Femmes, énarques et professionnelles de la politique. Des carrières exceptionnelles sous contraintes

Abstract

Under the 5th Republic, only nine women graduates of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) were elected to the National Assembly, representing 8.7% of the parliamentary representatives who came out of this «administrative channel». If there are so few women ENA graduates that become professionals in politics, it is because they are confronted with standards of excellence that have long been adjusted to «masculine» qualities, which they themselves have interiorised. The analysis of their trajectories and autobiographies shows that it is always difficult to embody the role of a political professional, even for women who enter the field «from the top».