Women Leaders in the Peruvian Public Sector: Communicative Barriers, Opportunities, and Meanings from a Phenomenological Approach

Female leadership in public administration is key to gender equity and institutional strengthening. From the point of view of labor law, it is linked to equal opportunities in access, permanence and promotion in employment, guaranteed by national and international regulations. This study, with a qualitative phenomenological-hermeneutic approach, explored the experiences of female leadership in the Peruvian public administration through semi-structured interviews of approximately 45 minutes each, applied to 28 female public servants selected through intentional sampling by criteria, minimum seniority of 5 years in the position, representation of different hierarchical levels and regions. The interviews continued until information saturation was reached, iterations 25-28, verified when no new thematic codes emerged. Data analysis was performed with Atlas.ti v9 software, applying open, axial and selective coding, ensuring reliability through triangulation of researchers and validation of participants. Written informed consents were collected, ensuring anonymity and confidentiality. The findings show normative and sociocultural barriers that hinder the development of female leadership and opportunities. Representative textual quotations are included to illustrate each category. It is concluded that in order to consolidate strong and equitable female leadership, a normative and cultural commitment is required, along with concrete strategies for inclusion such as inter-institutional mentoring programs, gender equality committees, implicit bias training and professional development.