Eulalia Pérez Sedeño: Counting Women

Abstract

Eulalia Pérez Sedeño is much more than a researcher in gender issues, but for me she will always be the one who taught how to count women in Spain. In 2000, the ETAN report analyzed the presence of women in European scientific and academic institutions. For the first time, the data showed what many already knew: that the glass ceiling and territorial discrimination prevailed in academic careers, but we did not yet know these terms. Eulalia Pérez Sedeño taught them to us when she carried out the first study of science and gender indicators in Spain; she told us about the set of invisible obstacles that impede the progress of women in science and the set of prejudices that group women in activities "proper to their sex". After that, many researchers continued counting women, analyzing the factors that underlie discrimination and the policy measures with which to address them, because, as Eulalia stated in 2001, "the glass ceiling is very close and weighs a lot. But, as history shows that with everyone's effort it has been moving upwards over the years, in spite of everything I want to be optimistic: because the glass, in the end, however thick it may be, can be broken".