A few days after starting the course in the different faculties of our country, the preliminary draft of the
Organic Law of the University System (LOSU)
, better known as the
Castells Law,
has once again raised blisters, like almost all the Education reforms approved in the In recent years, if they have had something in common, it has been to put part of the educational community on the warpath.
On this occasion, the controversy comes from the hand of one of the objectives of the law: to achieve equity, also, for gender reasons. With this impeccable purpose, measures are incorporated to promote
parity between men and women
in collegiate bodies, the incorporation of equality and diversity units in universities with sufficient resources,
equality plans for
university policy and human resources, protocols against sexual and gender-based harassment and a pay register to combat the gender gap in pay.
So far, difficult to find a but.
But ... for a part of the educational community there is.
Because in this search for parity, the law establishes that before two applicants with the same merits and qualities, "people of the sex less represented in the teaching body or category in question will have preference to be hired."
And here there is no doubt: that sex, with few exceptions, is always the same, the female.
Because, paradoxes, although the majority of university students are women -58% of graduates-, their presence decreases as the academic rank increases, to the point that there is only
one female professor for every four men
;
and only 10 of the 50 public universities are led by female rectors.
Invisible women in college
"It is not that we are women and rectors, it is that we are rectors despite being women," said
Rosa Aguilar,
rector of the
University of La Laguna
(Tenerife) at a meeting on female leadership at the university organized by the CYD Foundation. A debate that put on the table the stereotypes and invisibility that women face in the university environment.
"I studied computer engineering and in some classes I was the only student. I was invisible in the classroom; they didn't take me to the blackboard to protect me, so I wouldn't make a fool of myself,"
Rosa Aguilar
now reminds us
when we asked her how much it cost her to become rector. "The same thing happens throughout your academic and research life, that paternalism makes you not believe in your own possibilities. We do not have models in which to reflect; that is the great handicap".
An opinion shared by
Margarita Arboix,
professor and researcher at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona
and its rector from 2016 to 2020. "Throughout my career I have encountered very complex situations. Years ago, when I was dean of the Veterinary Faculty, it was the only one in Europe of more than 70 Veterinary schools. I had to hear that women were useless. And those things still happen, "he tells us.
Do the principals support the Castells Law?
For this reason, most of the rectors support the positive discrimination established by the
Castells Law.
"It is fundamental," says
Rosa Aguilar
, "only by working under equal conditions, men and women, will we achieve a university that meets the challenges of society. And this dogma permeates across the entire articulation of the project presented. Only environments from heterogeneous work, creativity is born ".
Pilar Aranda
, rector of the
University of Granada
, one of the 300 best in the world according to the Shanghai ranking,
also declares herself to be a fully advocate "on equality issues
." Hers is an unusual case: at your university there are an honorable 27% female professors, and specifically the Physiology department has more female professors than male professors. It is not normal.
"We have to make visible the good work that women have, and for this it is important that they occupy positions such as department directors, heads of research groups and projects ... that their work is known. Everyone thinks: 'This it is so that there are more women ... '. No, this is because the work of all and of all is needed. This is an important and necessary global reform of the university ", assures Aranda.
Proof of this is that the Conference of Rectors of the Spanish Universities (CRUE) "is currently evaluating the text of the draft law," says
Eva Alcón,
delegate of the Presidency of this body for Equality Policies and rector of the
Universitat Jaume I
(Castellón) - "From the universities we have always opted for effective equality, promoting measures to correct the gender gaps and glass ceilings that still persist in the academic and scientific field," he says. And that is why some rectors, such as
Mª Antonia Peña
, from the
University of Huelva
, and
Mª Vicenta Maestre
, from the
University of Valencia
, they prefer not to pronounce.
"The answer must be institutional as a university, after a deep analysis of the text," says
Eva Ferreira,
rector of the University of the Basque Country.
An analysis that will be made on September 14, at the next meeting of the CRUE.
Who does not hesitate to pronounce is
Amparo Navarro,
rector of the
University of Alicante.
"I am in favor of positive discrimination on equal merits established by the law. And, of course, also of parity in all representative and decision-making bodies. The diagnosis of the law is correct, there is still a way to go to reach it. equality in universities, "he says.
Doing self-criticism
To shorten that journey, the former rector of the
Autonomous of Barcelona
declares "absolutely in favor" of the measures introduced by the
Castells Law
.
"It is positive and we are obliged to do it", says Margarita Arboix, "because without realizing it you choose people who have meant more to themselves. Men are less modest than us, and you automatically have a greater tendency to select them. I myself
have to make self
-
criticism
of my time as rector; in this sense I feel guilty, we have really done very little ".
Long way to go
And is that the figures are relentless. The average number of female professors in Spanish universities is 21% -22%. Percentages that need more than affirmative action to change. "By merits, women are always in the queue. They join later than men, finish the thesis later, get accredited later ... Why? Because the most productive time from the scientific point of view coincides with the A woman's fertile stage, when she can be a mother, from 30 to 40. And that is a brake, "says Arboix.
Something that other principals also insist on - "It is important to count pregnancies, maternal leave ...; you have to value all that is co-responsibility", says
Pilar Aranda
- and that for
Rosa Visiedo,
San Pablo University
rector
CEU
(Madrid), is key.
He does not like the positive discrimination established by law and, in his opinion, "generates more problems than benefits. In any process of access to a position of responsibility, selection or promotion, the criteria of merit and ability must always prevail, not the to be a man or a woman, "he tells us.
Capacity and merits
Instead of positive discrimination, "it is preferable to implement and develop measures to reconcile work and family life, so that women are not penalized in the selection, merit evaluation or activity evaluation processes," says
Rosa Viseido.
And here the question is another: is equality of merits possible? Hard.
Rita Ruiz Fernández, a
professor at the ETSI of Roads, Canals and Ports at the
University of Castilla-La Mancha
and mother of three young children, one a baby,
knows this well
. "There is still a clear gender bias among the teaching and research staff of our universities. For women to have a greater presence in the higher categories, it is probably more necessary to adopt strategies that involve a real reconciliation of work and family life than to establish measures of positive action in competitions for access to places
Maternity
, and even the pregnancies themselves, are a problem to carry out stays in research centers and international universities;
however, this is a key merit.
These are problems that have to be addressed, "he says.
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