• The research indicates that the gender of a junior person does not influence the person’s likelihood of becoming a mentee;
• While the results vary, some studies indicate that female mentees receive less ‘instrumental’ or ‘career’ mentoring as opposed to ‘psycho-social mentoring which is role modeling, counselling. Although it is difficult to determine whether this is related to gender, or the fact that male mentees are more likely to have older male mentors who are in turn more likely to give ‘career’ mentoring;
• While the gender of the mentee has no impact on the outcomes of mentoring, the gender of the mentor does. There are better outcomes for the mentee when their mentor is a white male. 

Cross gender mentoring pairings (O’Neill in Clutterbuck & Ragins)

• Men are more likely than women to have a mentor of their own sex, which is not surprising as men are much more likely to identify men as role models;
• When a woman has a male mentor, she is likely to avoid socialising with him due to the perception of a sexual involvement. This means that women will generally have less access than men to information gained from informal gatherings;
• Some research also indicates the prevalence of sexual or romantic feelings in cross gender mentoring pairings. To overcome this it has been suggested that other forms of mentoring such as ‘mentoring circles’ or small group mentoring in which several people mentor a group of mentees;
• Male mentors needs to be aware that usually women have less power in an organisation, face gender barriers to advancement and need to develop different strategies for advancement than male colleagues. A male mentor who considers himself ‘gender blind’ may be doing the mentoring relationship a disservice as he may recommend advancement strategies which will work for men not women. Eg ‘showcasing talent’ may be viewed as assertive and confident for men but immodest and bragging for women. 

Strategies

Parties need to understand that mentoring is embedded in the larger context of inter-group and diversity in an organisation. They need to understand how women differ in power and privilege in their organisation before they can understand how diversity impacts on their own mentoring relationships. This can be done through:

• Understanding how the organisation can be different for different people and that strategies which an be used for one group may not be appropriate for others;
• Diversity in the mentoring relationship, eg group difference such as gender as well as individual differences should be acknowledged but they should not overshadow the relationship; 
• Managing perceptions within the organisation;
• Avoiding perceptions of favouritism and also importantly with women romantic involvement with male mentors; and
• Organisation change where diversity is accepted and nurtured, in particular diversity in management.