International experts discuss current issues related to education, gender and feminism

From the student movement to the present constituent process In Chile, the discussion about sexism in education has been part of the public debate. The "feminist tide" of 2018 highlighted the need for a paradigm shift in what we teach in schools and today, with the publication of the first constitutional draft - which includes topics such as the gender equality and comprehensive sexuality education -, the question reappears of what the education required by schoolchildren is like.

It is in this context that the webinar was developed "Dialogues on gender in education", organized by the Catholic University and the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation (AGCID), and which brought together different international experts: Rosario Olivares, deputy director of Gender Equality, Sexual Diversity and Inclusion of the Illustrious Municipality of Santiago; Gabriela Bard Wigdor, researcher at the Center for Research and Studies on Culture and Society (CIECS-UNC and CONICET); Y Nancy Lesko, Professor at Teachers College of Columbia University. It was the second webinar of the cycle of online seminars "Educational Challenges in Post-Pandemic Times".

The instance sought to create a space for conversation and reflection on current issues related to school and higher education, gender and feminism. Likewise, it revealed "the urgency and necessity of not only opening debates on gender education, but also opening debates on gender in institutional spaces," said the moderator of the instance, the academic and general editor of the magazine Latin American Educational Thought (PEL), Ana Luisa Munoz.

In this framework, for the dean of the Faculty of Education UC, Alejandro Carrasco, “the university has a role, and in particular our faculty, to generate research and public dialogue in the training of teachers. And that is a fundamental space, because gender stereotypes are culturally formed at an early age, therefore, here is a privileged space to deconstruct inequalities”. For her part, the Scholarship Coordinator of the AGCID Human Capital Training Unit, Maria Paz Troncoso, pointed out that incorporating this gender approach into public and educational policy requires a collective effort, which considers reviewing actions on gender equality in schools.

Gender perspectives and educating outside the binary

In the webinar, Rosario Olivares, who is also an academic at the Alberto Hurtado University, recounted feminist movements for education in Chile, pointing out new perspectives that have been annexed and strengthened over time. Two of them are precisely intersectionality and the LGBTQ+ movements. “Today we do not think of an education where the centrality is only in women. In fact, the movement of sexual dissidents has been fundamental to having comprehensive sexual education in the debate today, ”she said.

And what are these dissidences? It is about people who are not heterosexual, integrating, in addition, trans people, fluid gender, intersex, non-binarity, etc. The teacher pointed out Teachers College of Columbia University, Nancy Lesko. “Each of these last terms refers to refusing the binary, of being a woman or a man.”

According to the expert, being a man or being a woman They are assumptions that are already determined and fixed in various cultures, referring to an alignment of ideas between sex, gender and sexuality. “Sex it refers to the characteristics of the physical body, which we often say is what was assigned at birth. The gender are the psychological attributes and social behaviors associated with masculinity and femininity, and sexuality it has to do with the realm of desires and erotic practices. We often think they're going to align, but they don't necessarily. Not by being born a child are you going to want certain things, to have certain aspirations, specific careers, or to be attracted to the opposite sex.

On the other hand, and citing the expert in gender studies susan stryker, Lesko noted that “trans refers to people who move away from the gender assigned to them from birth, who cross the constructed boundaries that define their culture, and who control that gender. It is a movement rather than a particular destination of transition, which may involve body modifications.” “The trans movement shows that these formative categories of boy and girl and these connections are arbitrary and there is no determined relationship between a particular body and how it can interact with sexuality”, He added.

In this sense, he criticized school systems where there are practices that reinforce the gender binary, through dress codes or uniforms, the use of pronouns or separating men and women.

For her part, the expert CIECS-UNC y CONICET, Gabriela Bard Wigdor, pointed to the need to de-patriarchalize higher education, as a space that produces academic knowledge. “And the university cannot be de-patriarchalized if we do not also address the commodification of scientific knowledge and the epistemic racism that characterizes it and impacts it in multiple dimensions, ranging from the epistemologies we teach, the authors we read and the architecture itself that organizes the universities”.

Relive the webinar:

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