The aim of this study is to assess, using a series of gender indicators, the impact that gender policies contained in Spanish university regulations and strategic plans have had on the current situation of female members of university teaching and research staff.

To that end, the evolution of the teaching and research staff (PDI) at a particular university over the last five years has been analysed. We shall take this university as a point of reference in order to extrapolate the results and conclusions to all other Spanish public universities.

The results show that there are still more men than women on the university’s main representation and governing bodies, who are directly responsible for decision-making at the university. Likewise, it is found that such inequality manifests itself significantly when differentiating between elected positions and freely appointed positions, thus corroborating our hypothesis that gender parity as demanded by the current Spanish university regulations is more apparent than real.

This supports the idea of a need to establish equality policies and strategic equality plans at all Spanish public universities, aimed at rectifying the inequality that still exists.