Capital Culture E-Book

Linda McDowell

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Studies in Urban and Social Change
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 482

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The changing nature of waged work in contemporary advanced industrial nations is one of the most significant aspects of political and economic debate. It is also the subject of intense debate among observers of gender. Capital Culture explores these changes focusing particularly on the gender relations between the men and women who work in the financial services sector. The multiple ways in which masculinities and femininities are constructed is revealed through the analysis of interviews with dealers, traders, analysts and corporate financiers. Drawing on a range of disciplinary approaches, the various ways in which gender segregation is established and maintained is explored. In fascinating detail, the everyday experiences of men and women working in a range of jobs and in different spaces, from the dealing rooms to the boardrooms, are examined. This volume is unique in focusing on men as well as women, showing that for men too there are multiple ways of doing gender at work.

Leseprobe

Contents

List of Illustrations

FIGURES

PLATES

MAPS

List of Tables

Series Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Money and Work

Part I Gender at Work

1 Thinking through Work: Gender, Power and Space

INTRODUCTION: ORGANISATION, SPACE AND CULTURE

MEN’S JOBS, WOMEN’S JOBS: EMPLOYMENT CHANGE IN THE 1980S AND 1990S

EXPLAINING ORGANISATIONAL AND WORKPLACE CHANGE

GENDER SEGREGATION AT WORK

GENDERED ORGANISATIONS: SEXING AND RESEXING JOBS

NORMALISING THE SELF

BODIES AT WORK

THE PLACES AND SPACES OF WORK

CONCLUSIONS

2 City Work/Places: The Old and New City

INTRODUCTION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF OLD MONEY

THE MONEY CULTURE: CHANGES IN THE ‘NEW’ CITY

THE LANDSCAPE OF MONEY: CITY SPACES

CONCLUSIONS

NOTE

3 Gendered Work Patterns

INTRODUCTION

GENDER AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH FROM BIG BANG

GENDER SEGREGATION IN THE CITY

GENDER SEGREGATION IN MERBANK: PIPELINE OR GLASS CEILING?

GENDER AND EMPLOYMENT IN MERBANK

CONCLUSIONS

4 Gendered Career Paths

INTRODUCTION

WORK HISTORIES

OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY AMONG WOMEN IN PROFESSIONAL OCCUPATIONS: SOME COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE

CAREER PROGRESSION IN MERCHANT BANKING

STARTING OUT – TRAINEE DEALERS

HITTING THE BIG(GER) TIME

SERIOUS MONEY – ASSISTANT DIRECTORS IN CORPORATE FINANCE

GETTING TO THE TOP

WOMEN DIRECTORS

CONCLUSIONS

5 The Culture of Banking: Reproducing Class and Gender Divisions

INTRODUCTION

MONEY CULTURE: THE AMERICANISATION OF THE CITY?

RECRUITING WORKERS: REPRODUCING AN ELITE

THE IMPORTANCE OF ‘FIT’

CONCLUSIONS

NOTES

Part II Bodies at Work

6 Engendered Cultures: The Impossibility of Being a Man

INTRODUCTION

THE DRAMA OF WORK AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SELF

MARKED AS ‘WOMAN’ IN THE WORKPLACE

NOTHING BUT BODY

DEALING WITH SEXUALISED TALK AND BEHAVIOUR

‘BRAINS AREN’T ENOUGH’: DRESSING THE BODY FOR WORK

CITY TALK / MEN’S TALK: BATS, BALLS AND BULLETS

RESTRICTED ROLES: WIFE, MOTHER, MISTRESS, MAN?

THE HONORARY MAN – OR NOT?

CONCLUSIONS

7 Body Work 1: Men Behaving Badly

INTRODUCTION

READING CITY IMAGES

‘FACTION’ AND REALITY?

GENDER PERFORMANCES AT WORK

WORKING SITES

DOING GENDER IN THE DEALING ROOMS/ON THE TRADING FLOOR

THE LEESON AFFAIR

GENDERED ATTRIBUTES

CONCLUSIONS

8 Body Work 2: The Masqueraders

INTRODUCTION

DOING GENDER IN CORPORATE FINANCE

HYBRID SUBJECTS: MALE BONDING AND NETWORKING

REPRESENTING WOMEN: PRINCESSES AND OLDER WOMEN

FEMININE PARODIES AND MASQUERADES

UNEASY SEDUCTION; MASQUERADE OR THE ‘REAL’ SELF

CONCLUSIONS

9 Conclusions: Rethinking Work/Places

CITY CHANGES

THE CHANGING NATURE OF WORK AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICIES

Appendix: The Field Work

Bibliography

Index

Studies in Urban and Social Change

Published by Blackwell in association with the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Seríes editors: Chris Pickvance, Margit Mayer and John Walton.

Published

The City Builders

Susan S. Fainstein

Divided Cities

Susan S. Fainstein, Ian Gordon, and Michael Harloe (eds)

Fragmented Societies

Enzo Mingione

Free Markets and Food Riots

John Walton and David Seddon

The Resources of Poverty

Mercedes González de la Rocha

Post-Fordism

Ash Amin (ed.)

The People’s Home?

Social Rented Housing in Europe and America

Michael Harloe

Cities after Socialism

Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies

Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe and Ivan Szelenyi (eds)

Urban Poverty and the Underclass: A Reader

Enzo Mingione

Capital Culture

Gender at Work in the City

Linda McDowell

Forthcoming

Urban Social Movements and the State

Margit Mayer

Contemporary Urban Japan

A Sociology of Consumption

John Clammer

The Social Control of Cities

Sophie Body-Gendot

Copyright © Linda McDowell 1997

The right of Linda McDowell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 1997

Blackwell Publishers Ltd

108 Cowley Road

Oxford OX4 1JF

UK

Blackwell Publishers Inc.

350 Main Street

Maiden, Massachusetts 02148

USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mcchanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Libraiy Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

McDowell, Linda.

Capital culture: gender at work in the city/Linda McDowell.

p. cm. — (Studies in urban and social change)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-631-20530-6. — ISBN 0-631-20531-4

1. Sexual division of labor—England—London. 2. Sex role in the work environment—England—London. 3. Financial services industry-England—London. 4. Women employees—England—London—Interviews. 5. Male employees—England—London—Interviews. I. Title.

II. Series.

HD6060.65.G72L66 1997

306.3’615’09421—DC21    97–7780

CIP

In memory of my father, F. H, Leigh 1917–1995

List of Illustrations

FIGURES

3.1Employment in Greater London by financial category, 1981–19913.2Women as a percentage of all employees in investment banks in the City, 19923.3Employment in Merbank by gender and status3.4Distribution of professional men and women by department in Merbank3.5Distribution of professional men and women by grade in Merbank

PLATES

2.1The new Lloyds building juxtaposed to Victorian solidarity2.2Broadgate façade2.3Bankers at play2.4Serra’s ‘Fulcrum’2.5Botero’s ‘Broadgate Venus’7.1Youthful exuberance on the trading floor8.1Patriarchal attitudes8.2Head and shoulders8.3Young, and sexy, princes8.4Princesses: objects of male desire?8.5Female authority?8.6Outrageous femininity

MAPS

2.1UK banks and other finance houses in the City, 19942.2Foreign banks in the City, 1993

List of Tables

3.1Employment in financial services in Greater London, 1981–19913.2Employment in financial services in the City of London, 19913.3Occupational distribution of women and men in the City of London’s investment banks, 19923.4Perceived job segregation by economic sector3.5Women and men by age and grade in Merbank4.1Marital and familial status and age of women and men in professional occupations in the ‘three banks’ sample4.2The characteristics of the ‘three banks’ sample of professional employees4.3Comparison of salary levels in investment banking in 1992

Series Preface

In the past three decades there have been dramatic changes in the fortunes of cities and regions, in beliefs about the role of markets and states in society, and in the theories used by social scientists to account for these changes. Many of the cities experiencing crisis in the 1970s have undergone revitalisation while others have continued to decline. In Europe and North America new policies have introduced privatisation on a broad scale at the expense of collective consumption, and the viability of the welfare state has been challenged. Eastern Europe has witnessed the collapse of state socialism and the uneven implementation of a globally driven market economy. Meanwhile the less developed nations have suffered punishing austerity programmes that divide a few newly industrialising countries from a great many cases of arrested and negative growth.

Social science theories have struggled to encompass these changes. The earlier social organisational and ecological paradigms were criticised by Marxian and Weberian theories, and these in turn have been disputed as all-embracing narratives. The certainties of the past, such as class theory, are gone and the future of urban and regional studies appears relatively open.

The aim of the series Studies in Urban and Social Change is to take forward this agenda of issues and theoretical debates. The series is committed to a number of aims but will not prejudge the development of the field. It encourages theoretical works and research monographs on cities and regions. It explores the spatial dimension of society including the role of agency and of institutional contexts in shaping urban form. It addresses economic and political change from the household to the state. Cities and regions are understood within an international system, the features of which are revealed in comparative and historical analyses.

The series also serves the interests of university classroom and professional readers. It publishes topical accounts of important policy issues (e.g. global adjustment), reviews of debates (e.g. post-Fordism) and collections that explore various facets of major changes (e.g. cities after socialism or the new urban underclass). The series urges a synthesis of research and theory, teaching and practice. Engaging research monographs (e.g. on women and poverty in Mexico or urban culture in Japan) provide vivid teaching materials just as policy-oriented studies (e.g. of social housing or urban planning) test and redirect theory. The city is analysed from the top down (e.g. through the gendered culture of investment banks) and the bottom up (e.g. in challenging social movements). Taken together, the volumes in the series reflect the latest developments in urban and regional studies.

Subjects which fall within the scope of the series include; explanations for the rise and fall of cities and regions; economic restructuring and its spatial, class and gender impact; race and identity; convergence and divergence of the ‘east’ and ‘west’ in social and institutional paterns; new divisions of labour and forms of social exclusion; urban and environmental movements; international migration and capital flows; politics of the urban poor in developing countries; cross-national comparisons or housing, planning and development; debates on post-Fordism, the consumption sector and the ‘new’ urban poverty.

Studies in Urban and Social Change addresses an international and interdisciplinary audience of researchers, practitioners, students and urban enthusiasts. Above all, it endeavours to reach the public with compelling accounts of contemporary society.

Editorial CommitteeJohn Walton, ChairMargit MayerChris Pickvance

May 1997

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of field work in the City of London. While the banks who opened their doors to me and the people who talked to me must remain anonymous, I want to thank them for their interest and frankness. It was a pleasure for me to learn about their ideas and their everyday lives and I hope they think the results have been worth it. I have also been fortunate to be able to share this work with colleagues and friends in a range of institutions in many parts of the world. The study was started in the company of social scientists, mainly geographers at the Open University, funded by an ESRC grant. I acknowledge the support of this institution and the companionship, intellectual stimulus and advice of John Allen, Allan Cochrane, Chris Hamnett, Doreen Massey and Phil Sarre, but especially Gill Court who is now working in the USA. I am indebted to her not only for carrying out many of the interviews on which this book is based but also for the analysis of personnel data from one of the case study banks. Some of the argument in chapters 2 and 3 is drawn from working papers that Gill and I wrote together, and chapters 6 and 7 are rewritten versions of jointly authored papers,

Rosemary Pringle was a key influence. Her work on secretaries (Pringle, 1989), which I read before I came to know her, helped me to think about sexuality, power and desire in the workplace. I was then fortunate to be able to work with Rosemary at the Open University in 1991, and her friendship, along with that of Sophie Watson, was vital in influencing my ideas about power at work, I am also grateful to many of the feminist colleagues inside and outside geography departments who have talked, discussed and argued with me as I worked on this book. In particular, I thank Susan Christopherson, Susan Hanson and Margaret Fitzsimmons in the USA and Liz Bondi, Suzy Reimer, Hazel Christie, Jennifer Rubin, Sylvia Walby, Jane Wills and Michelle Lowe in the UK. I also thank all those people who heard me give papers drawing on parts of this work. Although I cannot acknowledge you all individually, your comments made a difference. The debt I owe to Nigel Thrift should be evident in the text. It was he who first provoked me to an empirical investigation of the social structure of the ‘new’ City. A longer debt to Ray Pahl must also be gratefully acknowledged. I first met Ray as the ‘boss’ of the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences at the University of Kent years ago and since then he has become a friend as well as a colleague. His stimulating work ‘on work’ throughout the 1980s has been a key influence.

While I started the research on which this book is based at the Open University, the main part and its completion occurred after I moved to the Department of Geography at Cambridge. In its congenial atmosphere, I found stimulus and space to write and the interest of Stuart Corbridge, Ron Martin and Alan Hudson in global money was a boon. So thanks go to my newer colleagues too. Margit Mayer, Chris Pickvance and John Walton, the editors of this series, read the whole of the book when it was longer than this and their insightful comments were a great help in the production of a leaner version. I am extremely grateful for their succinct, incisive but encouraging editorial advice. Finally, the insights I gained from texts and interviews into forms of masculinity and femininity were immeasurably strengthened by living with my adolescent children: to Hugh and Sarah I owe a debt greater than they know. I thank them and their father for their love and support – and all the meals they made when I was busy.

Parts of this book have previously appeared in earlier versions as: ‘Gender divisions of labour in the post-Fordist economy’, Environment and Planning A (Pion Ltd, London, 1994), 26, pp. 1397–418; ‘Missing subjects: gender, power, and sexuality in merchant banking’, Economic Geography (July 1994), 70:2, pp. 229–51; ‘Performing work: bodily representations in merchant banks’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (Pion Ltd, London, 1994), 12, pp. 727–50; and ‘Body work’ in D. Bell and G. Valentine (eds), Mapping Desire (Routledge, London, 1995),

The author and publisher are also grateful to the following for permission to reproduce the photographs: Emma Hallett (plate 2.1), the Guardian and the Observer (plates 2.3, 7.1, 8.5), Kippa Matthews (plate 8.2), Rapho (plate 8.4). Every effort has been made to trace copyright-holders, and we apologise for any errors or omissions in these acknowledgements. The publisher would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in the next edition or reprint of this book.

Linda McDowell

Introduction: Money and Work

In the 1980s there was a huge expansion of employment in the financial services sector of advanced industrial economies. In Britain, the US and Japan, the deregulation of money markets, the development of new financial instruments and the introduction of new technologies that enabled the almost instantaneous transfer of vast sums of money between the monetary exchanges in each of these nations seemed to point to a new and exciting economic future based on the transfer of invisible sums of money – a sort of clean and virtual future in which older notions about the basis of economic growth and the nature of work would disappear. The urban theorist Manuel Castells argued that the technological innovations had created a deterritorialised ‘space of flows’ (Castells, 1989) in which what geographers refer to as the friction of distance had vanished. Money, advice and even people could be moved round the world at high speeds. Space and time had been compressed, according to David Harvey (1989a), and truly, as Marx had foretold, all that was solid – factories, goods, labour – seemed to have melted into air or, more prosaically, into the glass fibre cables of telecommunications. Other urban scholars suggested that the cities in which financial markets – the apotheosis of the new international economy – were based had become increasingly detached from other cities within their nation state, instead becoming ‘global cities’ with more in common with each other than cities lower down the urban hierarchy (Sassen, 1990; King, 1990b). In these cities, new forms of work were undertaken by an international elite who were as at home in London as Frankfurt, in New York as Tokyo – the new middle class of the late twentieth century. Changes in the world economy revolving around the expansion of an international financial services sector through deregulation and the globalisation of markets, trade and labour had led to the strong growth of a new category of professionals in the 1980s, with new ways of working and living and different cultural values and norms from their predecessors. Thus, as Featherstone has argued (1990):