The new Medal of the Universitat has reminded us during her acceptance speech that ‘women had been absent as an object of study of biomedical research until the end of the last century. They remained invisible under the presumption that women and men are equal and studying diseases and diagnostic procedures was neutral for research and medicine’. ‘Medical science was created already stereotyped and male-centred, something that has caused women’s health invisibility’, stresses Carme Valls-Llobet.

‘I believe the true approach of science is to build one science that is free of gender stereotypes, the science of difference’ claims Valls-Llobet. ‘The big unfinished business in health research and women’s diseases is to introduce the variable of the sexual difference in the core of theoretical research, proving step by step the stereotypes of the attempted neutrality of biomedical science nowadays’ she claims.

In order to read the whole acceptance speech of Carme Valls-Llobet, check the following link.

The Principal Mª Vicenta Mestre has reminded us the permanent political commitment of Carme Valls-Llobet in the fight for a better, fairer and freer society. During her speech, full of references to the feminist struggle of women in university who have preceded us, Mestre has pointed out that ‘I share with Dr. Valls the need to incorporate empathy, not only in assistance duties, but also in all everyday ones.’

In order to read Principal Mª Vicenta Mestre’s speech, check the following link.

Professor of History of Science and Documentation and in charge of the laudation, Josep Lluís Barona, has claimed that with this medal, ‘the Universitat clearly honours and stands out the tireless and tenacious activism of Carme Valls-Llobet in favour of women’s health. But it also demonstrates its commitment to what Carme’s fight represents: women’s health, feminism, support to gender studies, the emancipation struggle that through strength, courage and conviction contributes to the transformation of a better society and to the liberation of people, to the equality of rights, to the respect of plural identities and to the acknowledgement of differences.’

A great number of members of the Board of Directors and of the Board of Trustees of the Universitat de València have attended the ceremony. The councillor of Equality of Valencia’s City Council, Isabel Lozano, the former mayor of València, Ricard Pérez Casado and the president of the Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de la Comunitat Valenciana, Carmen Leal Cercós, have also attended the ceremony.  

Carme Valls-Llobet

Carme Valls Llobet (Barcelona, 1945) is the director of the programme ‘Dona, Salut y Qualitat de Vida’ (‘Woman, Health and Quality of life’ in English) at the Centro de Análisis y Programas Sanitarios (CAPS), a nongovernmental scientific organisation of which she is the vice president.

She graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the Universitat de Barcelona and she got her doctorate. She takes part in the Sindicat Democràtic d’Estudiants of that university and was a member of the university branch of the group Força Socialista Federal until 1968.

She was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of the Universitat de Barcelona. Her scientific specialty is internal medicine and endocrinology and she was a pioneer in Spain when she outlined medical research on the differences in mortality and morbidity between women and men. She was also part of an international movement for the inclusion of women in clinical trials and the scientific rigour applied to the commoner problems of women.

This committed, equality advocate and promoter of medicine from a gender perspective woman, was a deputy at Catalonia's Parliament during the sixth term (1999-2003) of the Socialist’s Party of Catalonia— Citizens for Change. She was also the president of Fundació Catalunya Segle XXI.

Her research activity is collected in many publications, scientific and medical dissemination books. She was granted the award for good practices of non-sexist communication by the Associació de Dones Periodistes de Catalunya.