I’d like to start a petition to change the name of mentoring to womentoring (anyone up for creating a new entry in Wikipedia?). The boys don’t really need the word mentoring anyway – often it’s something they do quite naturally, so why would they need a special term for it? We promise, when womentoring becomes a normal, everyday practice for women, we’ll resort back to the original word. It may take a while, although with women’s mentoring programs blooming around the world, it could be sooner rather than later. Example: unprecedented numbers of women have registered to attend PWA Milan’s 3rd annual mentoring program launch on March 21. Just imagine…standing room only, for womentoring!

Incidentally, if you’re interested in going out and finding a (wo)mentor for yourself, click here for several concrete suggestions on how to go about it (excerpted from my related presentation at PWA’s 2011 mentoring launch).

P.S. On the other hand, I wouldn’t make any move to change the word mentalist to womentalist. How on earth could we ever find a female replacement for Simon Baker, whose charm and fascino are unparalleled?