Textbooks reflect reality in one way or another, and in this same direction they must contribute to educating the new generations on equality between the sexes, and it is also an important means of eliminating all kinds of sexism.
I.1- Gender: Sociocultural Construction
Gender studies have their genesis in feminist movements, with women's studies, which began in the 1960s, when the object of analysis was initially directed at women's studies, but later there was a recognition that it was necessary to speak of women for their own diversity. That is why, from the academy, there is greater interest in these studies, and it is in this area that the gradual transition from the study of women to that of Gender begins to take place, studies that in the case of Cuba do not have a long history, since that were introduced in the second half of the 80's of the last century. In this return to these questions, a new level is produced in the answers that are obtained from the conceptualization, complex and still unfinished,of gender as a field of theoretical analysis by researchers.
When speaking of gender, it is not necessarily speaking of women, although there is a general tendency to consider them as synonyms.
“The gender category analyzes the historical synthesis that occurs between the biological, the economic, the social, the legal, the political, the psychological and the cultural. Gender is the set of attributes, attributes and characteristics that imply sex, but that does not exhaust its explanations there. ”
In the 1950s, the concept of gender began to emerge, strongly marked by the biological approach, however, its content has been changing and enriching itself with what socio-historical practice and the advances of social Sciences.
The 1960s was an important moment in the construction of these concepts. Decade that was characterized by social, political and ethnic differences, is structured around the emergence and / or development of high impact social, academic and political movements. Among the most significant we can refer to: women's movements, the black movement in the US, the indigenous movements in Latin America, the gay and lesbian movement, the hippie movement and the guerrilla movements in the so-called Third World.
For many years science used the concept of sex to establish the differences of human beings (women and men), using a basically biological criterion. Hence, everything that was referred to or had to do with the spiritual world of people, their behaviors and functions was excluded from these definitions.
Thus, later on, the category of gender emerged whose analytical value has allowed us to distinguish and explain what concerns men and women, which has undoubtedly been the result of a whole cultural process followed by humanity throughout its evolution. historical.
The researchers who first tackled the relationship between sex and gender were researchers John Money and Robert Stoller in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, based on the studies they carried out with hermaphrodites and transsexuals. In this way, they found that the identities of women or men, in the cases that were studied, depended more on the ways in which the individuals had been socialized and on the identity assigned by the parents than on the biological or hormonal data.
Money in 1951 used the concept of gender to refer to cultural behavior (educational influence) in the formation of sexual identity.
Before these contributions, sexual identity was conceived only from the biological point of view, so the use of this concept to refer to the cultural aspect, constituting a great contribution to scientific knowledge, means that in the analysis of this problem during the 1950s there was a great influence on biology.
The definition of gender as a category arises as a need to differentiate sex, from the point of view that includes the genetic, the hormonal, the chromosomal and the physiological, and gender as a sociocultural and historical construction of the feminine and the masculine.
"The development of this category has allowed us to understand and analyze the assignments… that in the history of different cultures have instituted for women and for men, based on a biological sexual difference…".
“Gender is socially constructed sex. It is the set of provisions by which society transforms biological society into products of human activity and in which these transformed needs are met. ”
In this sense, the author appreciates gender as a socio-cultural conditioning that has been built by society and not as a biological conditioning, as is often considered in many cases and studies that have been carried out.
From the above, we can infer that the causes of discrimination against women, as well as the differences between the two, are not in natural aspects, as is sometimes considered, but depends on sociocultural processes in the environment in which people operate, from the same moment of his birth and that develops throughout his life.
From this point of view it is clear that gender does not refer to biological sex, nor when we refer to it are we necessarily and exclusively talking about women, because sometimes we talk about sex and gender, gender and woman as if they were the same, there is a tendency to confuse those terms.
For this reason, when Sonia Montecino says: "… sex is inherited and gender is acquired through cultural learning".
In the analysis of the concept of gender it is necessary to bear in mind that although it is true that the word is old, it must be said that the concept is new; recently incorporated into scientific analysis. Gender as a relatively new concept refers to the meaning of masculine and feminine, it defines the set of characteristics and behaviors that society assigns as “appropriate” for each sex, it is also a social construction originated in the biological fact of being born with organs male or female sex.
There are outstanding studies on gender that seek to explain its origin based on the specific form of organization adopted by different societies in their development and brought about by the Sexual Division of Labor.
I.2- Construction of Masculinity and Femininity
With the emergence of the patriarchal family, social life was divided into two spheres: the public sphere and the private sphere.
Coinciding with what Teresita de Barbieri stated: “In general terms, feminists and students of the condition of women identify the public space as the workplace that generates income, collective action, power That is to say, the place where History is produced and takes place, and the private world as that of the domestic, of unpaid work and not recognized as such, family and parental relationships, affections, daily life. The first, masculine, the second, feminine. ”
The socially assigned power in gender relations has brought, which historically, has been given a differentiated location for men and women in society.
With the sexual division of labor, it was up to women to be relegated to the home space, assigning them the education and care of children, the sick and those who do not assume the roles assigned by society, with these pre-established precepts they were branded as “tomboy”, “ manly ”,“ manly ”, with lack of feminine gifts.
This creates the ideas that define women as fragile, soft, docile, as a second-rate individual, economically dependent on the male figure, while the man is considered the opposite, to be strong energetic, brave and dominant, In this way, a male / female differentiation is established, and a relationship of subordination and dependence of the woman "weaker sex", towards the man, "strong sex", who has power.
With the emergence of patriarchal class societies, where there is an absolute predominance of the male sex over the female, beginning a long period of discrimination and vexation of women that has been maintained for centuries, considering him as a being, with many duties and few or scarce rights. These societies have stereotyped women with the pattern of submission and weakness and men with that of strength and superiority. The design of a society that is being thought in essentially masculine terms is considered, where women are excluded.
Under these schemes, a sex-differentiated education with rigid limits is promoted in these societies, where the girl is prepared from childhood for her future role as mother and housewife, so the toys that a girl receives to play are dolls, kitchen games, hairdressing, among others, while men prepare for life in society, they are taught violent games and skills, they are given machine guns, carpenter games. This from our point of view constitutes a violation of personality.
This education includes what we could call the teaching of masculinity and femininity, the transmission of what is characteristic and exclusive to each of the sexes.
"… the ways in which relations between men and women occur and the roles assigned to each one, vary from one society to another, which supports the idea of character built by the cultural influence of what we call Gender…".
Since being a woman or a man is a cultural construct, then their definitions vary from culture to culture.
Two approaches must be distinguished in gender analyzes: the one that emphasizes the symbolic construction of the feminine and the masculine, and the one that points to the economic as the basis for understanding how men and women position themselves in social life.
The main exponent of the first approach (generic symbolism) is the anthropologist Sherry Orther, who maintains that “whenever biological differences find meaning only within a specific cultural system, it is necessary to know what are the gender ideologies and the associated symbolic values to the feminine and masculine in each society…
On the other hand, the social roles of women would be "imprisoned" in nature, since their role as reproductive would have limited them to functions that here identify the man with the public interest, while the woman is identified with the family and with the domestic environment.
These approaches were criticized for their ethnocentrism (in the sense, of conceiving the nature / culture opposition with valuations of dominance and subordination) and assuming that in all societies there is a domestic / public duality.
However, in what corresponds to the social approach to gender from the Marxist point of view, it is argued that it is important to take into account what men and women do and not symbols, and that this is related to the sexual division of labor.
One of the main contributions of this approach corresponds to the discovery that women in all societies have an important economic contribution and also that their status does not depend on their role as mothers or their confinement in the domestic sphere, but rather dependent on their control or not regarding: access to resources, the condition of their work and the distribution of the products of their work.
In the sixties there was a boom in the feminist movement, which was marked, because women had reached one of their legitimate and main demands: their right to vote, which was the fundamental purpose of the First Wave, however it is It should be noted that despite this, legal equality did not change the situation that characterized them, that is why among its proposals was the realization of the changes that were necessary to eliminate inequality.
During the seventies, the concept of gender that served to explain the origin and not only the difference, but the inequality between women and men, was taken up by North American academics, it is in this context that recognition occurred in all societies of an inequality between men and women, which is the result of hierarchical relations between genders.
At this time Gayle Rubin's work was published: “Trafficking of Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex”, where she proposes a way to analyze the oppression of women, through what she called the Sex / Gender System, defining this as:
"The set of provisions by which the biological raw material of sex and human procreation are shaped by human and social intervention and satisfied in a conventional way, however strange some of the conventions may be."
The author refers that the entire society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied, thus establishing a hierarchical orientation of the genres that have durability over time.
This essay played a great role in this period, since it constituted a moment of impulse to the studies of the category of Gender from the Social Sciences, contributing to its recognition as an object of study, beyond the field of sexuality, promoting the increase and diversification of the academic debate regarding this topic.
We are of the opinion that this Essay has great impact, importance and significance, since it promoted the performance of new analyzes and publications around the explanation of the historical and cultural processes that gave rise to the sexual division of labor.
It also served to explain that the subordination of women is a consequence of the relations that gender organizes and produces.
The author in her essay confers great importance and significance to sexuality with the great diversity of experiences in men and women.
Gender from a psychological point of view refers to the set of beliefs shared by a social group about psychosocial characteristics, that is, traits, roles, motivations and behaviors that are considered typical of women and men. (Boch, EY Cols 1999. Cited by: Vasallo, N.). From this perspective, gender has its relationship with sex, but we cannot identify them because they are not the same; their formation and development are in correspondence with the sociocultural contexts in which individuals operate from birth.
Subjectivity is formed in a historical cultural process, and throughout life, certain influences are received in people by the social environment in which they operate.
The relationship between men and women are as diverse as the referential frameworks in which they develop their existence are different. More, taking into account that these relationships exist as content of those links and dependencies that people contract in the process of their life activity.
It means that the gender of a person is essentially a social construction that varies from one social group to another and from one era to another. It is built through social communication processes and is transmitted through upbringing and education.
The first group to which the human being is inserted and develops since birth, is the family, from him his first influences come, but at the same time that individual is receiving a set of influences from other groups, a legacy cultural history, expressed in customs, norms, traditions, values, which are contributing in this way to developing in these people a status that differentiates them from the others.
The scenario in which people operate is changing throughout the development of their lives, interpersonal relationships, communication with others, their need for relationships, leading to establishing new friendships and groups of friends. This multiplicity of belongings changes throughout life and it presents new and different demands to people in their historical evolution. Subjectivity has been built in relation to social demands and has become a mediator of that demand and of all the influences received.
Most specialists agree that the concept of gender is a social category that allows explaining what happens in the relationships between different sexed beings, thus revealing the way in which men and women behave and relate in a certain society. This category transcends the frameworks of biological differences between the sexes, to focus on the differences and inequalities that exist between men and women for reasons of socioeconomic context, cultural and religious patterns in the different societies in which they interact.
Gender points to the roles and functions assigned to the masculine and feminine, to responsibilities, to socially constructed behaviors, it is not born with it, but it is in the long process of socialization where a set of traits that define the Forms of conduct, values, expectations, different for men and women, that is why it is affirmed that gender is "built", where culture is defining.
According to the criterion of Sonia Montesino "Gender as a social construction of sexual differences refers to the distinctions between feminine and masculine and therefore the relations between them."
It is necessary to study the relationship between women and men, since in most societies their differences produce inequality, but from another perspective, we must bear in mind that the fact that women are different from men does not It makes us unequal, but we are different only biologically.
Gender is defined in correspondence to ethnicity, class, age, etc. In this way, it is necessary to understand the female and male subjects not only from one of their profiles, (gender), but from the categories that live in it simultaneously and that will shape and specify their feminine or masculine being.
A gender analysis should not be ignored, but should take into account the study of the context in which the gender relations of men and women take place, and of the diversity of positions that they will occupy in different societies.
Gender from the point of view of the individual level has to do with the subjectivation of the demands that society imposes, of race and class in correspondence to how each person constructs them, starting from their body and their own individual experiences. From this point of view, the genre has specific contents for each one and therefore different meanings.
In interpersonal relationships, the content that is assigned / assumed to the gender that these people carry, in the different ways of communicating is constantly being exchanged, thus building everyday knowledge that constitutes Social Representation of Gender.
That daily knowledge is going to be expressed in the relationship that is established between the people who become part of certain groups, such as: the family, the school peers, informal groups, the community, members of different organizations and institutions, constituting in references that will form part of the social demands of the people who make up the same.
I.3- Gender Identity
“Identity is also nourished by membership in groups defined by the scope of interests, by the type of activity, by age, by the period of the life cycle, and by everything that groups or separates the subjects in affinity. and in the difference. ”
Gender identity represents self-awareness and the feeling of their own individuality that define them as male or female, that is, it is the person's conviction of belonging to a certain gender.
The construction of the dynamics of the relations between the genders is a process that without realizing it happens daily, reason why the received influences, fundamentally in the education must be directed to the achievement of the equality between women and men, since the differences that Historically, they have been established to prevent women in many cases from developing all their intellectual, affective, and volitional potential, limiting their development in the society in which they operate.
The debates about Gender Studies show a knowledge that has been accumulating, showing that social life is made up of men and women who relate to each other and to things in different ways. The contributions of gender theories in the contemporary world acquire great importance. These studies are aimed at seeking the way in which culture has been contributing to finding out how men and women are developing from a subjective point of view.
“The gender category analyzes the historical synthesis that occurs between the biological, the economic, the social, the legal, the political, the psychological, the cultural; it implies sex, but it does not exhaust its implications there. ”
Each culture establishes a set of practices, ideas, discourses and social representations that attribute specific characteristics to women and men. Through the process of gender construction, society fabricates the ideas of what men and women should be, of what is supposed to be “proper” to each sex.
We are all, in one way or another, carriers of a gender approach, generally sexist and discriminatory, that we have inherited from previous societies and that conditions the way we judge the facts, both women and men have incorporated the ideology of gender vision, that we must work to modify it, and in which the family, school and society in general must play an essential role.
Throughout its historical evolution, today's society has had a patriarchal projection, and therefore men have benefited, while women have received discriminatory treatment.
That is why it is necessary to establish in today's society the equality of rights that “… is a necessary condition; but not enough to achieve real equality because the processes that generate inequality are implicit in the values, the symbols, the specific ways in which human beings are related in each society and that are transmitted in the historical cultural process of subjective formation and education of people from before their birth. "
It is therefore necessary, in this way, a non-sexist education, that allows achieving balanced development, that allows establishing conditions of equal treatment for men and women, developing policies of equal opportunities.
It is impressive and at the same time astonishing that at the beginning of the 21st century, when the advances in science and technology are evident, a discourse that tries to circumscribe women's participation to issues related to reproduction continues. This “naturalistic” discourse has such force because it reaffirms the differences between men and women and, in doing so, it reaffirms the situation of inequality.
Gender studies demonstrate the inconsistency of biological approaches to legitimize male superiority. The conquests of the feminist movements and their scientific contributions have also been of special importance in dismantling these schemes and promoting the development of new strategies that help redesign the place of women and men in society.
Many of these cultural characteristics are still observed in our families, which are of slow eradication, created through education and transmitted from one generation to another, which require a long time for them to be overcome, and which have given rise to structures family where there are inequalities between men and women.
We consider that what has been built for thousands of years is difficult to eliminate in a short time, because it is rooted in people and because there are a series of subjective elements that endure in the consciousness of individuals; and it is necessary to work systematically, to eliminate from the social and individual conscience of men and women the old sexist conceptions that still exist.
At the educational level, it is necessary to eliminate the representations, images and discourses that affirm gender stereotypes and that are transferred from one generation to another, from one era to another.
If there is something that characterizes contemporary life, it is that it broadens the framework of action for women, taking them out of the narrow framework of the family, to enter the world of work or political activity.
Therefore, a new way of conceptualizing family responsibilities between women and men is required, a new distribution of tasks that allows women to dedicate themselves to other responsibilities that are not exclusive to the home. Hence, anti-discrimination action is supported in education and social communication.
Summarizing, we can point out that the concept of gender allows us to understand that many of the issues that we consider to be natural attributes of men or women, are actually characteristics that have been socially constructed by humanity, as is well analyzed in this work..
On the other hand, we must mention that gender as a cultural construction is governed by everything that each society sets, determines and establishes, such as what must correspond to women and men and their historical conditioning, is determined from the fact that in different epochs occur or may occur different assignments.
Gender construction is a historical phenomenon that occurs in the macro and micro-social spheres.
Finally, the ways of being male and female carry on themselves the indisputable stamp of each culture at different moments of social development.
I.4- Gender perspective in education.
The school together with the family, as important institutions and agents of socialization that they are, have the social task of educating the social relations between the human beings that are formed in it, at the same time they constitute ways through which stereotypes of gender, but also become determining elements in overcoming them. It is the task of the school to transmit knowledge devoid of gender stereotypes, a non-sexist education must be inherent in its students, and achieve the personal growth of individuals devoid of all kinds of prejudice.
The school as the most important center in the integral formation of the individual's personality, must be one of the most important spaces, or the fundamental one for education in gender equality, in order to correct any type of social inequality, including those that they are produced on the basis of sex, thus helping to promote equality and non-discrimination.
This look at the educational field, refers us to suggest that the gender perspective from education encompasses various aspects, which includes the design of textbooks and programs, among others, through which the school perpetuates sexism., where female figures appear invisible, in a situation of marginalization, or subordination to which we have been subjected in this field for a long time, even today, we find manifestations of this type, recognizing only the role of men, hence the need promote educational change in the field of gender, because, "… in the educational field it is crucial to eliminate the representations, images and discourses that reaffirm gender stereotypes."
It is very frequent that we find in education certain terms that have a sexist use, using the masculine gender to designate or refer to men and women, that is, it is used as universal, either in language (oral and written), in didactic materials, written brochures or in school interactions in the classroom, so it is important to reduce sexist use in schools.
From the school, the contents should be approached with a different perspective, with a gender perspective, which must be reinforced by the family and the media, which contributes to eliminating old sexist patterns and conceptions that still predominate. an essential role in the formation of new values.
It is of great importance that the search for the achievement of equal opportunities is not reflected only in the limits of the educational centers of general education, but that higher education centers must be incorporated into this task, which is the criterion that has been Lagging somewhat behind other types of education, thus educating with a gender perspective.
“The gender perspective supposes taking a political position against gender oppression; it is an explanatory and alternative critical vision of what happens in the gender order, allowing us to analyze the deep and complex causes of this oppression and the historical processes that originate and reproduce it ”. (Clotilde Proveyer. Sociology and Social Policy on Gender. Introduction).
Education with a gender perspective implies the training of a generation of people on the basis of equity between the sexes, seeking to eliminate gender inequality, creating the conditions for equal access to educational resources, without discrimination or exclusion, to cultural change in women and men (for example, responsible fatherhood and the equal distribution of household chores), which favors the construction of a more just and equitable society.
The school as an agent of socialization, together with the family, has the social task of educating in the culture of peace and equality, transmitting non-sexist values and patterns in its students; it must promote respect and non-discrimination in the group, develop actions that are aimed at promoting equitable relations between the sexes; must contribute to change ways of thinking and modes of action that allow them to assume a more democratic position, without gender discrimination, teachers must avoid that through language, games, treatment and other practices that reinforce gender stereotypes.
The school as the second framework of socialization, is responsible for the formation of a general culture in the individuals who form it, acting in the formation of their personality, perpetuating outdated forms of thought, or contributing to developing more democratic forms of construction of the individualities and identities of men and women.
El profesorado está en el deber de que a la hora de llevar a cabo el proceso docente educativo lo aborde desde una perspectiva que promueva la participación activa y equitativa del estudiantado, sin discriminación, se debe promover la cohesión y la cooperación en grupo sin hacer distinciones ni separaciones por sexos, que en el currículum esté presente la eliminación de estereotipos de género, en el trato, en el lenguaje, en las interacciones en el aula, eliminando los valores que tradicionalmente se han venido creando a lo largo del desarrollo histórico, con respecto a las mujeres y los hombres y los roles diferentes que ambos deben cumplir en la sociedad.
«Men and women are different, but not for that reason superior or inferior; respecting these differences and divergent opinions and enriching ourselves with them means being open to diversity ”(Gloria Camacho, Gender Equity at School. Training modules for basic education teachers, 1998, p. 49.
We agree with this author's criteria, because the difference does not imply that we are unequal, the inequality is in the fact that these differences are not respected.
Carrying out social studies and research from a gender perspective implies carrying out an objective analysis of gender relations, investigating the factors that influence gender oppression, the institutions that sanction or legitimize norms, duties and limits. gender, as well as the evaluation of women and men as social beings immersed in a set of relationships that are socially conditioned and as a result of a specific society.
“Therefore, applying this approach means identifying, among other issues:
- The specific needs of men and women. The gaps between men and women in terms of access and control of resources and possibilities for development in general. The possibilities to support the development of skills and affirmative actions for the advancement of women. ”(Mayda Ávarez and others: Training on Gender and Human Development.
Technical Scientific Editorial, Havana, 2004).
I.4- Possibilities of women's access to education: a look from gender studies.
The history of education tells that in the period of the Enlightenment and the liberal revolution, during the centuries from the XVI to the XVIII, together with important authors such as Rousseau, they began to visualize articles by women, under the myth of female inferiority.
By the middle of the 18th century in Europe, the foundations of the educational system were beginning to take shape, where it was conceived that the education of men and women should be carried out in a differentiated way, in this way it was considered that girls should not study because they did not need to possess a wide culture, since that would distance them from their main function. The possibility of access to elementary education for women was limited and they were prohibited from reaching secondary and higher education. Only those girls and girls who belonged to the upper class were those who had the possibility, due to their social status, to receive some elementary classes in music, drawing or other subjects, which would allow them to communicate, exchange and be able to converse with other people of their own class, but in no case to achieve extensive knowledge,nor to graduate from university studies in this field, because its place corresponds to the domestic sphere.
We are of the criterion as it is shown here that throughout the history of humanity women have been marginalized from access to education, then the limitations begin, where they are wrongly attributed, the differences that from the point of Social view exists between men and women to biological, natural factors, which allows us to justify the dominance of the masculine and the discrimination of the feminine.
But in addition, this reinforces the criteria regarding the roles that are traditionally assigned to women and men, denying women their opportunity to participate on equal terms with men in society and thus reinforcing discriminatory practices towards women.
During the 19th century, we can find that in teaching there was a marked influence of the church, where women are still considered in a secondary role. The essential objective of women's access to the educational system was to educate them in order to prepare them for some household chores, for the better functioning of the home and family, fulfilling their fundamental mission in life: procreating and caring for the children, thus highlighting their reproductive role, without considering the productive role that she plays in society.
In this period it can be verified that the objective of women's access to education is not remotely to achieve their full freedom and cognitive independence, much less for their intellectual growth, but rather to put themselves in function of the other, which makes clear the inferiority role attributed to him in society as being of the second category.
In this sense we are of the criterion that value is being detracted from women and autonomy because they must live for men, in function of him and for him.
In this same 19th century, taking into account these assumptions, the struggle of the first feminists was focused on achieving full access for women to education, to the professional world without exclusions and to that of public life, and above all to achieving obtaining the female vote.
Feminist theories have denounced, the established patriarchal order, the situation of marginalization and inferiority to which women have been subjected in the educational field, explains how society itself builds femininity and masculinity through the family, the media of mass communication and dissemination and the school itself, basing how the existing differences between both genders do not obey biological elements, but have been culturally constructed. It promotes educational change in gender matters.
In the mid-nineteenth century, girls were legally authorized to access schools other than boys in order to learn to read, write and count, very elementary activities that were once mandatory in schools for males.
Starting in the 1950s, what was called the "modernization process" took place in Latin America, which had very important effects on education, during the early stages in order to qualify the workforce so that it could face industrialization and in a second moment, as one of the mechanisms that made it possible to satisfy the aspirations of the population, which did not imply substantial structural transformations.
Among women, the educational changes were notable, since female illiteracy reached higher rates than men in all countries, so much so that in the 1970s illiterate women were 90% more than men, despite the fact that considerable progress was made in women's literacy, there was also an increase in female university enrollment.
Already in the late nineteenth century, proposals began to be made aimed at defending the need for women to receive a school education that went beyond the simple fact of learning to read, write and count, which was in correspondence with the one they received the men. Achieving this educational equality meant that women could have access to secondary and higher education, and that the education of girls was in the same centers as that of boys.
At this time a tendency to decrease discrimination on the basis of sex in education begins to occur.
“The appearance, at the end of the 19th century, of those timid feminist discourses and the insertion of women in the educational sphere from their role as a student, opened a gap in the patriarchal culture of Cuban society that with the passing of time became it has widened… ”(Fleitas, Reina, Clotilde Proveyer and Graciela González. Participation of Cuban women in the nineties. The public and the domestic, Page 198, in Clotilde Proveyer's Selection of Sociology and Social Policy Readings of Gender.)
The school has historically contributed to perpetuate and reproduce gender inequalities, introduces the analysis of the explicit and hidden curricula to explain how this is marked by sexism, where it places the feminine in a subordinate relationship and the masculine in a position of superiority.
The school has a social mandate to transmit the knowledge, skills and cultural values that are socially accepted by a certain time, however we still find today that stereotypes continue to be perpetuated, which often manifest in covert ways.
That is why we agree with the criteria of Alicia González and Beatriz Castellanos when they expressed that “… it is necessary for teachers to be aware of their role in the transformations that can emerge from the school itself, enhancing their ability to identify discriminatory sexist biases in education and the strategies to fight them ”. González, A. and Beatriz Castellanos: Sexuality and Genders: Alternatives for their education before the challenges of the XXI century.
Rousseau, who spoke of the Social Contract, in his pedagogical work Emilio, had a sexist view because, according to his criteria, women should only dedicate themselves to reproducing the species, and not to political questions, since that is a matter that concerns them. men, thus denying the fact that they could access knowledge, limiting them to the private sphere only, as many other opinions of their contemporaries. All this logically has to do with the historical social conditioning of the time.
We are of the opinion that Rousseau has a biological approach to the problem, since he limits himself to seeing only the biological, reproductive condition of women, in this way, he feels sexist and discriminatory guidelines, without taking into account the rights of women. in a general way, which is why he is excluding them from any possibility of participating in public and social life, on a par with man and as a social being.
The ideological basis that has supported the secondary and subordinate role of women is given in the "natural" differences, "what is characteristic of women, what is their own," what corresponds to them by nature ".
This conception was strongly criticized by Mary Wolstonecraft, in her work “Vindication of the Rights of Women”, who stated: “In my fight for women's rights, my main argument is based on the elementary principle that, if the woman is not prepared, through education, to become a companion of man, it will be she who will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue, because the truth must always be the heritage of all and if not, it will not have influence in life ”.
We agree with the Wollstonecraft criterion that the fundamental way to overcome female subordination is given in the possibility that women have of access to education, which would allow, on the one hand, to achieve equality with respect to men, and on the other, to develop their economic independence whenever they have the possibility of accessing paid activities.
Engels in his work entitled: “The origin of the family, private property and the state, dealt with aspects related to gender and in particular on the subordinate situation of women, considering himself to be one of the few Marxist authors who have dealt with the problem in his writings.
I.5- Possibilities of women's access to education: the case of Cuba.
Education has constituted an instrument for the liberation of peoples and women, a right that every person has; In this sense, the most advanced and radical feminists of thought, throughout the historical evolution have struggled to demand the access of women to the tools of knowledge on equal terms with men.
The situation of women in education in Cuba before the triumph of the revolution, became quite difficult, women were not allowed to access it and it worsened in those cases of black and poor women, where they were prohibited participate in educational services, due to the discrimination to which they were subjected.
The educational situation in Cuba was more favorable than that of the rest of the countries of the region, in the 1950s, however, 22% of the population over 15 years of age was illiterate, and among women, 31% of older than 15 years were illiterate, of every ten university students only two were women.
As can be seen in the previous data, illiteracy reached high levels and a very small number of people accessed higher education, and when it came to the female sector, the figures were much lower, therefore her situation was worse, since that macho cultural traditions kept them excluded from the educational world, leaving space only for household chores and care for children and family.
According to data published in the population census that was carried out in 1953, teachers at the primary level were 89.3% of all women in that occupation of teaching and 84.3% of all teachers in education. primary. “During all those years, the occupation of primary school teacher progressively transformed into a traditional feminine activity, legitimized by the society that valued it as an extension of the domestic expressive role to public life.
… In 1953, of a total of 2,132,000 women over the age of 10, 23% were illiterate, 71% were under-schooled and only 2% had completed secondary education. ” (Fleitas, Reina, Clotilde Proveyer and Graciela González. Participation of Cuban women in the 1990s. The public and the domestic, Page 199, in Clotilde Proveyer's Selection of Readings on Sociology and Social Policy on Gender.)
With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, a process of great changes and transformations began in all spheres of social life in the country, from which education did not escape, transformations that were generally directed at the entire population, but fundamentally to those most unprotected sectors and specific groups of women and children, who suffered from a situation of inferiority in all areas, including education, producing a radical change in this regard, giving the possibility of accessing any level of education on par with man.
The revolutionary government in the first decade adopted a set of measures that were aimed at eliminating illiteracy in the Cuban population.
The educational transformation had been proposed by Fidel in the Moncada Program and in 1961 the Literacy Campaign began, where women participated in their dual literate status, constituting 55% of the literate and 59% of the literate. literacy teachers, which reduced illiteracy in just one year to almost zero, at the same time a process of incorporating women, children and young people into different levels of education began, university enrollment was expanded, and worker-peasant education to give continuity to the overcoming of those adults who had been literate or who had low school levels.
This transformation in the Cuban educational system shows the tendency to gradually eliminate the discrimination to which women were subjected, as well as the gender inequality present before 1959.
By the end of the 1970s, there was a considerable reduction in illiteracy in the population, both male and female, so much so that in 1979 the total illiteracy rate was 3.9%; for men 3.7 and for women 4.2%, however as a result of education reforms in favor of the entire population, during the first two decades, the number of male graduates grew 4.7 times, while in growth tripled in women, being 12.76 times.
The decade of the 80 produced significant changes regarding the situation of women in education; taking place an increase in the number of graduates and in the enrollments of the different levels of education. In a few years, women achieve a qualification in an ascending manner, which allows them to participate as a social active social being and participant in transformations with great possibilities of equity.
In these 80s of the 20th century as a product of the development achieved by the Sociology of Education, research began to be carried out, the results of which demonstrated the transmission in the classroom of sexist content, and stereotypes that reinforce inequalities between men and women, where women are educated in traditionally masculine patterns.
“In Cuba, with the process of nationalization of education, there is a radical change in the conception of education. Its main values include having converted the formal educational process into a mixed, free, secular and democratic model. Education becomes compulsory, it constitutes a duty and a right of every citizen… ”(Yenisei Bombino, Sexism. Male and female models in the 9th grade Spanish-Literature textbook, in Selection of Sociology and Social Policy Readings Gender, page 244)
Women are 66.6 percent of the country's technical force and are also 30 percent of the scientists, this means that not only have alternative options been proposed, but they have been used to a great degree, breaking the previous canons of labor compartmentalization.
The crisis unleashed in the country in the nineties caused by the special period does not change this situation, since through an extraordinary effort by the top leadership of the country the quality of education and the participation of the female gender was maintained.
An important role is played by the presence of women in all teaching staff, both in education in general and in higher education in particular.
1.6- Theoretical approaches to sexism in education
The term sexism appeared in the United States in the mid-1960s, by analogy with the term sexism, in order to demonstrate that sex constitutes a factor of discrimination, subordination, and devaluation for women. This term was used by the feminist groups that were emerging at that time.
“Sexism is a discriminatory practice that limits and excludes women from being able to be in equal rights and opportunities, as well as men, considering them superior to them, where the right to access the same places is removed. Man and perform the same tasks. " (From the author Isabel).
Sexism manifests itself in discrimination on the basis of sex, where women fare worse than men because of the attacks to which they are subjected, indirect attacks that are the result of the social system. All this causes women, as a consequence of gender, to face situations that prevent them from participating fully in the societies where they live.
A premise of anti-discrimination action is to recognize that culture introduces sexism, that is, discrimination based on sex through gender. Each culture establishes a set of practices, ideas, discourses and social representations that attribute specific characteristics to women and men. This symbolic construction that in the social sciences is called gender, regulates and conditions the objective and subjective behavior of people. In other words, through the process of gender constitution, society itself constructs the ideas of what is supposed to be "own", "inherent, innate", "characteristic of each sex.
There are elements of culture, which reinforce the mechanisms that perpetuate the subordination of women, it seems that the patriarchal ideology does not want to leave the grounds of schools, therefore, it is not idle to continue denouncing the sexist manifestations that still in the XXI century We continue to observe in these institutions, as well as the unfair and discriminatory effects that this causes.
"… inequalities between the sexes cannot be rectified if the social assumptions that have impeded equality are not taken into account, especially the effects that the division between private = female and public = male has generated." (Marta Lamas The gender perspective, in the Magazine of Education and Culture of Section 47 of the SNTE
According to Xavier Bonal, internationally, research on sexism in school takes place especially throughout the eighties. Previously, the sociology of education did not pay attention to the issue of inequality in this area, at first because the school was not considered to discriminate (as yet another element of domination), but rather, this institution was considered the best a way of guaranteeing equal opportunities, since it contributed to each individual reaching a certain level of education that would allow them to access jobs that are equitably remunerated, without going beyond what it can provide.
Sociological research was then in charge of demonstrating that the school not only did not contribute to equal opportunities, but also reproduced the inequalities between social groups.
With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in our educational system, schools for whites or for the wealthy were eliminated, going to the revolutionary school, where the main thing is not in the origin, nor the color of the skin of the students, reaching in this way educational equality between females and males, regardless of race, sex, or social origin; The opportunity that all people have to access an education without discrimination that guarantees personal growth and human development prevails.
There are certain legal documents where the new relationships between people are regulated, as well as the guarantee regarding access and educational opportunities, but this alone is not enough to eliminate at the root the traditional ideas and customs of hegemonic masculinity that have been transmitted to the new generations of Cubans, because even now we can make sexist behaviors and attitudes visible in many sectors of current Cuban society, in the school sexist behaviors and patterns that have nothing to do with discourse are transmitted through the curriculum officer of said institution.
In this way, the school reproduces male and female stereotypes, either by action or by omission, which have been socio-culturally constructed that lead to gender inequality. Despite this, it is good to recognize that school is not the institution that contributes the most to inequality, but we can affirm that it can contribute a great deal to achieving equality and gender equality.
Sexism has negative consequences for both men and women, because it limits the possibilities of one and the other as people and denies certain behaviors that are usually considered as typically “feminine” or as “masculine. That is why sometimes we hear expressions such as: "boys do not cry", or "girls should not speak like this", "sit like girls", it is indicating that individuals must adopt specific and differentiated behaviors because they are one or the other sex.
These constitute sexist considerations, which are conceived as prohibited behaviors. The crying child is repressed for breaking her shadow, adopting "girlish" behaviors, in this case she is being deprived of expressing her feelings openly, which would bring frustration with the little ones and disorders in her personality. The girl who speaks perhaps rudely or who is interested in sports, is accused and questioned about her femininity, which will hinder her development.
"In this sense, sexism mistakenly attributes the social differences that exist between men and women to biology, thus trying to justify domination and discrimination. It hinders the development and quality of life of all human beings by reducing their values to those traditionally considered as masculine or feminine, forcing them to identify with major problems such as violence in the case of men and submission in the case of women " (García, Colmenares, Carmen CEAPA - Non-sexist education).
The contributions of anthropology, and on the studies carried out by M. Mead on the behaviors of men and women in different non-western societies, introduce important criteria in the belief that nature is what marks the behaviors of each other. From these studies, Mead concludes that in all the societies analyzed by her, a distinction is made between what is considered typical of men and what is considered typical of women: but the type of activities and skills that are They attribute to one and the other, as their own characteristics, it varies. M. Mead says: “Sometimes a quality has been assigned to one sex, sometimes to the other.
From the family, girls and boys are educated differently under the pattern of patriarchal societies, revealing the division of sexual roles, where men assume responsibility for economic income and women the domestic roles.
The research that has been carried out shows that sexism is not a problem related to the biological condition, but a problem of sociocultural construction, because if the capacities and aptitudes attributed to women and men vary from one society to another, from one epoch to another, this means that they are not established by biology, but that their determination is social, an issue that must be resolved through education, where the school has to play an important role through the curriculum, because there is still much to be achieved in terms of equality of power and domestic responsibilities. But above all, in the eradication of violence that as a consequence of sexism continues to be exerted against women for the fact of being so.This constitutes a severe blow to biological determinism and opens up new possibilities of social identity for both men and women.
The mechanisms through which sexism is transmitted are so general, profound and, at times, so subtle, that it is not enough that the school transmits a non-sexist education, but rather that it is necessary to include in the school curriculum experiences that contribute to eradicating this problem, which affects women especially, where the mass media, the family and the environment must also play an important role.
Society itself creates stereotypes of what the boy or girl should be and do, that is why the boy or girl is limited or deprived to express their feelings freely and openly, because the education they receive is differentiated by sex., limiting the full development of his personality.
In our country, different investigations have been carried out that have shown how the explicit and hidden curricula show how women are less represented and recognized than men in carrying out certain activities, and at the same time certain results have been disclosed, where the performance of more stereotypical or less relevant activities by women is also revealed
There are different ways through which sexism can be reproduced, such as: School organization and pedagogical practices, language, curriculum and textbooks.
I.6.1- Sexism in language
Language is the way that people have to communicate with each other, to express themselves, it is the ideal means to qualify and qualify the objects and phenomena that exist in the world around them, as well as the way to objectify their ideas, their thoughts, their views.
“Language constitutes a system of symbols or signs of objects of reality, of their properties and links, which represents an essential instrument of human thought.” (Collective of Authors: Lessons from FML, p. 233, Editorial Félix Varela, Havana, 2003).
Language as immediate reality through which people express their ideas verbally or in writing, transmits all the culture accumulated by humanity; it is a way of perpetuating gender stereotypes, by always being present in one way or another in human thinking activity. According to the classics of Marxism, it is the material envelope of thought.
The language that appears in the texts uses the masculine as generic, where it apparently integrates both masculine and feminine, subsuming in this way or omitting the feminine.
Another of the sexist forms of language is manifested in the use of masculine to name a group, where people of both sexes appear, or when the majority of the people who are part of it are women, there is a use and abuse of masculine, diluting the female identity.
Another sexist form of language is when we refer to the use of some terms that in the case of the feminine have a negative meaning, for example Man on the street ”and“ Woman on the street ”, gives the idea of a woman who has dedicated to prostitution, to lead a disorderly life, which has been thrown as it says "down the middle street."
“This abusive use of the masculine does nothing but reinforce the predominant role of the masculine as the most important, highlighting the connections between thought and language, since our language externally represents the structure of our thought. This connection can be found in certain situations where language conditions the success of certain tasks by encouraging the use of
stereotypical strategies that prevent the finding of the correct solution. ” (Garcia Carmen. CEAPA Non-sexist education.
The sexist character of language is given that society itself, the very culture that the developing individual acquires, also has a sexist character, which evolves with the changes that are generated in it.
I.6.2- Sexism in texts
As Santos Guerra (1996) points out, “the textbook is a privileged resource to analyze school sexism…, it is taken as a learning reference point,… it can be used alone; It also has a prescriptive nature since it constitutes a direct reference for learning ”.
Sexism in texts can be identified when in them are illustrations where men and women are represented, developing traditional, stereotyped roles that do not reflect the various activities that can be carried out by both men and women. "This is a manifestation of sexism, where the denial of social reality and the diversity of situations is revealed, with the consequent presentation of images and traditional male and female roles."
Textbooks reflect reality in one way or another, and in this same direction they must contribute to educating the new generations on equality between the sexes, and it is also an important means of eliminating all kinds of sexism.
The androcentric vision contributes to the invisibility of the contributions that women have made from the scientific point of view, so it is important and convenient to critically review the sex-gender system.
In our case, there are different studies and investigations that reveal how female figures are less represented, appearing in roles that are considered from the domestic sphere, from the private world: they are reflected in washing dishes, in the kitchen, taking care of children; legitimizing stereotyped or less important activities, that the patriarchal culture has created during many centuries of feminine discrimination, giving more importance to the public, to the masculine world.
The school is not the only transmitter of a sexist education, but it is the maximum responsible for educating on gender equality and eliminating those contents that have discriminatory effects on students.
