ABSTRACT
Debates about gender equity, inclusion and diversity across a range of institutions historically dominated by men continue, across jurisdictions and with few exceptions, to be discursively positioned in terms of a ‘woman problem’ and, more specifically, via a set of assumptions about the interconnections between women, work and care. This paper reframes and ‘turns on its head’ this conversation, exploring the arenas of global finance and large transnational law firms as a locus for hegemonic processes associated with masculinity, spatiality and professional identity formation in relation to ideas and practices around fathering and fatherhood. The paper questions the processes whereby ideas of men’s parenting are framed in the context of a commercial, hyper-competitive professional paradigm, charting a reframing of professional values and ethics and emergence of new forms of masculinities in the context of neoliberalism. The analysis reveals the status of men as ‘successful’ bankers, lawyers and fathers and their access to financial and political power is integrally related to their well-paid City of London-based jobs and constituted and reinforced in both work and family contexts in ways that confirm and normalize gender inequalities. In so doing, the paper, by drawing on interviews with male bankers and lawyers at different stages of their careers, explores a significant gap in scholarship regarding the interrelationship of forms of hegemony linked with law and global finance in the City of London and family relations and everyday social practices. In each arena, the paper argues, rethinking men and the practices, cultures and values that shape and are shaped by their daily lives can shed light on aspects of these debates around gender equity and inclusion and the dynamics of men’s resistance to change.
