The systems psychodynamics of gendered hiring: Personal anxieties and defensive organizational practices within the New Zealand film industry

Abstract

This article uses systems psychodynamic concepts to explore the creation and reproduction of gendered inequality within the New Zealand film industry. The article focuses on the ways in which senior film production workers’ anxieties about hiring, or working with, women influence the process of assembling project teams. It suggests that the process of choosing team members creates considerable anxiety for both senior film production workers with responsibility for hiring and lower-status team members who need to rely on them to create high-functioning teams. The industry ideal of the autonomous creative worker is implicitly gendered, conforming more closely to traditional concepts of the unencumbered male worker than traditional ideals of femininity and motherhood. The antithesis between these representations creates anxiety, raising unconscious fears that women as a category are less trustworthy workers. Consequently, discriminatory hiring practices that diminish these anxieties become collectively accepted as rational responses to organizational problems and embedded within the social system as collectively endorsed defences against anxiety. Given that project-based employment is temporary, this pattern of discrimination against women is regularly repeated and contributes to entrenched gender inequality within the film industry. Qualitative data from interviews with 12 male and 13 female film production workers is presented to illustrate this analysis.

Combining ethics and compliance: A systems psychodynamic inquiry into praxis and outcomes

“…The organisational system is also part of the macro social system, which include aspects such as legislative and governance requirements, stakeholders’ expectations, and what happens in the greater business world (Petriglieri & Petriglieri, 2020). From the systemic perspective, SPT posits that individuals behave not only on own volition, but largely as part of, and on behalf of, the larger system (Handy & Rowlands, 2017; Pratt & Crosina, 2016). Particularly, executives become channels of collective wishes—both their own and the projected wishes of internal and external stakeholders (Petriglieri & Petriglieri, 2020).…”

“…The systems psychodynamic enquirer takes an interpretive stance, scrutinises and interprets observations of the organisational system in terms of SPT to extract cues about what could be happening (Cilliers, 2017; Gould, 2018). From this analysis, working hypotheses about organisational dynamics are conceptualised as speculative reflections and explanations (Handy & Rowlands, 2017), which are driven by plausibility rather than indisputable accuracy (De Klerk, 2012). In this article, the working hypotheses culminated in five systems psychodynamic propositions about plausible dynamics and forces underlying the respective phenomena.…”

Institutional Illogics: The Unconscious and Institutional Analysis

“…For example, Fraher (2004b) examined how American commercial airline pilots’ desire to carry guns post-9/11 emerged from pilots’ regression to a heroic, individualistic character, fears of ‘foreigners’, and the role of guns in American culture as a means of taking action and restoring order. Similarly, Handy and Rowlands (2017) use systems psychodynamic theory to explore the creation and reproduction of gendered inequality within the New Zealand film industry. They describe how anxieties underpin ‘a complex web of connections linking emotional, interpersonal and structural aspects of gendered inequality within project-based creative labour’ (Handy & Rowlands, 2017, p. 20).…”

“…Similarly, Handy and Rowlands (2017) use systems psychodynamic theory to explore the creation and reproduction of gendered inequality within the New Zealand film industry. They describe how anxieties underpin ‘a complex web of connections linking emotional, interpersonal and structural aspects of gendered inequality within project-based creative labour’ (Handy & Rowlands, 2017, p. 20).…”

Balls, Barbecues and Boxing: Contesting gender regimes at organizational social events

“…Since Joan Acker's (1990Acker's ( , 1992Acker's ( , 2006aAcker's ( , 2006b) ground-breaking analyses of gendered organizations, an extensive literature on the mechanisms that create and maintain gender and power relations in organizations has emerged. In particular, scholars have shown the gender-segregating consequences of management practices such as recruitment (Bryant & Jaworski, 2011;Handy & Rowlands, 2017); job evaluation, performance measurement and pay systems (Castilla, 2012); work-life balance policies (Mescher, Benschop, & Doorewaard, 2010); plus corporate strategies (Dye & Mills, 2012). Scholars consistently conclude that, despite intensified governmental and business initiatives towards gender equality, unequal gender regimes still prevail.…”