The article questions how the development of policies aimed to promote diversity at the workplace in contemporary France revisits older concerns regarding professional equality between genders at work. Firstly, we examine the framework enabling the emergence of this notion, and the following intensification of its use, within the context of the progressive institutionalization of anti-discrimination public policies; we recall the advent of a 'global' conception of non-discrimination, which addresses indistinctly and at the same time several legal, social and political categories of (non) discrimination, including gender discrimination. Specifically, we shall hypothesize that there is a requalification in companies' diversity policies of previous initiatives related to gender equality, and shall attempt to analyze how this renewal and requalification enables economic actors to extend and to highlight those previous initiatives. Secondly, we shall assess how awareness to diversity at the workplace led to reinventing discursive registers and action repertoires regarding gender equality, notably through the development and the promotion of the economic incentives of image, efficiency and productivity, as well as the reorientation of intervention strategies towards higher levels of responsibility and qualification.
De l'égalité professionnelle à la production de la diversité : discriminations et politiques du genre au travail