Les trois temps de l'emploi féminin : Réalités et représentations

Abstract

The paper analyses the opposition rising from the reality of the female labor force and its representations. Even though they have been questionned by recent researches, old cliches are still alive. For instance, the idea that women entered, in massive doses, the labor market during World War I is refuted by the falling tendancy in the rate of female employment. Similarly, neither the growing rate of employment among the generation of women born after World War II nor the achievement of new rights for women mean that equality among sexes went on according to a lineary trend. In order to explain these optical illusions, the paper focuses on the visibility of women labor force.