Science, Gender and Region > UCT

The inequality between men and women in the STI system is reflected in the third gender X-ray carried out by MinCiencia (2023). It is worth noting from the above-mentioned document, among other things, that as the academic level advances, the gap between men and women widens. For example, in the case of law, there is a 54% enrolment rate of women in university degrees, and at the doctoral level women only 34%. These differences are also reflected in scientific and technological production activities: in Chile between 2008 and 2022, women accounted for only 35% of people with publications in indexed journals, and 2017 was the period in which the highest patent applications were registered by women. 25%.

However, the participation of women and gender opponents in research, development and innovation is still rare. This represents an important challenge for higher education institutions in terms of taking positive measures that ensure the promotion of their scientific careers, allowing them to gain new insights and new interpretations of the world. Likewise, it is important to take into account that fields such as technology, engineering and natural sciences are still deeply masculinized, hence the importance of promoting educational processes that favor the formation of scientific thinking from early childhood.

However, the gender perspective is not exhausted by the greater participation of women and gender dissidents in the academy. It also involves considering gender as a category of analysis, which must be present in the stages of designing, implementing and disseminating scientific research. This means, on the one hand, rethinking the ethical and political considerations of research processes, and, on the other hand, assuming theoretical and methodological perspectives that recognize unequal power relations and reveal the conditions that allow this asymmetry to persist.

It is in this context that the Center for Gender Studies (CEG) of the Catholic University of Temuco was born, which seeks to create spaces that guarantee greater representation and participation of academics, as well as to promote the generation of theoretical and applied knowledge in the field of education. The field of gender studies. All this with the aim of presenting proposals that allow us to respond to regional, national and global challenges in this regard, as stipulated in its statutes. Thus, interdisciplinarity, multiculturalism and regionalism constitute transversal principles of the CEG.

In 2008 the text was published. Return of the Witches: Inclusion, Contributions, and Criticism of Women in ScienceIts author, Norma Blasquez, argues that “the inclusion of women in science produces a significant difference that is expressed through modifications, both in the structure of scientific institutions and in the processes of knowledge creation” (p. 9). Today, 14 years later, it is clear that research from a gender perspective does not only mean adding women as subjects of study, but producing research that is committed to the transformational needs of building more just societies.