Artistic heritage at the Complutense University of Madrid from a gender perspective

Abstract

Universities, like other institutions, are obliged to draw up and implement an equality plan, which is a valuable tool for the elimination of gender discrimination. These plans include applicable measures to guarantee equal treatment and equal opportunities. In our universities, the gender perspective has gradually been mainstreamed in all areas. In the case of historical-artistic heritage, a series of cultural activities has been proposed in an attempt to make women in culture more visible. For this purpose, an accessible itinerary is being designed to highlight the artistic creation by women. After an initial analysis, it has been confirmed that of the 6400 artistic works catalogued at the UCM, 13.2% have been identified as having been created by women compared to 33.7% by men, with 53.1% of unidentified authorship, but we suspect that not many of these may be attributed to women. In conclusion, this itinerary is a concrete contribution to the interpretation of heritage, an attempt to create a discourse that highlights a past situation and at the same time tries to contribute to changing an unequal environment and reality into a more gender respectful presentation. We believe that this proposal will help to make visible, encouraging and supporting the presence of new women creators in our collections.