Recently, the perceived gender exclusive gap between the Women’s Mentorship Program and the pilot Mentorship program at NYU Abu Dhabi has caused some controversy.

Last week, an article was published in The Gazelle criticizing the creation of the newly-established Student Interest Group Mentorship as a gender-divisive response to the four year old WMP. The article highlighted an apparent lack of collaboration between the two SIGs during the SIG Fair and pointed out a perceived need to merge the two programs in order to perpetuate gender inclusivity. However, the reasons behind the current structures of the two programs are multifaceted.

The WMP was established in 2013 with the aim to educate, guide and empower female NYUAD students with the core skills and values fundamental to quality leadership. By connecting students with outstanding female professionals from various fields in the UAE, the program enables an exchange of knowledge, experience and skills that we believe is crucial, not only in shaping both current and future leaders, but also in helping women uplift each other.

“Offices, boards and meetings are predisposed in today’s business and political worlds to be male-dominated spaces and they continue to propagate male advancement. [Therefore] the point of WMP is ... to give women that extra opportunity, that safe space, where their advancement is central to the missions and actions of the group,” says Nicole López del Carril, Class of 2014 and founder of the WMP.

Ultimately, the program transcends simple professional connections and focuses on self-growth and personal mentorship as tools to empower NYUAD students. More than shaping careers, WMP aims to shape attitudes and personalities.

While WMP believes that the first step toward empowering women is to enable women to uplift each other through mentorship, it is essential for all genders to enter as allies into the conversation of gender equality in the workplace and the world at large. Given WMP’s success in bridging the gap between professionals and students, plans to start a Mentorship program were initiated by Gabriel Antonio Garcia Leyva, Class of 2020, and presented to both WMP and the Career Development Center in early Spring 2017.

Jointly with WMP, the purported role of the Mentorship program is to provide all NYUAD students with the opportunities to connect with professionals while advocating for gender equality. Mentorship strives to promote discussions on equal gender rights and opportunities in the workplace within the male population, which we believe is a much needed initiative that must be cultivated by the current generation of male leaders.

So why have the two programs chosen to remain separate organizations? While the success of a mentoring relationship lies in the support and commitment of both students and professionals regardless of gender, it is important to note that creating mixed-gender pairings would require significant control mechanisms to avoid any situations of sexual misconduct, a risk that we are not prepared to take given the sensitivity of such issues in the UAE.

The decision to segregate genders was taken after several discussions between both programs’ boards and the Career Development Center in order to mitigate potential risks. Similar mitigating policies are applied in the university, for example restricting students’ access to graduate and staff housing. However, to promote greater inclusivity, both WMP and Mentorship will consider individuals’ applications from non-male identifying and non-female identifying students who will be given the ability to choose their mentors.

Secondly, due to the already-established and growing reputation of WMP within Abu Dhabi’s professional community, merging both programs to offer mentoring to all NYUAD students would undermine WMP’s central mission to empower women by diluting its importance in the face of new priorities. This would also cause a significant change in the brand identity and messaging of the WMP to its pool of professionals, a risk that both programs do not want to take early on in their collaboration. For this reason, Mentorship has been launched as a one year pilot program. This will allow them to gauge the level of interest from both students and professionals, test the viability of its mentorship component and strengthen its mission, before moving forward with a joint branding project with WMP.

Both organizations are well aware of the criticism we have received for our decisions. We find it important to restate that Mentorship was not created as a response to WMP but as a complement. Ultimately, the point of both organizations is not to exclude any gender but to preserve the centrality of female empowerment while providing mentorship to all interested students. Reaching this decision has been, admittedly, difficult and delicate because it can be easy to label this as a case of male encroachment upon a female-driven entity. However, we decided to attempt this new model where both programs can work side by side to further the conversation on gender equality. WMP and Mentorship are closely working together to host a number of joint events throughout the semester in order to enable all students and professionals, regardless of gender, to network, mingle and connect around various topics.

Rather than pointing out the segregated nature of student interest groups, we urge other women-oriented SIGs on campus to reflect on how to provide equal and inclusive opportunities to all NYUAD students, especially when it comes to mentorship opportunities, while preserving the central missions of their organizations, namely the empowerment of women. We also want to remind everyone that organizations geared towards female students are not protected from the creation of a male-oriented counterpart. The question then becomes how do you involve men in actively advocating the cause of gender equality beyond just inviting them to attend events?