There was lack of a specific strategy for choosing (leisure) activities offered by the university. The choice of the activities was dependent on the choices of the people who organised them and were not guided by specific guidelines/policies.
Planning university activities from a gender perspective
Problem (evidence)
Aims/objectives
To develop a strategy to ensure that non academic (leisure) activities in the university are organised in a way that attracts diversified population and meet their needs.
Resources
Time to coordinate with the Gender Equality Team. Economic resources to hire consultants to organise the talks and trainings.
Economic resources to subsidise course’ costs addressed to women.
Budget allocated in the management plan for this training every year.
Brief outcomes
Students feel included, there is a diversity of activities that meet their needs, the university activities fill a gap in the local community.
Key area
The governance bodies, key actors and decision-makers
Type of action
Positive action/policy
Organization
Mondragon Unibertsitatea
Higher education institution
Action level of implementation
Students
Implementation
The MU-PLOTINA team meets every year with the college and the sports service to discuss the activities planned for the year ahead and ensure gender inclusiveness. The activity plan depends on the students that are living at the college every year and their interests but with some advice from their coaches.
This academic year (2018/19) the sports team organized different activities related to university values (e.g. gender equality, solidarity) and to students’ initiatives (arts, sports). In particular, a group of men “Gizon Taldea” has been created to reflect about new masculinities, and several open talks of the expert Ritxar Bacete have been organized.
In the last meeting, the MU PLOTINA team noted that the sport activities were organized in a gender inclusive way. For example, the activities more likely to attract women (such as yoga, pelvic floor exercises, acrobatics) are partly subsidised by the institution in order to encourage women to undertake sports activities. In this case the MU-PLOTINA team has identified that there could be a change in the self-defence course offered to include the option of a feminist approach. The feminist self-defence course involves ten hours of training, 6 of which are related to feminism and empowering women (theoretically and physically). The course is focused on empowering women and make them aware that they can defend themselves and addresses the following questions: Why do you have the right to defend yourself/ how can you do that in order to defend yourself/how can you inspire respect without violence. The course is planned to run every year. A Feminist Self-Defence course has been organized for the 15-16 of April 2019 at the Faculty of Engineering.
Challenges
No resistance. College and Sport Service employees were willing to help and to learn about Gender Equality. However, the coordination with the Gender Equality Team is necessary to avoid repetition and gender burning.
Tips/strategies – Lessons learnt
The different stakeholders involved should coordinate their actions to avoid repetition.
More detailed Outcomes/Impact
Ensure that gender inclusive activities are embedded in the institutions.