Gender models in the Spanish university student: a focus on self-service and gender relations.

Abstract

This paper presents the results concerning the resistance of normative gender models of masculinity and femininity in the self-perception and gender relations of Spanish students, as one of the specific objectives of the research “gender models among university students from an intercultural perspective”. This research, which is part of the IRSES Gendercit European project, has the general objective of study from an intercultural perspective current gender models in Argentinian, Italian and Spanish university students. This research is carried out from an approach that understands gender from a relational perspective and uses gender models as indicators of the resistance of a patriarchal culture that hinders the achievement of substantial equality between men and women that the law 3/2007, of 22 March, promotes in Spain. Furthermore, the questionnaire on gender models, used in this research, and the results related to self-perception and gender relations in the Spanish sample, composed of 198 undergraduate students, are presented. In the conclusions, we show how the differential resistance of gender models in men and women in self-perception, may be related to gender relations’ modalities and forms and to the causes of their main differences. The analysis of these elements allows us to deepen the understanding of the resistances and dynamics of the sex-gender system in an educational context, such as the university, so important for the construction of a more egalitarian society.