ABSTRACT
Compounding the particular problems of specializing in composition studies—suicidal, some say, because it is woman’s work, and thus devalued—has been the historical reality of male-dominated academe, including the traditional English department. Despite the common positive connotation of mentor, perhaps the term makes the author uncomfortable because of social and political ideologies residing within it. Many women writing teachers now in their 40s and 50s were first placed at the margins of their profession by graduate school experiences. The ideology underlying mentoring relationships is one of power. The symbolic actions of a maverick usually lead to a creative realization of self. Too many of the reader—even senior women and men in positions to mentor graduate students and younger colleagues—are trapped in old-fashioned English departments. There were mentoring relationships on the master—apprentice model for the literati, but none for the reader in composition.
