The present work has as main objective to characterize the labor insertion of brazilian women since 1960 until 2009, a period of important economic, social, demographic and cultural transformations in which the participation rates of women in the labor market highly increased, concomitant with a decrease in male participation. The analysis was based on indicators of participation rate, occupation, unemployment, employment by sector, status in employment, wages and hours of work from the Brazilian Institute of Economics and Statistics (IBGE). From this aspect were drawn aspects regarding the characteristics of female insertion, changes and continuities of gender inequalities in the Brazilian labor market. The second part of the work seeks to trace some aspects of female labor participation in the world, with data from International Labor Organization (ILO), indicating differences and similarities between other regions and Brazil.