Moved by the illusion of contributing to increasingly diverse societies, the feminist group “Sherezade: dialoguing feminism” and a diverse network of people actively involved in overcoming inequalities derived from gender, coming from different universities and disciplines, has been working on two years imposing the International Congress of Science, Feminism and Masculinities (CICFEM).

There are already many very interesting feminist conferences and meetings. CICFEM does not add a new option to the existing ones but, on the contrary, wants to promote all of them. There was not yet a congress focused on scientific evidence related to feminism; and neither is a scientific congress on new masculinities.

  At CICFEM, university people from all existing disciplines participate, and we agree to make this contribution. We know that there are other opinions, even those that reject science, and we respect them, just as we hope they also respect our option. Women have the right to know what the scientific evidence is about our situation and to create other new evidence. We are totally sure that the exercise of this right will greatly enhance feminism, equality and overcoming gender violence.  

For millennia we have been denied access to and participation in science and this congress directly addresses overcoming this sexism. On the other hand, to achieve progress in gender equality in academic institutions, women in precarious situations need to make scientific contributions; without them, inequality in the academy would increase instead of decreasing. And it is also our option to work together with egalitarian men; We respect those who do not want to do it and we hope that they will go to congresses with which they do agree, they have as much right to participate in them as we do in this one.

One of the priorities of this congress is to overcome gender violence and, as we who are in this fight know, there are always men and women in favor of the aggressor and women and men in favor of the victim. Some of us have been victims of these attacks and the help of egalitarian men and women has been very valuable to us and the performance of unequal men and women has been very negative.