Gender Equality Training through Corporate Theatre: An Analysis of Scenes
The purpose of this article is to analyse corporate theatre-run diversity training examining gender equality in the workplace. It focuses on the first phase of the theatrical performance, namely the catalogue-proposed training scenes, performed by actor-trainers. The latter act out situations of gender inequality at work, with a view to preparing the second learning phase, dealing with stereotypes, analysis of behaviour displayed and possible solutions. The research seeks to understand how corporate theatre represents gender inequalities at work in the scenes introducing their diversity training. To answer this question, a qualitative methodology was chosen to expose the mechanisms at work in theatre training courses that support diversity management policies in organizations. In particular, it appears that these training courses focus on certain dimensions of gender equality, most often with a view to ensuring legal compliance, thus failing to take into account the complexity of the inequality phenomenon. This research shows how theatre functions according to a standard ideal and by exposing situations representative of the various barriers faced by women. However, while it is an original training tool for raising awareness, it is not enough on its own to grasp the full complexity of the phenomenon at work and change behaviour. It would therefore seem important in future research to better understand the training process and to measure in a longitudinal way the contribution of theatre training to gender equality.