The Government’s Deputy Delegate in A Coruña, María Rivas, opened this morning the conference at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, aimed at students of the Audiovisual Communication degree under the title “Communication and Gender Violence”.
In her speech to a subdelegate of the Government, María Rivas, indicated that “nobody would dispute today the socializing role that the media have,” pointing out that through the media “we receive messages that validate or invalidate models, attitudes and ways of behaving” in the same way she indicated that “they build – or not – the people to whom they pay attention, and decide that it is important and what is accessory giving greater prevalence to certain information that may be of a social or political nature,” so we must be critical people.
In her speech at the inauguration to Director of the Office of Gender Equality of the UDC, Ana Neira, wanted to thank the Subdelegation of the Government for having thought about the UDC to carry out this activity and, she highlighted that the Universidade da Coruña assumes and offers specialized training in gender, attending to one of the measures of the State Pact; and highlighted the fundamental role that communicators and creators of audiovisual products such as animation have in influencing the formation of public opinion. “Including the gender perspective in training is essential as a tool to dismantle prejudices and to fight against the androcentrism that invades the media and the world of animation,” said Ana Neira.
The opening ceremony was followed by a narrative by Isabel Bértolo on ‘The Role of Women in Animation’, a former student of the faculty, who decided to specialize in 3D animation and participated in films such as ‘Wonder Park’, ‘Paddington 2’, ‘Mowgli’, ‘Christofer Robin’, ‘Tadeo Jones 3’ or saga ‘X – men’; also in ‘Blue and Malone’, winner of a Goya for the best animated short film.
Isabel Bértolo shared the most frequent micromachisms experienced by women in the world of animation: mansplaining, hepeating, maninterrupting and the devaluation of women's work. In this sense, it showed data and statistics related to the 3D animation sector in Spain and audiovisual production, which show that despite having more female students in the sector, there is no equal opportunity.
Subsequently, a round table was held, which was led by Teresa Piñeiro, Director of the Center for Gender and Feminist Studies (CEXEF), in which the participants wanted to place the emphasis, each from its reference space, on how women are reflected in the different media and communication mediums, making special mention of the informative-communicative treatment of gender violence.
Thus, photojournalist Vanessa Casteleiro recounted the need to represent the history of women since “it is not written either by women or for women”, so it is essential a work of understanding, disseminating and listening. He also stressed that the social phenomenon of high media presence is reserved for the most morbid male crimes, falling into sensationalism, and while all of the personal information of the female victims is shared, nothing is known about the perpetrators.
For her part, Priscila Retamozo, creator of content and producer of programs in various formats (radio and video) explained how the rise of denial discourses, emphasizes the need for training with a gender perspective and that “you cannot communicate correctly and truthfully by making half the population invisible”.
Finally, the President of the Mirabal Association, Ana Saavedra, representing the associations of women victims of gender violence spoke about the most significant changes in the field of gender violence since the creation of the association, and how communication has evolved around male violence .
This day, is another activity developed since the subdelegation of the Government in A Coruña on the occasion of the 25N, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Like the campaign conducted on social media throughout the past week, the government’s subdelegation wanted to focus messages on getting closer to young people, and in this case, university students.
In this sense, María Rivas wanted to point out that ‘we have to be aware that the media are the ones that most affect the conformation of what we call ‘public opinion’’ and, questioning the students present, in the sense of making them see that in the future they will be the communicators, creators and creators of opinion, recalled the words of the Spanish feminist philosopher, Celia Amorós, when she said that: “If we do not conceptualize well we cannot politicize well”; calling on students to understand, detect and combat “what are male chauvinistic behaviors, and what is gender violence in its multiple forms”, otherwise “we will not be able to communicate correctly to correct them and not perpetuate them.”