The Observatory of Equality of the University of Valencia is a key tool to raise awareness about the inequalities between men and women in the university environment, by means of studies and reports. It is part of the Equality Unit of the University of Valencia, created by agreement of the Government’s Council in October 2007, whose main objective is to implement the right to equal treatment and opportunities between women and men. Among its main functions are to elaborate and develop the necessary programmes to promote equality policies at the University and to coordinate the specific actions that, in this sense, can be implemented by the different bodies, centres and services.
The UV Observatory has a long history of measuring gender gaps existing within the University. It promotes the construction of gender-sensitive indicators, which require the disintegration of all the statistical information available to the university, according to the gender variable, so that inequalities between women and men can be measured.
Thus, a diagnosis of the situation of the three collectives that make up the university community from a gender perspective is regularly updated: Administration and Services Staff, Research Teaching Staff and Students. The purpose of this job is to denounce both the vertical and horizontal segregation suffered by women in an institution seemingly free from inequalities, such as the university. The data reflect the difficulties of promotion in the professional career of both PAS and PDI women (vertical segregation). Likewise, women’s access to knowledge areas of higher social prestige, such as scientific-technical areas, is also highly biased (horizontal segregation, in this case of female teachers). It can also be observed in the student body that the choice of career and academic trajectories are conditioned by the gender variable.
The indicators, studies and analyses carried out from the Observatory can be consulted on its website.
