The establishment of the Legal Principle of Equality between women and men was one of the great social milestones of the 20th century and the full achievement of this universal right must be one of the collective achievements that we now see culminated. The advances on this path towards effective Equality were the result of the efforts of many social actors, especially universities. Our role is fundamental in the transmission of values to build an increasingly tolerant, just and egalitarian society. But the goal has not yet been reached. And it is time to face the home stretch.
Universities are a reflection of our society and we see with satisfaction how the balance between women and men has been achieved in their classrooms, in their cloisters or in the most brilliant academic records. However, we also see with concern how that glass ceiling persists that hinders access to positions of maximum responsibility, how scientific or academic careers are weighed down by the burdens that women mostly assume in the family environment or how we are unable to attract them to technological careers. Nor have we managed to eradicate sexist violence and sexual harassment and gender-based harassment from our university communities.
All these inequalities are not only unfair and intolerable, many even illegal, but they also make us lose a lot of talent. Without the full participation of women in all areas we lose an irreplaceable vision for Science and we deprive society of new approaches that would lead us to more sustainable and efficient values.
Crue Universidades Españolas works daily from the Equality Units of its universities to promote Equality within and outside our communities and, also, we have a long history in university gender studies, with magnificent research teams. Thanks to this joint effort, we have innovative Equality legislation and public policies that are contributing to shaping a better and fairer society.
But every action provokes a reaction. The study of gender inequalities has provided a rigorous theoretical corpus, scientifically validated, which does not deserve to be questioned with exclusively ideological arguments, as has been done in recent months. Universities would like to express our concern about the debates that question the very existence of equality policies and the fight against gender violence under the misleading argument that they discriminate against men. Therefore, we ask that political parties treat equality policies with rigor and responsibility and let specialized academic literature and expert knowledge of gender illustrate these discussions.
Source: Duvi
