Breathe
By Perla Salinas Olivo
It is well known that women constitute half of humanity, however, they are not sufficiently represented in all spheres of life such as culture, politics, economics, science, the arts, among others. Historically, women have been invisibilized in many areas of public life, thus ignoring their knowledge, contributions and experiences. For centuries, they have been represented from the male gaze, remaining confined to the periphery and relegating their knowledge to the domestic sphere, where traditional care roles are inherited from generation to generation.
Historically, there is an unequal distribution of tasks and responsibilities between men and women in society, based on predefined gender roles and norms. This sexual division of labor has been reflected in a wide variety of areas, such as the home, politics, paid work, the economy, education and public life in general. At the same time, patriarchal society has regulated individual and collective bodies with the aim of hierarchizing them, thus marginalizing racialized, feminine and non-normative bodies, causing exclusion, violence, marginalization and oblivion. For this reason, by making women's stories visible, we seek to correct inequalities by recognizing and highlighting their contributions, achievements and perspectives.
Little by little, women have made progress in various areas, inhabiting spaces that had not previously been occupied by them, tirelessly insisting on the struggle to put aside the normalization of discriminatory practices. Education, the visibility of ancestral knowledge, the right to vote, the massive incursion into labor spaces, integration into large cities and the relentless resistance that characterizes them, is changing gender roles, social relations, the presence of women in different spaces and, in general, the way of life of girls, teenagers, adults and elderly women.
There are international and national efforts to combat discrimination against women and reduce inequalities. Such is the case of the United Nations Development Fund for Women or the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, which have made efforts to combat gaps and inequalities. In Mexico, important contributions have also been made, however, gender parity in social, cultural and political issues continues to be a challenge. According to the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI), women represent 52% of the population and have 43.6% of participation in the economy of our country; this is based on information shared by the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).
In order to initiate a transformation, it is necessary to be aware of the daily lives of women and girls, as well as their environment. It is important to place ourselves in other positions in order to see from different perspectives and, in this way, promote actions aimed at change. Education has the commitment to challenge the systemic structures that sustain and promote inequality, as well as the obligation to build spaces where all people can freely decide how to spin their own story.
Over the course of 80 years, Tecnológico de Monterrey has become an example of diversity and inclusion. During these decades, the institution founded by Eugenio Garza Sada has registered achievements, milestones and very important advances for its community by building safe environments where all people have the same opportunities to grow, develop and have equal representation in decision-making.
Therefore, as part of this celebration, the Tec, through the Center for the Recognition of Human Dignity, Cultural Heritage and the School of Humanities and Education, presents the exhibition "When the thread becomes a net: Living memory of women at Tecnológico de Monterrey", which seeks to carry out a critical and prospective review of the presence of women in these eight decades, through honoring and making visible the legacy of women from a vision with a gender perspective, which shows how memory is a thread of memories, actions and hopes that are articulated from the collective and that weave day by day the experience of our university community.
The exhibition, which began in Monterrey and will be displayed with different narratives in Querétaro, Mexico City and Guadalajara, weaves pieces of Tec's Cultural Heritage with the perspective, analysis and narrative of the Center for the Recognition of Human Dignity and a joint curatorial proposal, which together weave a fabric that considers the intersectionalities of women and tells the story of the Institution at a national level, articulated through each of the regions of the country where there are campuses.
The Institution has been a spearhead in issues related to gender equality, for example, there is a record that in 1947 the first woman graduated, this was 6 years before women obtained the right to vote, in 1953. On the other hand, in 1978, the Tec de Monterrey was the first university in Latin America that dared to change the way in which women's professional titles were written and that they were written in feminine.
Today, women occupy different spaces in the Tecnológico de Monterrey community. Students, professors, managers, administrative staff, athletes, service personnel and graduates carry out diverse activities that exemplify, reference, sustain, strengthen and design new ways of inhabiting the world, thus making the work of women visible.
Undoubtedly, there is an imminent need to build more just and egalitarian societies. To achieve this, it is first necessary to abandon ideas based on gender roles, to regulate bodies, to make people invisible and to hormone under colonizing and patriarchal standards. It is time to weave with threads hungry to be visible, to weave individual and collective plots, to sew realities and recover histories, to weave lives in modernity and to always resist to create other possibilities.
Thanks to those who have opened roads, perhaps without knowing it; thanks to those who now fight tirelessly to sustain them with the task of opening new spaces; and much strength to those who come after them, to those who will have to open new possibilities.
*Director of Human Dignity Training at the Center for the Recognition of Human Dignity of the Tecnológico de Monterrey.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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