Female mentors make women more liberal, men more conservative

Female faculty advisors make their female students more liberal on gender issues. The same advisors make their male students more conservative. This effect is strongest in fields like engineering and for religious students.

Everyone assumed that more women in leadership would naturally lead to more gender equality. This paper shows that the effect is not simple. Instead, it creates a split: women become more empowered, and men react by becoming more resistant to those changes. This means that efforts to increase female representation in elite institutions might deepen existing social divisions.