Gender studies now! Europe: Contexts,challenges and futures – The French context

I would argue that the current status of gender studies as a subject in France is mixed. There remain decided and very vocal resistance pockets. But on the whole it has improved, thanks in particular to networking and institutionalisation. This is true on the local as well as on the national level, with international extensions.

On the local level, especially in the field of social sciences and humanities, although not exclusively there, researchers have increasingly managed to create structures that enable visibility and the assertion of strength – in obtaining funding, mapping the course offer (which is very vast, but often scattered among faculties or departments), identifying and interconnecting people. Such initiatives are crucial on all levels. There are numerous researchers in the field of gender studies, but they do not necessarily know another, even within the same university. Networking is, therefore, crucial and its sustainability relies on institutional support.

These more or less loose structures have taken hold first in the academic places where gender studies, or rather women’s studies, have emerged in the French context and firmly established themselves. These strongholds are primarily the University Paris 8 and its important research group LEGS (Laboratoire d’études de genre et de sexualité) developing, in particular, a Dictionary of Gender in Translation (Dictionnaire du Genre en Traduction) as part of the International Research Network World Gender, and the University of Angers and its Feminist Archives Centre (Centre des archives du féminisme). ¹

Such collaborative structures, often combining research projects and MA or doctoral programmes, now exist in a large number of universities throughout continental France, promoting and raising the profile of research and training in the field. These local structures, within a university or research institute, include, to mention a few examples, the Cité du Genre (University Paris Cité); BIG – Bordeaux Interdisciplinaire Genre (University Bordeaux-Montaigne); ARPEGE – Réseau Genre, société et politique d’égalité (University of Toulouse); or Philomel (Sorbonne University) that just launched a transdisciplinary platform Genre-en-cours giving access to numerous resources on feminist, inclusive and intersectional pedagogies. ² Most of these networks, programmes and structures are cross-disciplinary and inter-faculty, aiming at decompartmentalising approaches, encouraging scientific synergies, promoting transdisciplinary collaboration and, thus, innovative research.

On the national level, the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), France’s foremost national public institution dedicated to research in all fields, decided to found in 2012 a ‘Scientific Interest Group’ (Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique), the Gender Institute (Institut du Genre). ³ This decision was based on the fact that the number of researchers in the field of Gender Studies was steadily increasing nationwide and through the diversity of disciplines, but that they remained scattered and lacked a national institution that would be able to support and federate them. The Gender Institute, France’s national network, comprises 37 French partners, universities and scientific institutions, and is specifically dedicated to coordinating, supporting and promoting academic research on gender and sexualities in France and abroad. The funding of the Gender Institute by the CNRS and the other 36 institutional partners is the main sign of a strong public support, whatever the local or external oppositions and resistances. The Institute’s activities are based on a 5-year engagement, subject to renewal dependent on the project submitted and the research priorities identified.

The national Gender Institute is currently in its fourth term and recognised as a major landmark and reference in France, in academia and for civil society. Its action is national and international, supporting in particular young researchers, through master and doctoral thesis awards, funding of research stays abroad and financing of intensive doctoral programmes, as the BruLau (‘école doctorale francophone en études de genre’), the Francophone doctoral school in gender studies, co-carried by Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) and Lausanne University (Switzerland), that both have solid gender research structures, in cooperation with a third University (Paris Cité in 2024, Aix-Marseille in 2025, Bucharest in 2026). The Gender Institute’s mission is also to promote and fund emerging and innovative research, or host visiting scholars through its programme of annual international chairs. The grant allows the recipient to collaborate in teaching and research projects at one of the Institute’s partner universities. In 2025, the Gender Institute’s scientific board has decided to select as Chairholders two colleagues from countries where their research in gender studies is contested if not endangered, so as to demonstrate academic and political support: the sociologist and law scholar Natacha Borgeaud-Garciandía, from Argentina, and Todd W. Reeser, professor of French studies and gender/sexuality studies, from the United States.

The funding of these initiatives and structures, limited in time, remains an important issue that can not only rely on local or even national public budget. Fundraising campaigns are therefore an indispensable lever for action – applying to grants, national or European, establishing partnerships with private foundations and so on. These challenges must be addressed collectively, in order to weigh in on agenda settings at all levels and in order to establish permanent jobs in the field. In a context of constant and rising restrictions, Gender is often the first item stricken from job profiles. It is an important signal that the European Research Area has now set an agenda in order to integrate gender analysis into research. The creation of the European University Alliances, selected and funded by the European Commission, are also an important institutional asset that should be invested. The struggle has to be collective so that initiatives, programmes and networks can be maintained.

The pockets of resistance, or even backlash tendencies, with powerful and very vocal political connections and allies, against the so-called ‘gender ideology’ (‘théorie du genre’ in French), a scarecrow loudly brandished in the media and by specific groups, remain, however, strong, perhaps even heightened in the current context – as shown for instance in the volume Campagnes anti-genre en Europe. Des mobilisations contre l’égalité (Kuhar and Paternotte, 2018). The disconnect between civil society and academia, based on a latent distrust against science, especially gender studies accused of lacking legitimacy, is general and global. France is no exception.

Targeting the academia engaged in gender research is as old as the field itself. The same arguments are constantly being reiterated and repeated: gender studies is supposed to lack scholarly valour and foundation. The anti-liberal forces state the suspicion, even outright distrust, that gender studies is not science but a project of minority groups pushing a biased political agenda and infiltrating respected academic institution. I would, however, argue that it is an illusion to think that one day the field will not be threatened or called into question. It is actually one way of defining what we do. These constant attacks target more generally fundamental reproductive or sexual rights, or sexual education in schools.

Since these attacks are ongoing, we, as scholars, are now better equipped to face them and to address the recurring arguments and issues. The process of institutionalisation and its struggles have brought about a greater awareness, a heightened vigilance and collective strategies that are strongly in place, even if researchers will constantly have to defend themselves and justify the legitimacy and importance of their work.

In this context, students constitute a decisive driving force. One of the main leading French academic journals in gender studies, Clio: Femmes, Genre, Histoire, which just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, an achievement and landmark in itself, published a paper by Michel Bozon, sociologist and pioneer in the studies on sexuality in France, reviewing PhD student data in the field of gender studies between 2000 and 2020 (Bozon, 2025). In this extensive study based on the national figures collected, in particular, by the national Gender Institute network, Bozon shows the growing role of students and doctoral candidates in feminist and gender studies between 1980 and 2020. He documents the decisive increase of doctoral research in the field of gender studies, alongside its disciplinary expansion (sociology, history, literature, law, computer science, anthropology, philosophy, environmental studies, health etc.) and a steady rise of research on sexuality and violence. His paper stresses that the movement coincides with an intense activity of self-organisation and self-training of doctoral candidates in the field of gender studies. Bozon mentions, in particular, the role played in France by EFiGiES (‘Association des jeunes chercheureuses en études féministes, genre et sexualités’), a national association founded in 2003 that is still very much active today, offering scientific resources, support, assistance and advice. ⁴ Bozon’s conclusion is that the institutionalisation of gender studies in France’s academia could not have happened without that impulse and that the continuing student demand plays a major role.

Although the anti-gender campaigns take up a lot of public space and remain challenging, I would argue that it does not signal a total or fundamental disconnect between civil society and gender research-oriented academia in the French context. One striking example is what recently happened around the so-called Mazan trial, an infamous rape trial of a man convicted for aggravated rape and repeatedly drugging and raping his ex-wife over several years and facilitating her assault by others, filming the rapes, a trial that took on national and international resonance in 2025. Gisèle Pelicot bravely refused closed-door proceedings, thus forfeiting her anonymity, allowing proof of these horrific crimes to go public and showcasing the scale of abuse and violence committed. It has had decisive impact in civil society as well as in academia. Since the first trial in Avignon, there has been an avalanche of publications around the trial and more generally on the topic of sexual and sexist violence, rape culture, the abuses in patriarchal society, books that are largely informed by academic research (Berest, 2025; Costa, 2025; Garcia, 2025; Levesque, 2025). A group of researchers, in particular, all active in the South in France where the rapes and the trial took place, published a remarkable book, titled Mazan. Anthropologie d’un procès (Lachenal et al., 2025). During the autumn 2024, these 14 anthropologists decided to take up residence in Avignon, where the first trial was held, and in Mazan, where the rapes happened, collecting hundreds of accounts. Their main focus was to understand how such a trial becomes properly an ‘event’, in the sense of Ernaux’s L’événement (2000), ⁵ and how it impacts society as a whole. The aim was to document and understand how this extraordinary trial disrupted the daily, professional and personal lives of journalists, lawyers, members of feminist collectives, students, healthcare workers or shopkeepers. This investigation offers a decisive and unprecedented contribution that is set to become a landmark. The book, written collectively by the 14 researchers, is organised around a series of short chapters, opening with a section entitled ‘gyrophare’, police car’s flashing lights. The volume invites readers, academic and non-academic, to reflect on one of the most important moments in recent history in the fight against sexual violence. The book gives voice to the echoes and ripples of a societal trial that reveals still active power dynamics in the relationships between women and men.

Such a trial, as well as its accompanying research, is an undeniable sign of the impact of gender studies on civil society. One of its most visible consequences is the ratification by Parliament of a draft to amend the law on rape in France. ⁶ The legislation now includes the notion of ‘consent’ in the definition of sexual assault and rape, defining it explicitly as ‘free and informed, specific, prior and revocable’. Consent can therefore no longer be inferred from silence or lack of reaction. This major change can be directly understood as a result of the Mazan trials and globally the post-#MeToo movement, decisive in civil society as well as in academia. ⁷ It testifies to the impact of academic research and teaching in the field of gender studies. Producing research with an impact in national contexts therefore implies to publish not only in the academic lingua franca English, but also in the variety of languages. It is a major issue of accessibility in order to effectively disseminate our research among civil society and the wider public. Gender research in France leads to papers and books in English as well as French – as the publications mentioned in this paper demonstrate.

In order for gender studies to go on thriving in 5 to 10 years, the main concern is that of managing to forge alliances, at every level and in whatever shape or form, as well as gathering political and institutional support. There is no shortage of initiatives and impetus, but the issue lies in establishing them permanently, making them long-term and sustainable, for instance, by creating permanent positions for researchers. If the future of gender studies solely relies on individuals, it is deemed to fail; people retire, change jobs or their areas of research. Only collectively can we achieve this ambition, by sustaining energies, pushing agendas and research priorities, and building on our strengths. We should aim to favour permanent positions over fixed-term contracts or projects limited in time; we should thrive for cross-faculty and interdisciplinary structures rather than subject-specific ones. These institutions and structures can and will achieve much. They are the means to steadily improve and develop our core tasks and missions, in terms of research, training and societal resonance, and to offer researchers protection, promotion and support.