The collective imagination attributes many effects on the functioning of the collective to diversity. It is often said that the participation of women in traditionally male environments would make the atmosphere more listening, more conciliatory, even more peaceful. At the same time, we have the intuition that " girls ' atmospheres" would benefit from the presence of men to rationalize relationships and divert attention from female rivalries...

Our essentialist stereotypes are not unrelated to these bundles of expectations with regard to diversity. But what exactly is the situation? Do the exchanges really take a different turn when women and men play in the same court ?

When women and men are chasing the same medal

Researchers from the Australian National University, Seinan Gakuin University in Japan and the IZA Centre for Economic Research in Germany wanted to find out.

They studied the competitive behaviour of women and men depending on whether they are confronted with challengers of the same sex or of both sexes. For the field of this study, they chose an ultra-popular sport in Japan : jetskiing, and its most popular competition, the Kyotei race. The particularity of this sporting challenge, which requires excellent physical condition, a good mental health and intensive training, is that it is mixed : women (who account for 13% of pratiquant.es) and men are aiming for the same medal together!

Women are more competitive with each other, men are more aggressive with women who challenge them

The researchers observed the strategies and processes of individuals at the head of the race, where competition is most acute. Where it appeared that when men are rivals among themselves, they are much less aggressive than when they are challenged by one or more female opponents. Their increased competitiveness by the presence of one or more women among their most threatening opponents even pushes them to break the rules of the game, to the point of taking the risk of a sanction or even disqualification.

On the women's side, we see that they are much more competitive with each other than when they are confronted with men. To the point of running below their performance potential, when they are in contention for victory alongside male competitors.

The glass ceiling creates a " self-isolation " of women, favoring the orientation of aggressiveness towards their fellow human beings rather than towards men

For the auteur.es of the study, these observations can be transposed to other worlds than sport, and are particularly relevant for analysing the effects of gender diversity on behaviour  in the context of competition or professional competitiveness. The hypothesis they formulate is that cultural assignments to masculinity and femininity make the victory of a woman over a man less tolerable than the victory of a man over a man.

As for the fact that women are more aggressive with each other than with men, this would not, as is sometimes thought, be an expression of the Queen Bee Syndrome (which, to put it briefly, posits that " women of power are damn cowhides with other women ") but the result ofan integrated prediction of their failure in a situation of gender diversity that restricts the space for exercising their competitiveness to women/women relations. In other words, the glass ceiling creates a kind of " housing crisis" in the too narrow fields where women are in fact massing , provoking phenomena of internal aggressiveness in a self-imposed group.

New players around the table, new rules of the game?

These studies have counterintuitive results, in particular undermining the traditional idea that competitiveness is a virile " quality " (when it appears that it is more the situations  – than the gender of the protagonists – that are the trigger and the fuel) but also the naïve discourses on the virtues of diversity for gender equality on the one hand and the quality of collective relations on the other, cannot however constitute a reason for renouncing the objective of sharing responsibilities.

On the contrary, they invite us to think about the transformation of the rules of the game when new entrant.es take their place around the table. Redefining competition, its rules, its practices and even its objectives ; rethink performance, its criteria, its paths, its evaluation methods; Re-examining success, its means, its manifestations and rewards, its articulation between the individual project and the collective project, are all necessary to make diversity a real factor of inclusion. Inclusion is defined as the establishment of a context that allows everyone to assert who he/she is in order to give the best of themselves in a collective.