In 2000, the association was founded following the publication of several works and reports on the status of women in science. These revealed a significant deficit of women in science, particularly in positions with high responsibility.

The femmes & mathématiques association had undertaken studies on these issues already from 1987. And the Société Française de Physique (SFP, French Society of Physics) devoted a session to this issue in its annual congress in 1995. These works were then supported by reports by Huguette Delavault, which had a significant impact. The latter dealt with the place of girls in scientific elite “preparatory classes” in 1997 and in the Grandes Ecoles Scientifiques in 1998. These were pioneering works in particular in their systematic use of sex-disaggregated statistics, which were very difficult to obtain at the time.

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At the same time, a first colloquium on Women and Science was held in 1998 at the European Commission following the initiative of Edith Cresson, then Commissioner for Research. In February 2000, Jean-Louis Aupetit, head of communication, organised the first French colloquium on Women in Science at CNRS in Gif-sur-Yvette. In October of the same year, the colloquium "Sciences and techniques: why girls?", under the chairmanship of Research Minister Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg, brought together 400 participants in Paris.

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The founders of the association are: 

• Huguette Delavault, university professor, former scientific deputy director of the Ecole normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux Roses, former president of the Association Française des Femmes Diplômées des Universités (AFFDU), administrator of "Action pour la Parité - Demain la Parité";

• Françoise Cyrot-Lackmann, research director at CNRS;

• Claudine Hermann, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, French representative in the group of national civil servants "Women and Science" at the European Union Directorate-General for Research and Innovation;

• Françoise Gaspard, lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, French representative at the UN Commission on Women, elected to the CEDAW Commission (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women);

• Colette Kreder, engineer, former director of the Ecole Polytechnique Féminine, founding member of the "Demain la Parité" network;

• The association Women and Mathematics represented by its president, Christine Charretton, lecturer at Université Lyon-1.