UNESCO has included the work of Ana López-Navajas in its latest GEM Report, launched in 2020, which analyses the extent to which each country is working to “ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for everyone”, so that it can provide a global perspective.
Specifically, the cited research carried out by López-Navajas demonstrates a systematic absence of female references in educational content, which has cultural and social implications, since “the failure to recognise the contributions of women in cultural and historical development delegitimises them and degrades them as second-class citizens”, following the author’s own words.
López-Navajas’ work, which can be consulted here, proves that women do not appear as protagonists in history or culture and, for this reason, the educational content fails in two fundamental objectives, in accordance with the current law: it does not include the essential references of culture and it does not educate for equal opportunities.
“All of this demonstrates a very strong deficiency in the education system and highlights one of the most invisible mechanisms for the articulation of inequalities. The fact of proposing a biased universal culture, which only includes male references, is one of the greatest foundations of inequalities, as it normalises a vision of the world in which women are excluded”, claims López-Navajas.
The Women’s Legacy project was set up as a result of this analysis of educational content and the needs arising from it. The aim is, therefore, to restore the entire legacy of female creation in all areas and, with it, the correction of structural inequalities.
The presence of López-Navajas’ research in the GEM 2020 Report, where it is included as one of the reference studies for the diagnosis of the educational system and the analysis of textbooks, is a recognition of the relevance of the project in the current context.
The project Women’s Legacy is thus a manifestation of the fact that solutions are being found to the serious problems detected, not only in the education system, but also in the creation of a common collective memory, forged in the references and perspectives that we have at school.The GEM 2020 Report responds to the fact that, in 2015, UNESCO established a series of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved in the next fifteen years, among which is inclusive, equitable and quality education. To this end, this report attempts to parameterise the status of the fulfilment of this educational objective in the sustainable development agenda and, to this end, addresses aspects such as the implications of the concept of inclusion, the lack of political will or the absence of certain groups in the educational curriculum.
