabi are gender segregated and creating co-ed sessions would require significant overhead. Nevertheless, GEN and BEN collaborate in creating the content of their programs, ensuring a consistent curriculum between the gendered counterparts. MENtorship and WLN seemingly attempted a certain level of cooperation too, by having their desks next to each other, but we still felt like that message of collaboration wasn’t communicated well, since we couldn’t see a reason for their separation.

After some research, we found that WLN has a broader goal of social justice and empowerment for women. The program was initiated to connect female students with successful female professionals who can share their experiences in the workplace, with a focus on dealing with sexism and other topics that concern women in the workplace. By having those mentorship opportunities, they hope to empower women by providing them with necessary skills, so that they can be represented in all industries and battle the gender gap in certain fields.

We, as leaders of WeSTEM, naturally support WLN’s core goals and understand the need for them. Nonetheless, we believe that such programs that work towards empowering one sex cannot do so by excluding the other. While some parts of this mentorship program might be relevant to women only, we can see that other aspects of it, such as career development and obtaining professional skills, are beneficial to both female and male students. They can have general mentorship programs for all students who are interested in career advising, and a subprogram that is specific to women issues at the workplace.

According to the leaders of MENtorship, another reason for the mentorship groups’ gender separation was that they wanted to be considerate of the diverse backgrounds at NYUAD, which include students who may not feel comfortable being mentored by professionals from the opposite gender. While we understand the cultural aspect of this issue, we do not think that it needs to be tackled at an organizational level. Our diverse community is perhaps the most unique aspect of our campus, and with diversity comes inclusivity. SIGs such as MENtorship should target the entire student community and only within select programs should they cater to each student’s specific cultural background and preferences. In this case, one possible solution could be to have a student specify if they’re comfortable with being mentored by someone from the opposite gender during the sign-up phase, and accordingly assign the student an appropriate mentor.

We are perfectly aware of the gender gap in the workplace, and as leaders of WeSTEM, we are also working towards empowering students — all students — to bridge that gap. We believe that women and men have to work together if we want to see gender balance in the workplace. Therefore, we make sure that none of our events are gender-exclusive and that male and female students can benefit from all of them. We see that the only way to battle sexism in the workplace is by eliminating gender as a factor in determining our career paths and professional aspirations.

Taking into account that other factors beyond gender constitute our identity, the key to a successful mentorship program does not lie in the mentor and the mentee being from the same gender but in the support that the mentor receives in order to understand the individual needs of the mentee and how to cater to them. It seems that the gender separation does not to take into account cultural backgrounds, majors, career aspirations and other important aspects of the individual's identity and goals.

The creation of the MENtorship program raises the issue that men feel excluded from mentorship programs. However, we see that creating a separate program for men is counterproductive. In an ideal world, both SIGs would offer exactly equal opportunities and no gender would be disadvantaged. The reality, however, is not so. Different leadership and involvement can end up with different opportunities offered, and would lead to a section of the student population being denied the opportunities that best match them. With a single mentorship program, there would be a greater sense of collaboration, no room for competition, and the chance to create an inclusive environment and equal opportunity for all.

We believe that we can all be more inclusive in programs and initiatives on campus, even if they focus on a specific population. For SIGs that focus on gender, how can we bring in others as allies? How can we strive for opportunities for everyone in a way that bridges gaps without being exclusive?

As leaders of WeSTEM, a SIG in part based in gender, we understand how difficult it may be to design gender inclusive programs, but thinking about these issues is essential for the success of programs like ours. So, we are asking students, particularly those in leadership positions, to think hard about the goals of their programs, and whether their execution matches those goals and delivers the intended message.