‘The most important decisions are made in the sauna’: the role of social capital in creating intersectional privilege in the career narratives of Estonian male managers

Abstract

This article contributes to discussions on social capital in relation to masculinities, as it explores how talking about relying on social capital legitimates and normalises the hegemonic status of intersectionally privileged unmarked groups. This is examined through narratives of ethnic Estonian male managers. The narratives suggest that while these managers make use of social capital as a resource available to them in securing work-related success, they underestimate, take for granted and do not challenge the prominent role of social ties in this process, discursively obscuring ways how social capital works in hiring and promotion. These discursive practices enable intersectionally privileged men not only to maintain successful careers, but also to reproduce their hegemonic status in the society more generally, as well as help to display complicity with hegemonic masculinity and participate in the construction of this ideal in the context of managerial work. Privileged groups who are able to pass as unmarked – such as elite ethnic majority men – have the power to legitimate in the context of work certain norms, values, rules and practices which do not stand out as unusual when practiced by these groups themselves, similarly to how whiteness constructs itself as normative.