A systems psychodynamic description of gender role experiences and gender transformation in a government organisation

Abstract

The focus of this research was to describe gender role experiences and gender transformation from a systems psychodynamic stance. Women have fought to overcome past oppressions but society intended to label women continually as traditional homemakers. In organisations, women are still subjected to receiving certain non-challenging jobs, such as administrative tasks, secretarial and office assistant duties as compared to men who fulfil professional and managerial roles. Men, on the other hand, experience the daily pressures of living up to societal brandings, which regard them as tough bosses and breadwinners. Hermeneutic phenomenology enabled participants to share their lived gender role experiences. Furthermore, the hermeneutic paradigm assisted the researcher with an in-depth understanding of participants’ phenomenological experiences. The researcher therefore explored, analysed and described the phenomenological gender experiences of male and female employees and a transgender employee from a systems psychodynamic stance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four male and four female participants. Men and women often projected positive behaviours onto each other that would result in them challenging and breaking the obsolete, stereotypical thinking handed out by society. The isolation and loneliness experienced by transgender persons manifest in unauthentic and false living. The organisation created high levels of anxiety in its employees’ which contributed towards male, female and transgender role experiences. Individual defence mechanisms were used as a method of addressing anxieties. Men, women and v

transgender persons were affected by their constant need for recognition and advancement in the organisation but refused to show any concerns for fear of consequences from the leaders of the organisation. Men, women and transgender persons became containers and shared the emotional burdens of the organisation and their family life in different ways. Recommendations for gender transformative approaches are discussed to address issues of inequality in the organisation.