The Universitat de València celebrates, as they do every year, International Women’s Day with a cultural and awareness programme that has started in the lead-up to 8 March, the day of the commemoration, and which will go on for several weeks.
Among the institutional acts on Thursday 6 March there will be a demonstration at the building of the Principal’s Office of the UV, and a reading of the manifesto by the principal Mavi Mestre at 12:00pm.
This year, one of the main acts is the conference of Pastora Filigrana about feminism and the resistance stragies of the Romani people which will be taught by this Labour lawyer, syndicalist, femisnist, and human rights activist for the Roma people, on 4 March at 12:00pm at the hall of the Faculty of Law of the Universitat.
The week prior to 8M, the Equality Unit has organised on the four campuses a theatre-forum together with La Candela Teatro company. Basically, the performance of Déjate llevar shows the relationship between Sara and Rober, two youngsters who base their relationship on the myth of romantic love, on jealousy, on control, and on Rober’s dominance. The play shows different types of violence against women: psychological violence, physical violence, sexual violence, and symbolic violence. The theatre-forum is a real-life rehearsal that generates different tools and skills to act in the face of different conflicts that transform situations of social injustice and allows interaction with the public.
On 12 March 2025, the motor home “Tejiendo Redes Violetas sobre Ruedas”, a project that has been financed by the Ministry of Equality, will arrive with its itinerant route to the Universitat de València, specifically at the next spaces and schedules.
-From 9:00am to 11:30am with the caravan at the Blasco Ibáñez campus. At the square between Espai Vives and Aulari III.
-From 12:00pm to 2:00pm on the Tarongers campus between the Library of education and the Faculty of Social Sciences.
It is about a programme for the prevention of gender-based violence among young people which has the general objective to raise awareness and include young people about different demonstrations and ways of exerting violence against women through a methodology of participation from a gender and intersectional perspective.
Among the activities that will be carried out, the following stand out:
-Escape Room “Invisible Violences”: a mixed-sex educational escape game where participants will have to solve riddles about psychological, sexual, emotional, and digital violence.
-Role-Playing “Stop Violence”: dynamics for decision making and conflict resolution around the prevention of gender violence.
-Violet Space: a space which offers information and support about the fight against violence against women.
-Awareness game “Traditional Masculities vs New Masculinities”: an activity that questions the myths around romantic love in popular culture.
-Feminist debates: spaces for participative dialogue about equality and the prevention of gender violence.
The Office of the Vice-principal of Culture and Society devotes a considerable part of the programmed activities to draw attention to projects made by women, and in many cases, to make stories of resilience and overcoming featuring women public. In this sense, the UV, through the Unisocietat programme will showcase the play Dones superant –també– La Dana, on Friday, 7 March, at Rector Peset Hall of Residence, at 12:00pm; the play will start with the presentation of the documentary, “Resistentes: Mujeres después de la dana”, a production directed by journalist Elena Morales, who has compiled eight stories about women who have lived, are living, or are related with la DANA that affected the province of Valencia on 29 October 2024.
This documentary gives voice to women like Cristina Guzmán Traver, ceramicist, Arantxa Carceller and Eva Vázquez, booksellers at the La Moixeranga bookstore of Paiporta; Merche Peris, Olympic swimmer; Inmaculada García Peris; Eva Alepuz Prat, professor; Marisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, head of Cultural Heritage of the Universitat de València; Ana García Forner, director of the Natural History Museum of the UV; María Rosa Gabaldón, Utiel neighbour; and Virginia Sanchis Carpe, from the Alanna Association.
The DANA that happened last October had a devastating impact in Valencian towns near the city and it mainly affected women, who in many cases suffered double vulnerability. In addition to the loss of homes and businesses, many of them faced major difficulties to access resources and assistance, a position that in many families the healing of people fell on them.
When the screening of the documentary ends. Marisa Vásquez de Ágredos, head of Cultural Heritage of the UV, will present Salvamos las fotos, a project set in motion by the UV together with other institutions, destined to recover and restore family photographs damaged by the DANA. The act and discussion will be moderated by María Dolores Pitarch, delegate for the principal for University-Society programmes. The activity counts on the collaboration the UV Equality Unit.
The programme of cultural classrooms of the UV also includes this gender perspective, especially for March. The Narratives Classroom has scheduled the round table Casadas o solteras (Married or Single) for 4 March (Aula Magna, 7:30pm). The stigma of marriage in women, on the occasion of the publication of books like Como Anillo al dedo by Purificació Mascarell, an essay that shows the most significant representations of the institution of marriage through women’s literature by the hands of Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, or Kate Millet, and Solteronas by Manuel Jiménez Núñez, allows for discovering hidden voices and stories of women who defied the stigma of single life.
Also the theatrical programme of the Universitat de València transversally includes in every season the perspective of gender and this year especially through the new cycle Intersecciones. That way, Las tambores by Reiner Zimnik, an adaptation by Médula Teatro e Investigación, directed by Lucho Ramírez, the play that has been ordered to debut this initiative on 28 Februar to, on the basis of a visual and metatheatrical metaphor, explore the reasons for which women of different social backgrounds decide to leave their countries of origin seeking a better life. On 12 and 13 March, Grupo Komos, directed by Miguel Navarro, presents classics like Antigone by Sophocles and Lysistrata by Aristophanes, respectively; while on 28 February, Intersecciones returns with La Libertad se toma by Ana Olcina and the performance of Colectivo Soberanas, an intimate and multidisciplinary play as an homage to women who decide to #confront the world by themselves.
In the musical section, the UV Music Club offers, in cooperation with the UV Equality Unit, a concert done by the Renaissance duo composed by soprano Mariví Blasco and Fran López (theorbo). It will take place at the Sapiencia Chapel of La Nau on 5 March, at 7:00pm.
Meanwhile, the UV Cinema Club will devote a session to Valencian actress Lola Gaos which will start on Monday, 10 March, at the Aula Magna of the Cultural Centre of La Nau (7:00pm) with a roundtable about its role in the Spanish Transition. The homage to the activist will go on till May with four matinee sessions nominated to the Lola Gaos Awards 2025 in Sagunt (29/03), Gandia (10/04), Utiel (10/05), and Ontinyent (24/05).
Also the framework of activities organised in regards to International Women’s Day, UVgandia take in the conference for “the new European directive for the protection and assistance of victims of gender violence and cyberviolence”, carried out by Paz Lloria and Beatriz Belando, professors and specialists.
The different campuses have a special programme on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
The Faculty of Social Sciences joins in, another year to the commemoration of this day with activities that you can find in the attached programme.
The Faculty of Language Studies, Translation and Communication has prepared an programme of activities, organised by the faculty and student body.
The Faculty of Law takes in one of the institutional acts with Pastora Filigrana’s conference about Romani feminism on 4 March at 12:00pm at the hall of the Faculty of Law. On 6 March, the activities continue with a session about equality, gender, and work at the department of Labour Law and, on 7 March, the performance of Después de esperar, keep donde waiting, at the campus of Social Sciences. An homage to Faith Wilding. It is intended to show how we have progressed when it comes to equality, stressing what is still left to do. The traditional “Feminist Book Fair” will take place at the hall of the faculty on 15 April, from 11:00am to 2:00pm.
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