Femme-toring: leveraging critical femininities and femme theory to cultivate alternative approaches to mentoring

Both traditional and new wave mentoring (or men-toring), intentionally or unintentionally, maintain and reproduce neoliberal toxic masculinist norms in academia. By applying femme theory via a critical femininities lens we expose how men-toring is exclusionary and assimilationist. We then queer mentoring by theorizing femme-toring as an alternative reformist approach rooted in fem(me)inist epistemologies and ethics of care, in particular, softness, vulnerability, collaboration, and yielding. By leveraging systems theory and Foucauldian theory, we contend that by centering femininity in these ways, femme-toring could unsettle toxic hegemonic masculinist norms and offer possibilities for worldmaking a more inclusive academia.