International Women's Day remembered in illustration

A critical position on women's roles, as seen by visual arts students from ESE P. PORTO

Abstract

Portugal is one of the European countries with more women attending and completing higher education studies. Research on the different social roles that determine the role of each individual in society, shows a disparity in the treatment of men and women, in access to qualified positions and wages, (Barroso, Nico e Rodrigues, 2011). Women also suffer more from discrimination and harassment at work, sexual abuse and domestic violence (Tavares, 2010). The socio-educational effort has not been enough to promote respect for gender identity and the fight against stereotypes and inequality. In this sense, art and activism constitute another possibility to challenge changes and power relations. Art provides spaces for the creation of non-normative visual narratives, unveiling structures of oppression and providing individual explorations on the assumption of equality and freedom. In this text, the illustration is called as a reflection for International Women's Day. The students/authors of the illustrations talked about their positioning and artistic thinking, about gender representations in their life contexts, appealing to their memory trajectories, their cultural roots, associating them with gender representations. This process allowed deconstructing dominant ideological discourses, mobilizing dialectical learning that gave rise to the animation that we present here.