Gender Parity: a new contribution to the gender regime theory. Cases studies of Executive Boards of French National Sport Organisations.

The aim of this qualitative study is to analyse the gender dynamics among the new elected governing bodies of French National Federations according to the fourfold theoretical framework of gender regime developed by Connell (2009). This model is characterised by four interwoven dimensions: (1) production of relation, (2) power relations, (3) emotional relations and (4) symbolic relations. 24 semi-structured interviews (12 men and 12 women) were conducted with members of executive board of five federations. Three different gender regimes were identified. Two of them were already described by Adriaanse and Schofield (2013): the regime of masculine hegemony and the regime of gender mainstreaming in process. The third regime has never been observed so far and constitutes a new contribution to the gender regime theory: it is the regime of gender parity. It appears to be the most advanced one in term of gender equality: the gender ratio is balanced and responsibilities are fairly shared.