- Preventing and addressing gender-based violence is one of the Gender Equality Unit’s main areas of work on all campuses
- Underrepresentation in leadership positions, the male or female predominance in certain courses and the development of research careers are other areas of inequality between men and women within the University
Approved by the University’s Governing Council on 15 December 2021, the Third Gender Equality Plan is the tool given to UVic-UCC to advance in equal opportunities between genders within the institution, in a limited time frame from 2022 to 2025. The University’s Gender Equality Unit, directed by Mar Binimelis-Adell, works to meet the challenge of eliminating the widespread idea that supporting equal opportunities is only the responsibility of women. That is why it has representatives in all centres: Ester Colillas Malet on the Manresa Campus, Susanna Vilaseca Giralt at the Faculty of Medicine, and M. Rosario Hernández González at Elisava, all of whom share the same goal. All these people strive to convey to the university community as a whole that this is an issue that affects everyone: men, women, people of non-binary gender and members of the LGTBIQ+ group.
The fight against gender-based violence
Preventing and addressing gender-based violence at the University is one of the Gender Equality Unit’s main areas of work on all campuses. To achieve this, the Unit applies the “Protocol to prevent and act against harassment based on sex, gender or sexuality”, drawn up during the execution of the Second Gender Equality Plan of the UVic-UCC (2017 to 2021). This protocol been consolidated during the implementation of the Third Plan. Mar Binimelis explained that “all possible cases of harassment based on sex or gender that appear at the University are dealt with diligently.” A training plan is also being promoted, which is intended to be permanent and to reach all groups that make up the university community. The fight against violent attitudes in relation to gender or sex is completed with other actions associated with social responsibility, academic activity, communication, institutional representation and participation, professional development and working conditions or work-life balance.
Gender inequality takes specific forms within the university world
Currently, the Third Plan is halfway through its execution. Those responsible for gender equality on the University's campuses agree that UVic-UCC faces challenges that are similar to those of other universities and, in general, to society as a whole, in terms of gender equality. Mar Binimelis stated that “universities are institutions with specific characteristics where inequalities therefore take specific forms.” She identified several areas on which action must be taken: the prevention and tackling of gender-based violence, the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions, and male or female predominance in certain areas of study. She also noted that it is essential to “incorporate an intersectional approach in work to achieve equal opportunities within the University, which means considering the many dimensions of identity and how they interact with each other, including sex, origin, social class or age.”
Ester Colillas, from UManresa, explained that, on the campus of the capital of the Bages area, research is one of the areas where gender inequalities are most evident, especially in the publication of scientific articles of impact. She stated that: “Scientific research is governed by predominantly male criteria, where exclusive and uninterrupted dedication is valued, a fact that is not compatible with motherhood, for example.” Similarly, Susanna Vilaseca underlined the difficulties faced by female teaching and research staff in pursuing a research career: “A significant number of teaching and research staff (PDI) at the Faculty of Medicine, especially in the clinical branch, are professionals who combine their university career with health care. We see that it is harder for women than for men to maintain a similar curricular level if we talk about dedication to research and the production of publications. The balance is often tipped in favour of men.”
The promotion of the Third Gender Equality Plan has led to the UVic-UCC making an effort to increase the visibility of women’s contributions to the teaching and research carried out at the University: either by collecting this variable in statistics and analyses, or by gathering the levels of women’s participation in protected research results or in competitive projects. At the same time, active work is being done to include the gender perspective at different levels: by encouraging specific research in this area, including it as a variable that is present in any type of research or incorporating it across the subjects taught in the degrees. The Faculty of Medicine is one of the centres that has launched a project to integrate the gender perspective in all the subjects taught in the courses. According to Susanna Vilaseca, it is an initiative “that is not only necessary but also essential in a degree such as Medicine, if we want to move towards equal care and equal biomedical research in the future.”
The Third Equality Plan aims to break gender stereotypes linked to certain courses through visits to secondary schools
In addition, Susanna Vilaseca explained that, in general, “all careers in the social and health sector have a predominance of women, as a result of the choice made by those who opt for this professional field.” Thus, UMedicina has a higher percentage of female students, a factor linked to the choice of place and to better CVs and higher grades in university entrance examinations among this group. This means that there are not only more female students but also more teaching and research staff of this gender. This is a situation that can be found in other Health Science studies on the campuses, such as Nursing or Speech Therapy, or in Early Childhood Education and Primary School Teaching. The unequal numbers of men and women in some courses has justified the inclusion of specific actions within the Third Gender Equality Plan of the UVic-UCC, such as visits to secondary schools with female teachers to promote courses that have predominantly male students and, conversely, visits by male teachers to talk about courses that have more female students. The aim is to provide role models that break gender stereotypes linked to certain studies or branches of knowledge.
The university, a female-dominated environment
The assessment carried out prior to drawing up the Third Equality Plan revealed that UVic-UCC is a highly female-dominated university with "occupational segregation in the areas of administration and services, and vertical segregation in terms of access to positions and responsibilities on the academic and management side.” Ester Colillas warns that this problem is not exclusive to the UVic-UCC but is commonly found in the university sector. Nevertheless, Rosario Hernández, from Elisava, believes that steps are being taken to overcome this situation, where, for example, “next year, for the first time in the history of the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering, there will be a woman as head of studies.”
The guidelines of the Third Gender Equality Plan affect the services and areas of the UVic-UCC, the Balmes University Foundation, the Bages University Foundation, the Foundation for Advanced Studies in Health Sciences and the Elisava University School Private Foundation. From 2008 to 2016, the First Plan focused on promoting equal opportunities in the professional development of women and increasing their representation in academic and management positions. From 2017, the Second Plan focused on the consolidation of gender equality policies, which allowed the inclusion of the University in the Network of Gender Equality Units for University Excellence (RUIGEU).
