Professional equality

They are the relays for the national and regional action plan on equality within CNRS units. More specifically, their role is to inform, share/disseminate news in the field, be available to answer questions from staff and the management team and propose examples of good practice.

This includes raising staff awareness of gender equality in the workplace and providing information on the fight against gender-based and sexual violence (sexual harassment, bullying, etc.).

Let's not forget that the subject concerns both women and men, and let's underline the correlation between sexism/violence (harassment) and professional inequalities.
But let's get to the heart of the matter ....

The reality of the figures to deconstruct our preconceived ideas on this subject... Some key figures on professional equality in the civil service, at the CNRS and in higher education.

Quiz in 10 questions here

 

• Sexist behaviour :

‘Any action based on a person's sex, with the purpose or effect of violating their dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’.

Examples: ‘She's pretty and intelligent too’ / ‘At her age, miniskirts are ridiculous’ / ‘Hey, your new trainee is cute’...
76% of women have heard or been the butt of sexist jokes at work!
 

• Sexist insult:

‘An insult is any word, writing or expression of thought addressed to a person with the intention of injuring or offending that person’. An insult may be private (contravention) or public (délit). It is also more severely punished when it is sexist, racist or homophobic in nature.
Sexist insults uttered in a professional context are mainly distinguished by the fact that they target the victim's skills rather than their appearance.
 

• Sexual harassment :

Sexual harassment is defined as follows in the French Labour Code (Article L1153-1) and in the General Statute of the Civil Service (Article 6ter of the Law on the Rights and Obligations of Civil Servants)
No employee or civil servant may be subjected to acts of :
either sexual harassment, consisting of repeated comments or behaviour with a sexual connotation which either violate their dignity because of their degrading or humiliating nature, or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive situation for them;
or sexual harassment, consisting of any form of serious pressure, even if not repeated, exercised with the real or apparent aim of obtaining an act of a sexual nature, whether this is sought for the benefit of the perpetrator or a third party.
 

• Sexual assaults:

• Rape:

 

• Part-time work :
  There is a highly gendered distribution of part-time work, with 78% of it occupied by women. 75% of the women concerned would like to work more paid work (source: Centre d'Observation de la Société, 2017).
  There is greater tolerance for women's inactivity in the paid labour market and for men's inactivity in domestic and parental work.
                                                                                                   

• Occupational segregation (vs. occupational mix):Only 13 of the 87 job families listed in France are mixed, i.e. have between 40 and 60% of both sexes (source: CESE, 2018). This is linked to the weight of the gendered division of labour that still weighs on our society based on gender stereotypes.
  Professions traditionally largely occupied by women are less valued and less paid (this is known as horizontal segregation or the phenomenon of the sticky floor and glass walls).

 

• Unequal power sharing (vs parity) :Gender diversity does not necessarily mean parity. Parity is the 50/50 sharing of representative and decision-making power between women and men (vertical segregation or the glass ceiling phenomenon).

 

• Inequalities in effective access to further training and to speaking and decision-making in meetings (based on gender stereotypes).

• Inequalities in effective access to further training and to speaking and decision-making in meetings (based on gender stereotypes).
   

• Discrimination (vs. equal treatment):
  
  Less favourable treatment of a person on the basis of one or more of the 25 criteria prohibited by law (e.g. sex, age, origin, disability, pregnancy, etc.) and in situations also covered by the law (e.g. recruitment, award of bonuses, promotion, etc.).

• Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV): sexist behaviour, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape.