France/ 4.2 Recent policy issues and debates  

4.2.10 Gender equality and cultural policies

According to a study on cultural employment from 2004, there are more men working as cultural professionals (61%) than women (54%), compared to the Occupied Working Population (Population Active Occupée (PAO): unemployment not included).

This situation reveals great disparities. Certain professions have a strong male domination: literary authors (77%), architects (76%), photographers (72%), and audio-visual and cinema professionals (70%). Others are mainly female dominated, such as technical management of documentation and conservation (74%), and arts professors (55%).

The case for musicians is also interesting: it is a male dominated profession: only 24% are women. This distribution varies according to genre: women are a minority (only 17%) in "non-classic music" (jazz, rock, variety...), but are well represented (43%) in "classic music". In addition, women tend to be paid less than their male colleagues.