Professional equality between men and women in France: progress and hesitation

Laufer, Jacqueline

doi:10.1057/s41253-018-0064-y

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…While professional gender equality has been placed at the core of French "state feminism" for more than 50 years (Revillard, 2016), it has given rise to a dedicated consulting market more recently, from the 2000s onwards, in a context of renewed public action and renewed attention to corporate social responsibility in the economic world (Laufer, 2018). However, the market is small: the data collected during the investigation allowed approximately 200 service providers to be identified, only a quarter of which specialized in gender equality; and these dedicated businesses generate low incomes compared to the overall consulting market, with only a few of them generating more than €500,000 a year.…”

Section: The French Professional Ge Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminism through the market? A study of gender‐equality consultants in France

Blanchard

2021

Gender Work & Organization

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This article explores the professional subjectivities of gender-equality (GE) consultants in France based on 63 interviews. A central concern is how these experts shape positions when working on a topic at the crossroads of personal, political, and economic stakes -in organizational and business contexts that are reluctant to embrace any feminist-like perspective. Questioning the rationales for entering this market activity, the ways to embody professional work and service impact self-assessment, the analysis highlights the tensions and dilemmas experienced by GE consultants in terms of aligning convictions and business imperatives, and the pragmatic and variable arrangements they make on a daily basis to put GE principles into practice. This research documents GE work by reanalyzing colliding dyads such as work/activism, professionalism/feminism, co-optation/resistance, and by reviewing the use of market logics in subverting the existing gender/economic order. It draws a nuanced picture of the constraints and opportunities that GE consulting offers to destabilize power from within organizations.

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Section: The French Professional Ge Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminism through the market? A study of gender‐equality consultants in France

Blanchard

2021

Gender Work & Organization

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“…Cet article se concentre sur les initiatives en matière d'égalité professionnelle en France, pays européen où la loi fournit un cadre complexe et contraignant pour « négocier l'égalité » au travail, mais offre également une grande latitude aux entreprises pour interpréter les obligations légales (Klarsfeld et al, 2012 ;Laufer, 2018). Cela encourage 6 European Economic and Social Committee (2018), Opinion.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Plaider pour l’égalité au nom de la performance ou de la justice sociale ? Conflits de ‘savoirs sur le genre’ syndicaux et managériaux dans de grandes entreprises françaises

Milner¹,

Pochic²

2022

Politique Européenne

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“…1 Studies of the Roudy law and other equal employment policies have identified the highly «symbolic» imperative of these reforms. That is, that governments of the right and the left have adopted a series of laws and policies implemented through collective bargaining and labor relations at the firm level with no teeth; as a result, few actors actually mobilize around them and sex-based inequalities continue (e.g., Mazur 1995;Laufer 2018). 2 The (unadjusted) gender gap in hourly wages estimated by Eurostat in the early 2000s placed France slightly below the European average, due in particular to the overrepresentation of women workers in industries and occupations that offer low rewards for comparable levels of qualification and their more frequent employment on temporary contracts (Boll et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pay equity through collective bargaining: when voluntary state feminism meets selective business practice

2020

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The article traces the story of equal pay policy formation from the early 1980s to the present, from agenda-setting to policy adoption through to implementation, evaluation and outcomes. Until 2010, equal pay policy was implemented through collective bargaining at company and sector levels within a legal framework that failed to establish penalties for non-compliance. Persistent mobilization of feminist actors inside and outside of government contributed to breaking with this symbolic policy. A financial penalty for non-compliant companies was established. The article shows that the strengthening of the existing framework was not sufficient to counter the reluctance of companies to make a solid commitment to closing the gender pay gap, and the outcome appears to be a clear case of "gender accommodation" in GEPP terms. However, recent feminist mobilization around more effective implementation on equal pay suggests that the struggle for more authoritative equal pay policies in the firm is still on the policy agenda.

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Professional equality between men and women in France: progress and hesitation

Cited by 5 publications

References 30 publications

Feminism through the market? A study of gender‐equality consultants in France

Feminism through the market? A study of gender‐equality consultants in France

Plaider pour l’égalité au nom de la performance ou de la justice sociale ? Conflits de ‘savoirs sur le genre’ syndicaux et managériaux dans de grandes entreprises françaises

Pay equity through collective bargaining: when voluntary state feminism meets selective business practice

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