In January 2017, SKEMA received official support and funding of €95K over three years from the Fondation Egalité Mixité (founded by Axa, Engie, Michelin and Orange) to promote professional equality for our students on the school’s three French campuses. Among the actions taken, the equality workshops have been very successful.
Even today, gendered representations of jobs are still well rooted in people’s minds. In business schools, girls are more likely to go for human resources or luxury marketing, while boys tend to prefer careers in finance. Nevertheless, in terms of academic results, nothing suggests the truth of the idea that girls perform poorly at maths. The objective of the “Everything is possible” project undertaken by SKEMA’s Women and Businesses Chair / "Chair Femmes & Entreprises" is precisely to open up new career prospects for girls as well as boys by breaking down stereotypes.
To this end, and for the second consecutive year, the Chair has organised a series of workshops. These took place the 8 and 10 October on the Lille and Sophia campuses on the theme of “decoding gender stereotypes to better master them”. The workshops are run by Isabelle Delcroix Naulais, founder and director of Lidup (www.lidup.eu), specialist in equality. They were attended by over 80 students and professionals who discussed the stereotypes we all have about the roles assigned to women and men. After the workshops, participants shared experiences and real life situations that confirm the subject is still one that needs to be tackled.
These workshops were held in partnership with the SKEMA student societies HeforShe in Lille and Enactus in Sophia-Antipolis. The societies spread the word about male-female equality among the student population, as well as promoting social entrepreneurship. The Women and Businesses Chair / "Femmes & Entreprises Chair" thanks them for their support.
The Chair is co-directed by Eliane Bacha, Stéphanie Chasserio, Corinne Poroli and Philippe Pailot, with Marie-Paule Moreau who is in charge of “Tout est possible”.