The UAB celebrates International Women's Day
Held on 10 March at the conference hall of the Rectorat building, the event paid tribute to Professor Encarna Bodelón from the Faculty of Law, specialist in women's rights and director of the Antígona research group. The event can be viewed on the UAB's YouTube channel.
10/03/2022
Esther Zapater, General Secretary of the UAB, began the institutional event by speaking on the importance of this day, which was first celebrated at the UAB 17 years ago: “The 8th of March is especially relevant because it reaffirms our commitment to equality. It allows us to reflect upon the situation of women in society and at university”. “We must fight for this equality 365 days a year”, Zapater said.
Maria Prats, director of the UAB Observatory for Equality, presented the observatory's lines of action and reviewed the tasks taking place currently: the updating of the 4th Equality Action Plan, awareness-raising campaigns to promote a campus free of sexism, workshops on masculinities, educational actions focused on gender equality for different university sectors, the sexual harassment protocol, prizes given to the best Final Projects taking into account the gender perspective, institutional participation in a variety of networks, etc.
Following that, Francesca Puigpelat, former lecturer of the UAB Faculty of Law, talked about the trajectory of Professor Encarna Bodelón, who joined the Area of Philosophy of Law at the UAB in 2002: “Thirty years ago, feminism was of great nuisance to the university. I believed that getting Encarna Bodelón to join our area could make her one of our most important assets and time has proved me right”. Dr Bodelón is expert in women's rights and co-director of the postgraduate programme in “Gender and Equality” at the UAB, a programme which has been offered at the UAB, in collaboration with the Barcelona Provincial Council, for 20 years now. She is also director of the research group “Antígona” at the UAB and member of the Association for Women Jurists.
After receiving her award from UAB Rector Javier Lafuente, Encarna Bodelón gave a speech in which she shared words from her femenist legal dictionary, given that “language structures us and sharing this dictionary for me is like opening a window to one of the worlds that surround me”. She spoke on feminist genealogy, teachers, Antígona, feminist justice and university. She ended her speech saying that, “It is a privilege to be able to do the work I do, and as a privileged woman, I am obliged to put my energy and knowledge at the service of my colleagues, students and society”.
The event also included a conference entitled “An Intersectional Lecture on the Istanbul Agreement” by Ruth Mestre, lecturer in Philosophy of Law and member of the Human Rights Institute of the University of Valencia, as well as specialist in Feminist Legal Theory.
UAB Rector Javier Lafuente closed the event with emphasis on the importance of celebrating 8 March: “This event does not aim to be some routine celebration; it is a day in which we renew our vows to work towards normal conditions, towards the disappearance of differences between men and women”. Rector Lafuente ended his speech with a declaration of intentions: “At the UAB, we must visualise and make visible the inequalities that exist in each and every one of our University sectors”.
This information is related to the following SDG
Reduced inequalities
Quality education