Gender and Leadership in the Financial Sector

This book examines men in powerful positions who question relations of power and domination from within. Through an intersectional lens, it illustrates how gender, class and other dimensions of domination intertwine and how an emancipatory critique can emerge from such privileged positions. Drawing on interviews with 23 current and former male executives from the Swiss financial sector alongside autobiographical accounts, the study analyses patterns of what the author terms "emancipatory eutopian critique" - focusing less on critique as heroic opposition and more on transformations towards caring relationships. From fathers abandoning lucrative careers to care for children to executives embracing caring and responsible leadership, these narratives illuminate "eutopian transformations", showing how an orientation towards caring relations to the self and others in the present can create more dialogical and caring futures. The analysis demonstrates how privilege can become a site of resistance and offers theoretical tools, including "gender as mosaic". Aimed at scholars, policy-makers, practitioners and students interested in links between men, masculinities, organisations and social transformation, this book is an invaluable resource for those working in and beyond such fields as gender studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, organisation and leadership studies, political science, sociology, social and public policy, and social movement studies.

Anika Thym holds a PhD in gender studies from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her dissertation investigates how some men from leadership positions in finance think critically about their entanglement in hierarchical gender and class relations. Currently, she works as a researcher on diversity, equality and inclusion in the Swiss public sector. Research interests include social and gender theory, critical studies on men and masculinities, diversity, equality and inclusion policies, and emancipatory global governance. She is the co-editor of the books Contemporary Analysis of Masculinities in Switzerland (original in German, 2021) and the Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations: Theories, Practices and Futures of Organizing (2023).

Introduction: Possibilities and potentials of questioning hegemony from within; Part 1. Historical and conceptual framing; 1. Intersectional entanglements of gender, racialisation and finance; 2. Theoretical foundations: emancipatory eutopian critique from a privileged position; Part 2. Self-Critique of Hegemony in the Financial Sector; 3. Multiple starting points of critique; 4. Affects of masculinity: "Feelings of power" and the trap of longing to be "somebody"; 5. Affective critique: disgust and eutopian desire; 6. Caring and responsible leadership: 'Feminine' men and the promotion of women in leadership positions; 7. "It's a real war zone"- Questioning the bourgeois gendered and gendering division of labour; 8. "One sees the world totally differently again" - From top banker to involved fatherhood; 9. "I forgot about myself" - Questioning the lack of self-care; 10. Questioning financial hegemonies: class, the state and digitalisation; 11. Conditions of critique: Limits and possible solutions; Conclusion: Authoritarian versus eutopian transformations of hegemony