The study aims to investigate the relationship between the presence of women on boards of directors and the credibility of companies’ sustainability reports. Existing literature on the impact of gender diversity on boards of directors has not reached a unanimous conclusion. Furthermore, this study aims to analyse whether the presence of women on boards of directors leads to differences in terms of gender-related disclosure, an issue for which previous literature has identified unsatisfactory levels of disclosure. The authors employed a qualitative method to achieve the research objective. In particular, the credibility of the reports was analysed by means of the credibility index developed by Mazzotta et al. (Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 27:1900–1913, 2020). Gender disclosure, on the other hand, was analysed using content analysis, a technique widely used in the literature to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and reporting (Kühn et al., Business & Society 53:437–480, 2018). In the context of studies that have analysed corporate sustainability disclosure issues, this study, as far as the authors are aware, is the first to verify whether there is a relationship between the presence of women on boards of directors or women CEOs, credibility of reports, and disclosure on gender equality issues. This analysis was carried out in response to requests from the literature, which highlighted the need to pay more attention to the disclosure of activities carried out in favour of gender equity also by making transactional comparisons (Wang et al., Business & society 55:1083–1121, 2016)).