Women in accounting: a historical review of obstacles and drivers on a patriarchal and classist path

This document, through a systematic review of academic papers, presents a comprehensive and synthetic proposal that compiles, on the one hand, the prevailing macho, misogynistic and phallocentric obstacles and stereotypes at the family, social and work level between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries and that had an impact on the accounting profession, hindering the access and evolution of women in it. In contrast, a series of factors are presented that drove the training and entry of women to bookkeeping and accounting tasks, which, in turn, served as a way to break stereotypes and traditional gender roles, achieve legislative improvements and the incursion of women into the paid labor market. Besides the above-mentioned elements, it is important to take into account the class perspectives that, under promises of well-being and economic status, idealized a model of a woman whose realization was exclusively at the domestic and family level.