Fitting in or Standing out? Women in Leadership in Pink Ghetto Industries in France

ABSTRACT Drawing on a combined theorization of gendered organizations, personal branding, and optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT), this study explores the experiences of women leaders in the French luxury industry, a context often associated with so‐called “pink ghetto” or feminized sectors. The analysis is based on 20 semi‐structured interviews conducted with senior women across this field. We address two research questions: (1) What kinds of tensions women leaders experience in their personal branding, and (2) how they balance fitting‐in and standing‐out behaviors when navigating the implications of personal branding as women leaders. We demonstrate that their personal branding practices are less about strategic differentiation and more about negotiating visibility within masculine‐coded leadership norms within gendered organizations. By conceptualizing personal branding as a co‐creative and context‐dependent process, we challenge its dominant portrayal as a self‐oriented strategy aimed at standing out and instead theorize it as a relational and organizationally embedded phenomenon. Although focused on the luxury sector, the insights are also relevant to “pink ghetto” contexts, where women are overrepresented in middle management yet remain largely absent from top leadership roles.