Trinidad Donoso, Rectorʼs Delegate for Gender Equality: “A society that turns sexual difference in social inequality is a depraved society”

Trinidad Donoso is the Rector’s Delegate for Gender Equality.
Trinidad Donoso is the Rector’s Delegate for Gender Equality.
Interviews
(13/07/2016)

Achieving equality among all people who create the university community. This was the target the University of Barcelona had when it launched the Equality Unit. Trinidad Donoso leads this organism, being the Rectorʼs Delegate for Gender Equality. With a doctorate in Education Sciences, she combines this role with teaching: she is tenured lecturer at the Department of Methods of Research and Diagnosis in Education. With a lot of ideas, the Unit launches “big and small, but always important” projects, she said. We talk with her about the reality of the University of Barcelona and what is being done to avoid improper relationships around the rooms and campuses.

 

Trinidad Donoso is the Rector’s Delegate for Gender Equality.
Trinidad Donoso is the Rector’s Delegate for Gender Equality.
Interviews
13/07/2016

Achieving equality among all people who create the university community. This was the target the University of Barcelona had when it launched the Equality Unit. Trinidad Donoso leads this organism, being the Rectorʼs Delegate for Gender Equality. With a doctorate in Education Sciences, she combines this role with teaching: she is tenured lecturer at the Department of Methods of Research and Diagnosis in Education. With a lot of ideas, the Unit launches “big and small, but always important” projects, she said. We talk with her about the reality of the University of Barcelona and what is being done to avoid improper relationships around the rooms and campuses.

 

What is the Equality Unit and what does it do?

The Equality Unit of the University of Barcelona was created in 2009 and its main objective is to control and assess gender equality policies that take place at the University.

The case of this university is unique. Each faculty has its own equality committee (made up by PDI, PAS and students), and the presidency of each of these committees make the Equality Committee of the UB. It is the only university with this structure. This has advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that you can reach all faculties, meaning that you have a committee in each centre taking care of equality policies and coordinating the actions they do, regarding a topic which needs a lot of work yet, gender equality. The bad thing is that you have to watch out so there is a continuous communication between the committees and the Equality Unit, the responsible of developing equality policies. In my opinion, committees are very important and during all this time they have been my support group.

Some people might think that gender inequality is already over at universities, where knowledge is the main importance.

This is a belief, a deep-rooted myth, which we have to give importance to. University is like a reflection of society. The university is made up by people and each one of us carries our manners, social environment, families, education… All this is full of beliefs, roles and stereotypes that are present in society. I mean, we do not leave our thoughts behind when we enter university…No, we bring it all here. 

What cases do you have in the Unit and how do you respond?

We have around 10 cases per year and most of them come from students. They are mostly complaints about discrimination related to sex or gender: adverts on walls, sexist jokes or discriminating comments in UB spaces. We have also encountered publications or wall paintings by students which contain discriminatory messages or speeches. In these cases, the Unit studies what to do. We usually talk to the people who are involved in this and it is enough. However we have also faced cases of harassment among students who had had an emotional relationships, but these are rare.

Taking into account the high number of members forming the community of the University of Barcelona (more than 61.000 people, academic year 2015-2016), ten cases per year may seem a small number.

There might be more cases but it is hard to detect because discrimination and gender violence are inside our culture. Moreover, most of the university community doesnʼt know about the resources the University has to face this problem. For example, they do not know about the protocol and the way of submitting a complaint and therefore, we do not receive as many reports as existing cases.

And what can the University do to change this situation?

The university has three missions: education, research and knowledge transfer and, all these areas have to have equality policies. There cannot be quality in a higher education institution if equality policies are not considered important, a central point of the university government.

In this context, from the Equality Unit we have to work on and apply reactive and proactive policies. Reactive policies mean acting when there is a case of discrimination or abuse related to sex, gender or sexual orientation. Proactive policies mean working on a proper environment where these situations donʼt exist, and modifying structural elements which avoid the knowledge and experience of women being present in the university world. How to do so? Mainstreaming gender perspective in education and research. I mean, teaching students how to have a critical view towards discrimination. This is a way of acting proactively. We are wrong if we only apply reactive policies. That is why the teaching staff is so important, as well as the PAS and the students.

What is the reality of the University of Barcelona regarding gender equality?

We have given a speech entitled “El camí de la Universitat cap a la igualtat” in all faculties, aimed at all the students of the university community. We talked about discrimination and why it all appears, how discrimination develops since we are born. In some way, a difference between women and men, that is inequality.
Well, this difference we find around society between men and women, entered the university too. Let me explain. At this moment, the University of Barcelona has more female than male students [in the academic year 2014-2015, 61% of bachelor students were women]. But after the oral examination (doctoral thesis) there is a fall in number of female students. Why? Maybe that moment coincides with having a partner, having kids… There are several factors that explain this. Ten years ago this situation was already studied, and now there is not a single difference. And this happens in all Europe. We should do something about it, shouldnʼt we? We have to act proactively to see how to work on these situations.  

What projects have been carried out in the Equality Unit?

Several. We made the evaluation of the 2nd Plan of opportunity equality between women and men in the University of Barcelona to go further and develop the 3rd Plan. Also, we organized a course on how and why carry out a study on gender perspectives (we made it via ICE and it was successful: the first day we covered all places and we are preparing a second edition). We are also working on the award to the best End-of-Degree project in gender perspective, in collaboration with the Catalan Institute for Women. Regarding communication, we created Twitter and Facebook accounts, and the Butlletí UB+ to inform about everything related to gender in the University and around Europe. And then we have bigger projects, such as the project “La UB contra la violència masclista: Uneix-tʼhi de debò!” (UB against chauvinist violence: get involved), which was very successful in the university community, and we have signed an agreement with Conexus association to create an attention program for students who suffer from gender violence.

With this agreement the University of Barcelona has become the first Catalan university that implements the University program against chauvinist violence, an ambitious project of prevention, detection and attention for improper relationships and violence in the university area, elaborated by Conexus. What is this and who is it aimed at?

Conexus is an entity that works on the gender violence topic and they are experts. They work with women and men, with organized services. They offered this project, which has the support of the Catalan Institute of Women and Obra Social la Caixa, and has certain characteristics: it is aimed at women who suffer from violence or need psychological help to go out (due to painful violence sequelae), and at men who think they have chauvinist attitudes and want to overcome them. We are talking about emotional situations, which are still going on or which are already closed. This kind of violence in emotional situations is mostly suffered by women (a 93% of the cases).

This service allows us giving the students a space for psychological attention, which was not possible until now. It also allows us respond to some cases in which the aggressor is from outside the University. Violence in relationships leaves the woman broken in all sense: low confidence, sexually painful… And Conexus gives advice and support, which is completely private and confidential.

Do you have any other project in mind for the coming months?

Among the closer projects we have, there is the Protocol to change the names of transsexual and transgender people. We also prepare the second edition of the project “La UB contra la violència masclista” (UB against chauvinist violence), which is focused on “Com construer relacions socioafectives sanes: Cuidaʼt, Cuida”(How to build healthy socio-emotional relationships: take care). And, regarding September, we will organize a conference to develop the Rules of Procedure of the Unit and the committees. This will be useful to strengthen the committees of each faculty and create a narrow network among the centres. It is an internal project, which will not have a grand impact but it can be very useful to apply equality policies at the University of Barcelona.

I always say: a society that turns sexual differentiation in social inequality is not a good society. It has something sick. If we donʼt apply our correcting measures, we are giving two certificates to the students. One is the knowledge certificate but we also give another one, invisible: the one with role playing and gender stereotypes. Since we didnʼt do anything they will continue seeing things they lived the same way, what society shows. It is clear that equality itself will not work alone. There is a lot to do. I think that the university has a big responsibility.