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The gender issue is usually not dealt with in economic theories and policies. Neo-classical trends (the human capital theory, discrimination, etc.) have focused many works on female job offers, especially those offered to married women, whereas these works rely on, and therefore never question, role specialization within the family. Heterodox trends, on the other hand, or at least their the basic texts on them, possibly even without the segmentation theory, totally confused the issue, whereas the very heart of their analysis resides in inequalities. More recently, economic theories have echoed this silence by erasing the gender distinction in the measures implemented. The object of this article is to trigger a questioning of the status of gender within economics, starting with an overview of the main economic tendencies in France since the 1960s-1970s. Silence in the field of economic policy is then illustrated by the gender issue among poor workers.