As one of the strategies for the advancement of women, a call was made to governments at the Nairobi Conference in 1985 to establish national women's policies to abolish all obstacles women face. South Africa has made significant policy steps towards the achievement of gender equality, but 12 years after its democracy, and 21 years after the call for the advancement of women, women are still under-represented at the senior management levels in education. Using Van Eck and Volman's (1996) 'management route model' as an analytical framework, this article presents an analysis of selected policies addressing gender equality in education management. The purpose is to understand how policy impacts on the different career phases which women go through to understand the perceived lack of representation in education management. The analysed policies emphasise the elimination of all forms of discrimination, including gender, to ensure equal benefit of the law. However, the model reveals a lack of balance in the way policy addresses issues of gender in education management. These policies do not address the concrete experiences of inequality and thereby underplay the complexity of challenges influencing women's career path into educational management positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]