The Mike Pence Effect and the Negative Impact on Equitable Mentoring
Lawyers who refuse to dine or drink alone with members of the opposite sex who are not their spouses imperil critical mentoring opportunities.
January 26, 2018 at 02:43 PM
11 minute read
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When Vice President Mike Pence announced that he followed the “Billy Graham Rule” and refused to dine or drink alone with any woman that was not his wife, social commentators erupted with scorn—attacking his religious and conservative political beliefs.
But Pence is not alone in his reluctance to spend alone time with someone of the opposite gender. Harvard Business Review found that 64 percent of executive men were reluctant to have one-on-one meetings with junior women. Similarly, a New York Times survey found that nearly half of men, 45 percent, felt it was inappropriate to have dinner alone with a woman, and 22 percent felt that it was inappropriate to have a work meeting alone with a woman.
And this is not a one-sided feeling from a gender perspective. Actually, more women than men feel strongly about avoiding alone time with nonspousal members of the opposite sex. The same New York Times survey also found that over half of the surveyed women, 53 percent, felt it was inappropriate to dine alone with men who are not their spouse. Women also objected to routine work situations involving alone time with a nonspousal male: 44 percent of women objected to lunch and 25 percent objected to work meetings.
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