Erotic Mentoring:
Women's Transformations in the University

Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California, 2006 ISBN 1-59874-027-x

Janice Hocker Rushing completed Erotic Mentoring: Women's Transformations in the University only two months before she died. Ten years in the making, her book is based on interviews with over 200 women as well as the author's own experience. The book tells of how young women in the academic world are often mentored by older, more established men. Rushing uses pre-patriarchal mythology to untangle the meanings of these mentoring relationships for the women who shared them, for herself, and for any reader who might still struggle with similar experiences. Hers is a loving, compassionate account ofthe challenges, and the breakthroughs and transformations, of women as they reflec upon the shifting meanings of these mentoring episodes in their later lives.

From the first paragraph, "Women often form personal relationships in academia with men who attempt to mold them to fit their own masculine ideals. Such relationships quickly became a dominant leit-motif in my conversations with women. Partly because the higher ranks in academic are still overwhelmingly popuyated by men, many romantic pairings still occur between an older man, such as a professor, and a younger woman, such as a student or assistant professor. The pivotal myth that helps enlighten such relationships is "Pygmalian and Galatea," the story of a beautiful woman sculpted by the hands of an exacting master who falls in love with her."

Composite characters were created to exemplify the major ideas in the book. Dreams and stories are woven throughout. Rushing's book concludes with a transformative dream of her own in which she soars above an academic hall, then swoops down to pick up a child whom she calls, after Psyche's and Eros's pairing, "Joy."

Chapters include:

Alma Mater
Maiden Lover
Muse
Mistress
Brainchild
Siren
Veiled Woman
Amazon
Psyche's Marriage
Psyche's Labors
Divine Child