The University of Alicante has awarded the Igualdad 2024 prize -in the collective modality- to the Coeducart Project, an educational initiative of the Valencian Country Teaching Workers’ Union (STPV), aimed at Primary, Secondary and Formative Cycles students that have an artistic component and are linked to the promotion of the value of equality between women and men; the rejection of gender violence and the visibility of women in science.
The coordinator of this group, Mari Carmen Gil, stated yesterday when collecting the award that “this recognition would not have been possible without the contribution and work carried out in the educational centers of Alicante, where it began, and also in Castellón and Valencia, which “They later joined the project.” Gil recalled that the origin of the initiative came from “the conviction that educational centers have to be an example of equality, tolerance, respect, equity and inclusion.”
In the individual section, this edition’s award recognizes the work of Elena Simón Rodríguez, co-founder, in 1980, of the Alicante Feminario and a reference for feminism not only in Alicante but also at the state level. The UA grants her this recognition for being one of the pioneers in the field of coeducation and for her long career as an activist and trainer in several Spanish universities, in the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and in a multitude of city councils and institutions.
During her speech, Elena Simón Rodríguez maintained that “thanks to feminism we have achieved equality laws that mark a before and after, work that is not done in the absence of men or against them, feminism is also a proposal for improvement for the men”. And she warned: “equality is annoying for some current currents, for extreme liberalism, for individualism expressed in the myth of free choice, and for exclusive identity currents.”
Born in Alicante, Elena Simón studied Modern Philology at the University of Valencia and upon her return to her hometown she worked for more than thirty years as a teacher and professor of French in secondary schools. She collaborated with the anti-Franco movements and became the first female dean of the College of Doctors and Graduates of Alicante.
In 1980, Simón was one of the co-founders of the Alicante Feminario, a pioneering study and reflection group on the condition of women and a reference for the feminist movement throughout Spain. “Equality must be worked on every day, because what we have inherited is inequality, misogyny, sexism and even machismo,” she stated yesterday; “and universities are not immune to this.”
The rector Amparo Navarro, at the closing of the event, recalled that the University of Alicante “has been training men and women in equality for decades, but it must also contribute to their training for equality” because, she lamented, “there are many gaps.” gender that still persist: the gap derived from inequality in tasks related to care; the wage gap; and the gap in studies, in the case of women, in those related to Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, a gap that can contribute to deepening the gap in employability and jobs. responsibility”.
Navarro listed other gaps that persist, such as those related to “the participation of women in management or decision-making positions, as well as their presence at the higher levels of academic careers and research.” For this reason, he stated that there is “still a long way to go, not only out of conviction, but because this is required of us by the Organic Law of the University System, which reinforces the commitment to equality between women and men in the field of the University. in all its dimensions.”
