A fight for equality

By Andreia Passos*

Some days ago, the Portuguese Association of Scientist Women (AMONET) and the Sociology Department of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto promoted a meeting to debate the place of women in Scientific Policy. One of the conclusions reached was that, although there are, in Portugal, mechanisms of reproduction of discriminating practices in relation to women, the latest statistics published in EUROSTAT and INE place our country in the group of European states with higher rates of scientist women and graduates in scientific and technological areas.
These numbers are only part of a wider tendency that clearly points to a feminization of universities in Portugal and to the admission of women in areas that are real male fortresses.

These data have been fairly publicized but, in my opinion, this was not the most interesting aspect of this meeting, it was rather the situation that I shall describe: when questioned about those results, all those who dared to take part in the discussion explained the female gender’s performance in universities based on arguments that appeal to highly “naturalized” gender buildings in the conscience of people. Thus, women are more successful because they are “more disciplined”, “more responsible”, “more organized” and “more studious” than men.

However, the violence of stereotypes overthrew the ability to interpret those figures in a more objective way: women are more and more successful in those areas because they are also intelligent! Intelligence is not exclusive to men, although, for many centuries, it was considered a true male quality, a matrix that shaped their individual and social identity.

And if, in theory, it is obvious that intellectual competences are socially built rather than biologically determined, the truth is in terms of social practices, of symbolic representations, of the language and speech, sometimes in a disguised, invisible or even unconscious way, the feminine intelligence and intellectuality are rendered romantic (and inferior).

So, it is up to us, men and women, to work in order to ensure equality in the building of those competences for the good of everyone because, effectively, the society is poorer when equality is just something the law envisages and not a reality in our daily lives.

* Collaborator in the Information and Logistics Department