Leadership: Towards Gender Parity

If the feminist wave of the 1960s and 70s made for a genuine emancipation of women in developed societies, only a little has been achieved with regard to gender parity in the workplace. The famous ‘glass ceiling’, symbol of the fact that women do not receive the same pay as their male counterparts for equal work, was not broken in France. However, as Patrice Cailleba shows here, things are advancing, and increasing levels of education among women, which enable them increasingly to accede to positions of responsibility, suggest that in the mid- to long-term, they might catch up. This article presents the evidence accrediting this trend in France: an increasing — and majority — female presence in higher education, and legislative developments encouraging companies to rebalance managerial staffing decisions in women’s favour. And, though barriers remain, particularly in private companies where the feminization of managerial staff seems distinctly slower than in the workforce generally, they should eventually be broken down thanks to the growing presence of women in the higher education institutions that train tomorrow’s top managers, together with the spread of what are seen as feminine values in society.