Library resources on gender issues
Subject: MultidisciplinaryJoin us on a tour of material on equality and gender perspective to celebrate International Women's Day.
Article written by Mireia Castillón
We're marking March 8 with a range of resources: dossiers, articles, videos and final bachelor's and master's degree projects that shine a light on women or highlight gender inequalities that still prevail in our society.
Are you ready? Off we go, then.
Library dossiers: hand-picked resources
First, let's take a look at a selection of dossiers put together by our librarians which are benchmarks in the field of gender.
To mark the UOC's 5th Right to Food Week, we have compiled material on the various aspects of iniquities in women's right to food: inequality in food production, cultural stereotypes in food selection and the relationship between gender and food advertising.
This page contains content that gives pause for thought on gender bias in Wikipedia, art and the digital world at large. It lists digital initiatives and organizations that work to increase the visibility of work by women, recommended reading and the UOC's own projects which study the social and cultural transformations in the development of new technologies.
Documentaries: bios of female talent
More into audiovisuals? Don't miss these recommended BBC documentaries on great women in history, available from the UOC Library.
- Extraordinary Women documentary series
Thirteen episodes produced by the BBC about 13 women who left their mark on history thanks to their talent, creativity, courage and determination. Learn about the lives and careers of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Amelia Earhart, Maria Montessori, Martha Gellhorn, Agatha Christie and Hedy Lamarr, amongst others.
Content and resources on outstanding women
Throughout history female talent has been underrated and silenced. But we offer reading material that features the contribution of women who have made their mark.
- Mary Beard
Mujeres y poder: un manifiesto
You can borrow several books authored by this historian with an honorary doctorate from the UOC through the library. Amongst them is Women and Power: A Manifesto, which shows how history has treated powerful women and female characters, from Penelope (from Homer's Odyssey) and the goddess Athena of the classical world to present-day figures Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. You will need to provide your surname and UOC card number when you make your loan request.
- Ruth Fulton
This repository includes 8,000 digitized pages from the Ruth Fulton Benedict Archive. Benedict was one of the most influential and best-known anthropologists of her time and made a number of significant contributions to the field. She also wanted to break down the stereotypes surrounding women in her time, and demonstrate that working women could be successful even though the world of work was dominated by men.
- Ada Lovelace
Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital
This e-book, available from the Virtual Library, marks the bicentenary of the birth of Ada Lovelace, the British mathematician and writer who developed the first computer program in history. Her legacy has influenced present-day authors and developers and helps us recall the key role played by women in computing.
To gain access to some of these resources from the Library's collection, you will need to enter your user name and Virtual Campus password.
Editorial UOC: much more than a publisher
As part of your tour, we invite you to peruse the books of Editorial UOC, which brings together a series of student textbooks, informative books and books of essays and research for faculty members that feature the gender perspective. Major titles available include:
- Bernal-Triviño, A. (2019). Hacia una comunicación feminista. Cómo informar e informarse sobre violencia machista. Col·lecció Manuales. Editorial UOC.
- Kolinski Machado, F.V. (2019). Masculinidades a la deriva en la prensa para hombres. Análisis de Júnior y Men's Health Portugal. Col·lecció Atlántica. Editorial UOC. Gil
- Rodríguez, E.P.; Lloret Ayter I.; Pujal i Llombart, M. (2007). El feminismo y La violencia de género. Col·lecció DUO. Editorial UOC.
The UOC's institutional repository, O2: open equality and feminism
Our tour ends with a look at the final bachelor and master's degree projects with a gender perspective deposited in the O2 by students of Psychology and Education Sciences, Arts and Humanities and Economics and Business.
Author: Mª del Valle Alcaide Cardenas
A look at feminism through the comic and its superheroines. Written in Spanish, it analyses aspects such as the objectifying of the female form, the myth of romantic love and the view of superheroines as role models for children.
Author: Pere Santamaria Verdú
Within the homelessness phenomenon is another reality that remains hidden, relegated, made invisible from the general perception of the homeless. A reality involving the women who live in and endure such circumstances differently from men. This final project in Catalan won second prize in the Roca Galés Foundation Social Economy Awards.
Authora: Montserrat Sánchez Borrachero
The debate on women that began at the end of the 12th century fosters a series of pro-feminist and anti-feminist topics. This work in Spanish analyses the misogynistic discourse present in two works of medieval literature, Il Corbaccio, by Giovanni Boccaccio, and Lo somni, by Bernat Metge, in order to determine the literary synergies that converge in both texts and how they are opposed to the discourse of different female literary exponents from the Middle Ages.
Author: Carme Nassarre de Letosa Miguel
This work in Catalan is an approach to the novel by Maria Mercè Marçal, La passió segons Renée Vivien, from the line of interpretation that gives rise to the most defining trait of her work: the assertion of feminism based on the subjectivity hidden in the poetic metaphor of a silenced body in Marçal's female imagination.
Author: Alba Edo Jové
Maternity and paternity leave policy and gender bias in the labour market and unpaid work in taking care of the home and family constitute one of feminism's greatest struggles. This work in Catalan centres on the current situation in Spain, against the backdrop of the recently passed Royal Decree-Law 6/2019, of 1 March, and links it to maternity and paternity leave in Europe in order to draw conclusions on the appropriateness of its application.
Mireia Castillón is in charge of implementing global and gender perspective in learning resources and of analysing the current state of affairs to define improvements and ensure they are carried out. This is her selection of material to mark International Women's Day and hail the new UOC roadmap.