ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the men in the study construct themselves as natural men, endowed with natural masculinity. However, this is not just any kind of masculinity, since their job in investment banking places them at the top of the status hierarchy; they represent an ideal masculinity against which other men measure themselves. The chapter focuses on men in investment banking. The empirical material presented here was collected as part of a more comprehensive project on the Nordic financial industry. The chapter examines how masculinity and economics are interlinked in the design of investment banking. Why do so many more men than women seek to work in investment banking, and why do they stay there while women leave? The chapter shows how a combined organizational and gender perspective may help to explain both internal and external patterns, contradictions and opportunities for change in a high-status, top niche within contemporary capitalism: investment banking.
