Published every year on International Women's Day, it analyzes gender inequalities with more than 700 indicators and 90 tables on the share of women in all sectors that make up the cultural field. From school to entry into working life to the recognition of talents and accession to positions of responsibility, this Observatory makes it possible to report on the path towards equality. This new edition notes a better representation of women in instances of cultural life but still highlights strong disparities depending on the disciplines.
Women are the majority on school benches but a minority in employment and less well paid
This has been a constant since the establishment of this Observatory: the preponderance of female students in the hundred or so higher education establishments placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Today, they represent 63% of students, more than in higher education in general (56%). Women are particularly represented in the heritage (80%) and visual arts (70%) sectors. Generally speaking, for five years, all sectors have become more feminized - with the exception of heritage, already ahead of the curve - notably audiovisual cinema where the share of female students increased from 51% in 2017-2018 to 56% in 2022-2023. Upon leaving school, access to the first job remains the same depending on gender with an almost identical professional integration rate for women (92%) and men (94%), according to the annual survey conducted in 2023 among graduates in 2019.
The gap year takes place in the professional world, where women remain a slight minority (46% of the workforce in 2020 compared to 49% for the entire population). The proportion of women is progressing strongly in certain fields such as architecture where it has almost doubled in twenty years. Progress is also visible in the entertainment sector due to the arrival on the job market of generations where the proportion of girls was greater in schools. Finally, they still remain in the majority among art teachers and in the fields of translation, documentation and conservation.
On the other hand, salary gaps remain unfavorable for women (–20% in all cultural sectors), particularly architecture (-32%). For live performance, the differences in copyright collection are around 41% to the disadvantage of women. Only art teachers pay women more (+5%).
More and more women in positions of responsibility, the private sector is stagnating
With only 15% of female presidents or general managers within the top hundred companies in the cultural sector in terms of turnover in 2020, the private sector is doing less well than the public sector, where for example there are three women out of five in the presidential positions in public broadcasting companies. Parity is achieved in services with national jurisdiction, at the head of the DRAC and almost at the Ministry of Culture (45-55%).
However, inequalities remain with on the one hand the performing arts which has only one woman for every eight men in the management of public establishments as of January 1, 2024, and on the other hand 65% of women at the head of museums national. In the structures supported by the Ministry of Culture, the presence of women in management positions remains in the minority (38%) and there is, for example, no woman at the head of a national center of musical creation. Finally, the proportion of women is increasing in the management of higher education establishments, reaching 44%.
Women's works remain less visible
In 2023-2024, women were less programmed in the artistic sector: only 40% of performances in the performing arts sector and 29% of some 1,900 opera performances are directed by a woman during the season. 2023-2024. Women are also a very small minority in musical direction (12%) and composition (7%). In the visual arts, acquisitions of works by the National Fund (60% in 2022 compared to 52% in 2021) and the regional funds (54%) of contemporary art are predominantly female and parity has been exceeded in some of the largest artistic exhibitions.
On the cinema side, women directors of feature films remain in the minority (30%), turning more towards short films. On television, we can see fewer women during high audience times (36%) while parity is almost achieved on the airwaves, with 45% of female voices in the morning time slot, with high audiences.
Creation aid often lower for women
Generally speaking, the aid granted to women for creation remains lower than for men. In the field of cinema, in 2021, of the 58 projects benefiting from the advance on receipts from the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images, 28% were directed by women, the greatest inequality in four years.
The situation is more egalitarian in the field of literature with, according to the National Book Center, 59% of aid granted to authors in support of literary creation and translation by editorial field even if the average amount allocated is lower than that of men by 29%. The areas for which the differences are most pronounced are theater with aid allocated to women less than half that of men and the novel with an average amount of aid granted 30% lower than that of men in 2023.
Fewer women awarded prizes than men
Julia Ducournau, Palme d'or in 2021, and Justine Triet, awarded last year, do little to reflect the low presence of award-winning female directors since the creation of the Cannes Film Festival since until then, only a film by a female director had obtained the supreme distinction and, of all the attributions of this award, only 5% went to women. For the Césars, since 1976, only 8% of award-winning films have been directed by women.
On the music side, the situation is also not very favorable with 10% of artists winning the Victoire de la Musique for best album since 1985, a figure that is constantly increasing with 25% of winners for the 2020-2023 period alone. Classical music and jazz do better, with 36% and 26% of women winning awards respectively.
For theater, women represent, from 2020 to 2023, 44% of authors awarded Molière awards for director. Over-represented in schools (60% of students), women photographers represent 47% of recipients of emblematic prizes in 2023. The book also rewards women well with 54% of winners of major literary prizes from 2020 to 2023. The juries and jury chairs of emblematic prizes respect parity for the first time since the creation of the Observatory in 2013.
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