The Value of Mentorship
Maybe it’s all the time spent at home this past year making me more reflective, but I’ve been thinking with gratitude lately about women who have mentored me, encouraged me, and helped me along in my life. I don’t know if I would have thought of them as “mentors” at the times when they were helping me, but looking back now, I can see they were exactly that. As I reflect on the role mentorship has played in my life and how my mentors have empowered me and helped me grow, I’ve also been thinking about how I can be a mentor to others.
Mentorship is a relationship in which someone who is more experienced teaches or guides someone who has less experience, and I think the key word here is relationship. I’ve looked up to and admired many women who are successful, fulfilled, wise, and experienced. But only a few of them have been mentors to me, acting as trusted confidants, giving me advice, and providing supportive help.
When I was a teenager, my family went to a fundamentalist church where gender differences were emphasized above many other doctrines, and so-called “biblical womanhood” was on our minds a great deal. As a teenage girl, I was expected to attend the church-sponsored women’s Bible study where we learned how to be good wives and mothers. The following verses could have been our motto:
“Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.” (Titus 2:3-5 NRSV)
This passage served as the basis for the older women’s obligation to teach us younger women how to live godly lives. In reality, though, these verses (and the Bible in general) were twisted to be used as tools to enforce patriarchal authority and keep the women in total submission to the men of the church.
I was taught that I should train myself to be quiet and meek, make my home a pleasant place for my husband to relax, and be sexually available for my husband (or have my “garden gate” open for him whenever he wanted). Meanwhile, I was fourteen (obviously unmarried) and completely clueless about sex, but that seemed beside the point.
What I remember most about these women-only groups is discussions about our relationship to men and how we, as women, could better serve them. The women’s groups were meant to serve as mentorship opportunities, but I never felt seen or understood as an individual. I never felt like the issues I was facing (like anxiety and body image) were ever really addressed. I never felt mentored because the teaching was more like coercion than guidance.
Now, as an adult looking back at Titus 2, I try to separate the toxic hierarchy that was attached to the words by those experiences when I was younger. I still want to learn from other women. I want to live a balanced life, seeking God. I want to grow in a healthy relationship with my husband. I want to have a productive, meaningful life. And I would also like to grow in my capacity to help other women in turn.
I think we all crave mentorship or guidance in our lives. As children, we often look up to superheroes or public figures to serve as models as we imagine our future selves. My childhood heroes were Annie Oakley and Queen Elizabeth I, women who were known for being independent and breaking social norms (so I don’t know why anyone was surprised when my inner rebel came out eventually).
Since leaving the fundamentalist circles of my childhood, I have often felt lost in finding a way forward out of a past of oppression and stagnancy to a future of liberation and growth. But along the way, I have looked up to more experienced women who have encouraged me to live into my potential for growth, to be strong and independent. I am full of gratitude for their work in my life and to God for providing what I needed in their mentorship.
In learning to be a mentor myself, I hope to always remember how my own mentors have treated me: They showed me kindness and compassion, meeting me where I was. They encouraged me along my own journey, even if it was different from their own. They empowered me by helping me learn to trust myself again. They welcomed my questions and gave their perspective when I asked for it. They lifted me up when I was down. By showing me grace and understanding my trauma and struggles, they modeled how I might show grace and understanding to others in their experiences.
Now, when I think of women as mentors in the Bible, I’m drawn to Elizabeth receiving Mary as one pregnant woman to another. Older and more experienced, Elizabeth says a blessing over Mary: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:45 NIV). They share their experiences and spend time together, building their relationship as they both witness miracles in their lives.
I wonder how we, as women, can find mentorship opportunities to build each other up, recognize the miracle in each other’s lives, minister to each other’s hurts, pray for each other, and help each other grow in lives of grace and love. In a world where women are often taught to compete with each other and tear each other down, we can bring light to our lives by lifting each other up. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without women who have mentored me, and I hope I can do the same for others.
is a writer, reader, and publishing professional who lives with her husband in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After leaving the stay-at-home-daughter movement, she started over by studying creative writing at Michigan State University, working in education and literacy, and eventually finding her way to an editorial position in book publishing. Find her at caitwest.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @caitwestwrites.
Photograph © Women of Color in Tech, used with permission
