The potential of cooperative enterprise to promote gender equality derives from the special nature of cooperative enterprise itself: from its democratic organization and its values of social responsibility and equity. The presence of women is very extensive in diverse cooperative sectors. Nevertheless, cooperatives are generally still managed by men at the executive and governance levels (Apelqvist, 1996). In worker co-ops, gender has not been seen as significant because what is considered important is to avoid the exploitation in capital-labour relations, irrespective of whether such members/workers are women or men. Gender is a secondary issue in the cooperative literature (Oerton, 1996).

Governing Councils (GC) are the committee which characterize a cooperative as democratic: its members are elected democratically in the General Assembly among the members/workers and by themselves (one person, one vote). The Governing Council acts as a representative of the Assembly between meetings and the most relevant figure is the chairperson of the GC. Member and chairperson election is a gender neutral process but few women are members of this board, so power sharing between sexes could be not guaranteed. The role of women in the Governing Council of cooperatives and the glass ceiling they find, have not been studied in depth.

On the one and, this study carries out a theoretical review of the principal authors in social sciences to understand the theories that explain the glass ceiling. On the other hand, 8 chairpersons of Governing Councils of the Mondragon Cooperatives (Spain) were interviewed with two purposes in mind: 1) to identify the obstacles and opportunities that find those men and women who want to participate in the Governing Council and 2) to compare the experience of men and women during the process of being elected for the GC and the participation in the Council itself.

The final aim is to understand the dimensions that affect the participation of women in the Governing Council of the cooperatives in order to design actions that make possible gender balance in the cooperative governance.

References Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139-159. Alvesson, M., & Billing, Y. D. (1997). Understanding gender and organizations. London: SAGE Publications. Apelqvist, K. (1996). Strategies for shared power between men and women in co-operatives. Review of International Co-Operation, 89(1), 28-38. Heilman, M. E. (2001). Description and prescription. how gender stereotypes prevent women’s ascent up the organizational ladder. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 657-674. Oerton, S. (1996). Beyond hierarchy. gender, sexuality and the social economy Taylor & Francis.