This article examines the cultural and institutional resistance to the use of gender as a category in French historiography. In France, history, and, more specifically, women’s history, has not really assimilated the openings created by the problem of the construction of differences, nor the logical consequences of the use of gender. Cultural differences are partly responsible for this, and the polysemic nature of the word gender may add to the confusion. With a few exceptions, women’s history is reluctant to engage in a historical analysis which would take into account the founding role of hierarchy and of relations of power and difference which are central to gender.