The WCPS of the APSA recognized and publicly honored, very early, the debt that we all owe to our mentors. In part in response to the activities of members of the WCPS and those of the APSA's Committee on the Status of Women, currently chaired by Kristen Monroe, the Association, in turn, has come to value and support a more formal structure of mentoring.

Younger women, often isolated in a very male-dominated and -oriented field, are now recognized as in special need of mentoring. Those who are additionally marginalized by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation have, obviously, the most need. As to the older women in the field, those who are retired or on the verge of retirement, we were much aided by our seniors, most of them men. We have been happy to return a little of what we were given so generously when we ourselves were young and needy.

However, in the last few years I have become uncomfortable with the degree to which older folks are constantly asked for wisdom. It seems to me that we too have specific needs now that we are becoming older. Certainly, among the senior women in the field there is an amazing accumulation of wisdom and energy. But I have also noticed how many of the older women, admirable and admirably well occupied, nevertheless are afflicted by periods of depression. And I was astonished by some of the people who were affected.

So this roundtable was designed to be a consciousness-raising sort of sharing (as in the women's groups that I work on). Perhaps also it could be a chance to gossip a bit with women who were not the adoring—or occasionally critical—young. Rather to my surprise, it now seems that we were experiencing what might be called a premature awareness of “horizontal mentoring,” the sharing of experience with those at the same stage of life and profession. Women like us, aged 60 or more, who are professional political scientists, comprise a small but surprisingly diverse group, as the panel demonstrates. In addition, they are unique in important ways, as the panel also shows.

The women on this panel are high achievers, people who would be outstanding under any conditions. They publish frequently and notably, and they have all spent time in administration, some of them a great deal. They also include a very high proportion of institution-builders and activists both outside and inside the university. But their career paths were not the same as those of their male coevals. A number of these women experienced delays and difficulties in reaching a continuing academic appointment: two worked for considerable periods in “women's jobs,” while some were stalled for years in adjunct or temporary appointments (and this at a time when the academy was expanding exponentially). Furthermore, it is startling to note that none have held positions at the most prestigious private universities.

Today, in spite of the constriction of the academic market, no women of similar qualifications differ from their male peers in such ways. Their career paths are more like men's, and they are found among the faculty even at those institutions that, in our day, did not admit women as students. The younger cohorts of women political scientists can be expected, however, to share two other characteristics of this older one, characteristics that are likely to differentiate them from their male colleagues.

First, we cannot avoid recognizing the centrality of children or, more broadly, domesticity in women's lives and in their colleagues' views of them. For example, when one of our panelists was recognized and honored as a professional, she was also commended for her five children. We may disagree about the relevance of that motherly achievement; we can agree that it would not have been noted in praise of her distinguished academic husband. And we can assume that it had more impact on her life than on his.

Second, the lives of our panelists remind us that it is the women in the field who are still largely responsible for promoting the status of women, as well as most interested in issues related to women's role in politics and political theory. It is true that not all women political scientists see themselves as feminists, nor are all involved in the continuing struggles for equality, whether for women or other groups. Certainly many men are attentive to such issues. Yet it is worth noting that every single woman on the panel, possibly to her own surprise, found herself engaged in issues and activism related to the situation of women and minorities. Furthermore, they were among the earliest to seriously consider the theoretical implications of the situation of women in politics and in political analysis.¹

Domesticity and reproduction, the quest for equality, and attention to the role of women in politics and political science—these characteristics should definitely not be retired with the older women political scientists. Whatever our gender choice or assignment, we all need to think with some care of the consequences of becoming political scientists while also living the lives of women at the beginning of the 21st century.

The comments below grow out of the experience of these specific members of this first cohort of women in American political science. We have two goals in mind, as we set out this material for a wider audience than could attend our session in 2003: to alert the young, particularly young women, to what lies ahead, but even more to start a continuing discussion among the less-young women in the field.

In September 2003, at the APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, the Women's Caucus for Political Science (WCPS) presented a roundtable of distinguished political scientists, including past presidents of the Southern and American Political Science Associations. We asked five remarkable women—most now emeritae—to discuss “retirement,” a concept hard to reconcile with their continuing energy and activism. Their comments cast light on the experience of the earliest cohort of women political scientists in the U.S. and constitute a significant addition to the material available for the important activities we now call mentoring.

“Staging a Career, Staging a Life: Strategies for Retirement” was chaired by Eloise Buker, program chair and then chair of the WCPS. With Buker's unwavering support, I initiated the session, edited the texts, and have added here some of my responses to the presentations. Marianne Githens spoke about the joys of teaching and her ongoing plans; we hope to publish her remarks at a later date. Remarks made by Diane L. Fowlkes, Jean Grossholtz, Elinor Ostrom, and Jewel L. Prestage follow; each speaker has reviewed and approved the present version of their presentation.

We are particularly proud to present this discussion in the context of the growing efforts to mentor—to nurture—the participants in our profession, within as well as across age cohorts.