Imaginario occidental y expulsión de las mujeres de la educación superior

Abstract

In this article, we establish a historical connection between the monastic culture developed during the first millennium of our era and the formation of the modern scientific academies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; both were moments marked by demands for male exclusivity, which radically closed off women´s already limited access to knowledge institutions. We argue that such demands continue to stymie women´s inclusion within universities and academies: the imaginary structure of Western thought was built upon women´s systematic expulsion and legitimized by still-prevailing misogynistic arguments, nowadays known as sexism. Such a context explains the ongoing resistance to women´s inclusion in higher education institutions, tensions that are expressed through the behavior and attitudes noted in the empirical research. We maintain that this insight is essential if we want to overcome discrimination, exclusion and hostility against women in academe.