Gender Equality Commission
The directors of the gender equity area of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) gathered to identify the progress of gender and equity policies in the institutions.
This is just the beginning, is the phrase that defines the meeting of the authorities responsible for the gender equality agenda of the institutions of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). This became clear when the president of the Commission, Antonia Santos, pointed out that the vast majority of national universities do not have a gender equality policy, many are in the process of developing and implementing one, and still others have only recently created one.
She made these statements at the first face-to-face meeting of 2022 with her peers who work to make Higher Education a safe place for young women to study and grow professionally on equal terms.
Late equality
The meeting held at Alberto Hurtado University brought together Rector Eduardo Silva SJ, who reflected on the belated nature of the fight for equality. According to the Rector, while Judeo-Christian thought contributed the values of liberty and fraternity from the seventeenth century onward, efforts to achieve equality have been slow in coming: “This belated equality acknowledges the specificity of our differences, and the integration of our gender policies with dissident groups is part of that,” he stated.
The University of Alcalá (UAH) has just launched its gender policy, which will require collaborative work among all members of the university community. In this vein, the Vice-Rector of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Paula Barros, thanked the women of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) for their work during such complex years, interrupted by a pandemic. She highlighted the process of transforming feminist demands into a document that she hopes will be implemented at her institution. “UAH began working on this in 2017, and of course, by May 2018, everything we had achieved seemed inadequate, and it hasn't been easy,” she said.
Furthermore, she highlighted the addition of the new head of the unit, Andrea Hurtado, who drafted the policy presented to the community on March 8th. The document is considered a starting point: “This year will be challenging because we will be implementing the new Law for the Eradication of Violence, and this will be thanks to everyone, because we have incorporated and adapted much of the previous work done by the directors to our reality,” she concluded.
“We don’t start from scratch”
During the meeting, the 24 women leading the university model that will comply with the new non-violence regulations analyzed the progress made. For María Angélica Marín, Director of Gender Equality at the Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences (UMCE), the positive aspect is that they are not starting from scratch: there are previous advances that are being updated in terms of training, the sanctions model, the prevention model, and the investigation model, she noted.
The implementation of Law 21.369 has three fundamental factors, the first has to do with the development and generation of a prevention model, plus an investigation and sanction model and a design for disseminating all the instruments.
According to Andrea Hurtado, UAH's Director of Gender Affairs, the university's campuses face the challenge of building this entire institutional framework and ensuring it is a participatory process with the community, positioning the campuses on gender issues, which is part of the strategy. "We know that we are called upon not only to act against problems of harassment, violence, or discrimination, but also to implement a culture of non-violence towards women at the university and gender diversity," she explained.
When will the real changes come?
For Antonia Santos, at a national level one of the elements that must be taken into account is understanding that in Chile not all universities operate at the same speed for different reasons: history, internal characteristics, organization, management teams, that is, there are many factors that influence gender policies and in these meetings they see how they climb each step "it is a kind of escalation to see how we reach the goals," she explains.
On the other hand, it's paradoxical because some institutions have made so much progress that they're now questioning whether that progress can translate into greater real equality. This is the case at the University of Chile. Carmen Andrade, a long-time advocate for women's rights in higher education and current director of the relevant department at that institution, asks the million-dollar question: When will real change come?
The academic recounts that on March 8th she had the opportunity to welcome the new students and with great authority and pride told them that there are protocols in place for the prevention of violence, that there is a comprehensive policy, and that it is the first University in Latin America certified in gender standards.
“All of that is true, and we have been working on it in recent years in conjunction with feminist movements, but we also have to be honest and tell you that you are arriving at a university where men earn more than women, where at the higher levels of the hierarchy there are many more male than female academics, where at the management levels there are more men than women, and high levels of harassment and violence persist. That is also part of this university, and that complexity is what we have to acknowledge, not to say that we haven't made any progress, but we must not forget that all of this is necessary to eradicate inequalities, and we still have a long way to go,” she stated.
The State deficit
At the state level, Carmen Andrade and Antonia Santos acknowledge that they have worked tirelessly because the governments have not planned anything.
“The previous government did not implement any equality policies in education; it did nothing. What has been done has been promoted by the CRUCH (Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities). The State has a very large deficit in its ability to influence and end sexist stereotypes within schools,” Santos pointed out.
“Inequality is very deep and dismantling it requires time and constant action and is related to what is happening in the country. We have made progress in recent years, but we have done it alone. Now we have a new context and we believe we can take more substantial steps,” Andrade concluded.
–This government has defined itself as feminist; do you think this is a sign that progress can be made more quickly?
"This government is the result of social demands and has a very clear message regarding advancing substantive equality, and once it is there, it has this commitment and must demonstrate it in education by doing something very important," concluded Antonia Santos.
The Gender Equality Commission considers Law 21.369 necessary because it recognizes that university quality is linked to spaces free from violence. In that sense, it tacitly acknowledges that violence exists in higher education and that it is characterized by profound inequality.
For the directors, eliminating this violence is only part of the solution, not the whole. Their approach focuses on promoting women within academia and influencing access, addressing stereotypes about university admissions, and understanding that all of this contributes to existing inequality. One could say that discrimination indirectly perpetuates violence, and this is the core of the problem that must be eradicated from our intellectual society.
*Information: Carmen Sepúlveda – Alberto Hurtado University
*Photographs: Alberto Hurtado University
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