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In 1979, Viviane Théophilidès, a leading figure among female directors of the 1980s, staged Une fille à brûler, the story of a Joan of Arc who makes her choices freely and prefers to die rather than abjure and submit herself to the authorities. In 1986, Gilberte Tsaï’s Voyage en Chine intérieure brought together a group of non-professional Chinese actors and actresses, all of them marked by the Cultural Revolution and their migration experience in France. Between these two productions, both of them shown at the Avignon Festival, Jack Lang’s new cultural policy in favor of theatre was implemented in 1982. Subsidies for a number of women’s companies were doubled, enabling them to strengthen their artistic proposals in a sector dominated by all-powerful male stage directors around whom the history of theater has been written until now. The article examines the emergence of female directors, the reception of their work, and the lack of recognition of their initiatives.