This article explores men’s psychic attachments to organisational masculinities in the context of gender equality initiatives in the UK finance sector. Deploying an object-relations psychoanalysis and generating interview data with 30 male executives and non-executives, it unpacks why and how men outwardly support but unconsciously repudiate workplace gender equality. We explain how this conflict indicates the presence of what Melanie Klein terms the paranoid-schizoid position. We examine two key unconscious processes of the paranoid-schizoid position in men’s accounts: gender-splitting, when men dissociate undesirable aspects of organisational masculinity, and projection, when repressed, negative parts of their masculine ideals are instead attributed to women. This article’s contributions demonstrate how the paranoid-schizoid position is defensive, enabling men to articulate support for gender equality, but also protect paranoid constructions of organisational masculinity when it is threatened by women. Empirically and theoretically, this article shows how organisational masculinities are ambivalent, which in Kleinian terms underscores how masculinity has ‘good’ and ‘bad’ components that are constituted unconsciously through its relationship with the object world. This article concludes by drawing out the implications for (re)positioning men within workplace gender equality debates and activities.

中文翻译：

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男性对工作场所性别平等的焦虑和防御：组织男性气质的客体关系精神分析


本文探讨了英国金融部门性别平等倡议背景下男性对组织男子气概的心理依恋。它采用客体关系心理分析并生成对 30 名男性高管和非高管的访谈数据，揭示了男性表面上支持但无意识地否认职场性别平等的原因和方式。我们解释了这种冲突如何表明梅兰妮·克莱因（Melanie Klein）所说的偏执-分裂位置的存在。我们研究了男性账户中偏执-分裂位置的两个关键无意识过程：性别分裂，即男性将组织中男性气概的不良方面分离出来；以及投射，即当男性理想的消极部分受到压抑时，他们会转而将其归因于女性。本文的贡献展示了偏执-分裂立场如何具有防御性，使男性能够表达对性别平等的支持，同时在受到女性威胁时保护组织男性气概的偏执建构。从经验和理论上来说，本文展示了组织中的男性气质是如何矛盾的，用克莱因的术语来说，这强调了男性气质如何具有“好”和“坏”的成分，这些成分是通过其与客体世界的关系无意识地构成的。本文最后阐述了在工作场所性别平等辩论和活动中（重新）定位男性的影响。