Cardiovascular diseases are the primary cause of death in women. Cardiovascular risk is specific and often underestimated in women. At equal age, women have more cardiovascular risk factors than men. Some of them such as smoking and diabetes are associated with greater increase of cardiovascular risk and poorer prognosis in women as compared to men. In addition, women have a specific hormonal risk linked to contraception, pregnancy and menopause. Prevention, screening and diagnosis are generally implemented both at later stages and less frequently than in men because of particularities in clinical presentation, and treatments are not optimal in women. All these specificities must be considered for an optimized evaluation of cardiovascular risk and an improvement of management in women.