Mainstream media has recently reported that a parliamentary committee is renewing their inquiry into sexism and misogyny in the City of London, following sexual harassment allegations that have ‘rocked the business world’.
These allegations include claims that the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was characterised by toxic cultures and extreme sexual misconduct, while more recently, hedge fund leader Crispin Odey has been accused of sexual assault. Clearly, stories of this nature are not new and this is not a problem confined to the City. Abuses of power seem widespread.
It is, however, possible that the City faces specific challenges as its leaders seek to address these issues. These may also be relatively context specific, given a history of masculine domination and macho cultures.
To trace a brief history, until the mid-20th century, the City was largely the domain of ‘gentlemanly capitalists’. Democratisation and some diversification took place during its second half, though it remained closely associated with ‘City boys’, caricatured by comedian Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’. Since then, there have been numerous efforts to ensure women are both better represented and more genuinely included in City cultures, motivated by the business case that diverse talent will help drive performance. Ensuring more women reach the top has also been seen as a way to help curb the worst excesses of a testosterone-fuelled culture, characterised by an excessive appetite for risk. This is sometimes known as the ‘Lehman Sisters’ thesis.
One obvious problem here is that making women responsible for managing men’s behaviour is a rather patriarchal position in itself, not to say somewhat essentialistic. It hints at an expectation that women are not only different from men, but are also in some sense morally ‘better’.
There are other aspects of City cultures which make change difficult, related in part to its tendency to avoid accountability in the face of critiques. To provide some context here, I often argue that the UK and the City are in a longstanding but rather dysfunctional relationship: the UK needs the City, and yet often, the City hurts the UK. This is a form of co-dependency developed over centuries, as the City has helped finance UK expansion and trade and generate its wealth, which in turn informed Margaret Thatcher’s commitments during the 1980s to the expansion of the UK’s financial service sector, which she saw as the UK’s engine of growth. While the City does make a significant contribution to the UK economy including in terms of tax receipts, its tendency towards regular crisis and near collapse has a deeply problematic effect on our economy and society in many other respects.
This background may seem like a deviation from the original point, but critical here is that the City has enormous influence and power, which offers it in turn a remarkable ability to control its own narrative.
In questions of sexism and misogyny, this happens in several ways. One is by ensuring a lack of transparency. In other words, it is often difficult to know exactly what goes on behind the doors of City firms, not least because employees are instructed not to speak. To the extent the City is a meritocracy, it is one based on money, so that power and influence are closely related to the amount of cash an individual generates. When it’s a lot, poor behaviour is more likely to be conveniently overlooked, even when this extends to bullying and sexual harassment. Where individuals do make complaints, affected parties have generally been expected to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Second, when asked to confront more uncomfortable truths about its culture and operations, some City leaders adopt tactics more typically associated with an abuser – those that, in other contexts, have been given the acronym DARVO: deny, attack, or reverse the victim and offender. This can sometimes take place in an almost ritualistic way. For example, in my experience of numerous seminars and workshops devoted to gender and inequality in the City, there is an established and accepted script, where City representatives acknowledge the need for change, in order to deny there has not been enough. On occasions where I have pointed to a certain continuity in City cultures, a common response from leaders is to argue that such negativity risks discouraging action, a form of attack which blames the critic for setting the agenda back. An alternative though related strategy is for City leaders to cast themselves as unfortunate victims of trenchant enemies for whom it is sadly misunderstood, thus reversing the critique.
Of course, these tactics are not universally applied but, where they are, this could be seen as a reflection of, and a means to reproduce, a form of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ which persists in the City even today, and which describes how men’s dominant position is legitimated in society, along with a particular version of masculinity.
Feminist writers have long been aware that cultures such as these are harmful to women and men. Directing her comments towards the latter, eminent feminist writer Andrea Dworkin said in 1983: ‘You damn well better believe that you’re involved in this tragedy and that it’s your tragedy too.’ She was describing how men are socialised to avoid the humanity of women in capitalist societies which require that their own humanity must also be denied in a relentless pursuit of profit, which ‘grinds you up and spits you out’. She advised men to look more closely ‘at what this system does to you’, including as it makes men ‘very afraid of other men’. These latter thoughts reflect those of scholar bell hooks who argued that in patriarchal cultures, men’s self-esteem is based on comparisons with other men, making it imperative not to show weakness, which is associated with shame.
To some readers, these points may seem outdated or overblown yet even today, they correspond in some senses with a City whose leaders can seem reluctant to admit when they have got things wrong. Let’s not forget, the City is also at the pinnacle of a what is arguably a somewhat masculinist model which prioritises individualism and extreme competition, and which makes sharp divisions between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, in pursuit of a narrow model of ‘success’. This model is also associated with high levels of stress, poor mental health and, for some, total burnout.
Against this backdrop, attempts to tackle sexism and misogyny within the City as elsewhere have often relied on ‘initiatives’ typically aimed at supporting women, but future progress almost certainly requires renewed attention paid to how we can remodel masculinity. While this must be a collaborative effort between the sexes, this is a movement which can only be led by men.
Louise Ashley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London and Fellow of its Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Highly Discriminating by Louise Ashley is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £19.99.
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