Following initiatives from the DEPP (Direction de l’évaluation, de la prospective et de la performance) and the CNESCO (Conseil national d’évaluation du système scolaire) on the attractiveness of teaching as a profession, this paper focuses on analysing the gendered structure of PE teacher recruitment since their inclusion within the Ministry of Education in 1981. The goal is to understand the passage from same sex to co-ed recruitment in the light of candidacies, their relative successes, and the discourse on the changes in the recruitment contests. During the 1980s, PE education is a school discipline where the balance between the sexes is insured by separate recruitment contests for men and women. After 1989 when a single contest was instated, both candidacies and recruitment changed a great deal, corresponding to the trends apparent all over secondary school recruitment but also showing the establishment of a sexual division of the profession. Given the recent and steadily growing masculinisation of PE teachers, this analysis recalls the principle of equality and suggests explanations for the diminishment of the number of female candidates for the position of PE teacher.