"Consult the wise": the interview - Magisnet

Joaquín José Martínez Sánchez has a doctorate in Comparative Literature on narrative learning (2008), in all its versions: secular and mystical, from oral narratives to the structure of learning in the novel (Bildungsroman) and in digital narrative, specifically in the video game.

He has been a social educator since 1993 and a development education aid worker, especially dedicated to the promotion of threatened languages ​​in the Mixteca (Ñuu Savi, “rain town”) of Guerrero, Mexico. He continues to do so from a distance, with the help of social media, within the framework of the Ndatiaku Tu'un Savi project (“Rebirth of the language of rain”, University of Seville).

He has been earning a living as a Secondary, Baccalaureate and FPB teacher for the Junta de Andalucía since 2010, although he began working as a teacher during the 1990s in the Ekumene community development projects in Cañada Real (Madrid) and in Mexico. On his return, he had a hard time finding temporary and precarious positions in concerted centers, until he approved the opposition.

In addition, since 2014 he has collaborated as an honorary assistant professor in the General Linguistics area of ​​the US, to train language teachers. Specifically, since 2020 he has advised research projects on Linguistic Justice in media culture (social networks, digital storytelling) and natural language processing by AI, in order to promote linguistic diversity in Spain, America and Africa, as well as to detect and correct the biases that feed hate speech, sexism and racism.

He has participated in collaborative projects and teaching learning networks: Internet in the Classroom, EABE, Proyéctate, Novadors, Espiral, Aulablog, etc., and has coordinated some others: El Barco del Exilio, NMOOC, Cuenta Verdades and Regreso Feminista.

He has written different publications, books and articles on the different topics mentioned, which can be found in my biographical portfolio: https://joaquineku.wordpress.com/

Why should we “consult the wise”?

It is an invitation to expand the canon of knowledge and creation to include women as benchmarks in equality, but also a symbol: "the wise ones", with enormous connotative power, which connects a diversity of worlds.

The literary education that we have been dealing with for centuries in Europe and America, from a classic and enlightened or romantic and nationalist point of view, has to become literary co-education . There has been a fight on many fronts to clear the view and establish educational laws that promote coeducation, but it is still not a reality in the study of literary history designed by academies and applied in classrooms.

It is true that the encouragement of reading, through Children's and Youth Literature, has assumed the equality that had been achieved in this part of social life. But such an achievement was not a gift either, but rather is the result of a movement for emancipation throughout history; which is ignored when we repeat stereotyped schemes, in obedience to an almost exclusively male canon. I am still moved by the emphasis with which writers like Carmen Martín Gaite, at the beginning of democracy, defended the character of Celia and the literature of Elena Fortún, as a female referent of her sentimental education; as current authors have done.

What "did you know" do you mean? To the philosophers?

Of course the philosophers too, because the history of Hispanic thought is inconceivable without understanding the defense of women against misogyny and their arguments in favor of equality, which concerns the entire human race: Teresa de Jesús, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Josefa Amar, Juana Manso, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Luisa Capetillo, María de Maeztu, María Zambrano… in addition to being writers, they are thinkers. While current thinkers: Celia Amorós, Amelia Valcárcel, Victoria Camps, Adela Cortina, Marina Garcés, Eurídice Cabañes, among others, are writers of essays on everything human.

When we say “wise”, first of all, we refer to women with authority in the immediate environment of the students: mothers, grandmothers, aunts, older sisters, who create girls and boys in early childhood with their hands. Of course, I think of Antonia, my mother, recently deceased. Also to the teachers who are the majority in teaching, in charge of the responsibility of educating, not just teaching.

To each other we suggest that they reconnect, through this project and their own, with the female genealogy that has made our freedoms possible and even the mere fact of co-educating women, men, non-binary people or people of diverse sexual orientation. . Wise women would have to configure cultural memory through their works, in recognition of their values, but they have been subjected to oblivion. Until recently we only felt the void they left between male and male.

Many of the Latin American women writers from the first half of the 19th century, and Spanish women from the second half of the century, taught and invented liberal and social pedagogy, as an alternative to mere instruction and exclusion for reasons of gender, class, ethnicity or functionality: Nísia Floresta, Juana Manso, Teresa González del Real, Adela Zamudio, Carmen de Burgos, Francesca Bonnemaison, María Lejárraga, María Goyri, María de Maeztu, Gabriela Mistral, Josefina Rodríguez Aldecoa…

What exactly does the "consultation" consist of?

The act of "consulting the wise" is a liberating ritual in all cultures where their authority is recognized. The consultation is attention to your life and active listening to your word. That respectful and reverent attitude allows us to activate our unconscious, because it refers to an archetype. There is a very powerful cultural substratum that evokes the wise women in personal life and family memory, both in adolescence and in adulthood.

Within the framework of our educational project, "consulting" means dedicating oneself to research and, above all, to reading his works, as I exhibited at the Seville Science Fair. Only after this personal and cooperative experience has it been possible to create open educational resources that facilitate this "consultation" for many more people, through stories (Women's Time Travel: A, B and C) and a collection of games interactive; as well as a multimedia anthology of contemporary women writers in Hispanic languages: Filoginia.

In classical Greece, "consulting the wise" was necessary to "know oneself". What would Socrates say?

I don't know if Socrates would agree with us, but at least he would accept the challenge. It is more likely that the oracle (pythoness) of Delphi had in mind that hidden meaning when he originally expressed it: "Gnothi seauton", "Know thyself", with inclusive value.

Only if someone, male or female, recognizes himself ignorant, will he feel the desire to consult the wise ones, to discover with the help of his oracle who he really was: to know himself through those unknown others. In this sense, “Consult the wise women” is the necessary culmination of the didactics of Universal Literature that I proposed in Los otros (las otros, les otres) que hay en ti, a decade ago (BVMC, Rosa Regás Award, 2011) .

There will be those who think that I am trying to impose a dogma that replaces the patriarchal axiom that "only men have been able to achieve fulfillment." On the contrary, unconditional listening and reading, even for a few hours in the life of a superman, will expose him to the discovery of others that he had silenced. The iron prison of literary patriarchy has been the academies and the generations.

Is there a mystery to discover?

A lots of.

Given that historiography had been founded on the exclusion of women and the ignorance of their works, it is totally logical to suggest that the values ​​communicated by them will transform our historical understanding. Contemporary Humanities are based on historicity and openness to new interpretations that give rise to a new vision of the world. It is not a dogmatic principle, but the result of being open to contact with others, the others and the others in their diversity.

The hope for equality is no longer based on uniformity, but on cultural diversity being distributed well, according to the needs and free desires of people.

Let's look at some mysteries that remain for the uninitiated in the genealogy of women writers. The painful and joyful mysteries have been mixed in the history of the emancipation that had been hidden under the patriarchal categories.

The first: The Antislavery . Reading the romantic authors of the nineteenth century we have discovered that Romanticism was not only an egotistical exaltation of the self to the Absolute, but also the era of solidarity abolitionism against slavery or slavery that prevented, materially, the exercise of personal freedom, economic and political. Spanish liberal authors not only protested against a tyrannical machismo that denied women their very freedoms, but were also leaders of the anti-slavery movement in the remnants of the Spanish Empire: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. His society of women, romantic and liberal, extended to the emancipation of prisoners, thanks to the work of Concepción Arenal and through Paul's lectures.

Latin American women authors (Tula, Juana Manso, Júlia Lopes, etc.) spoke out against slavery with better results, given that abolition was achieved much earlier in the new republics, beginning with Haiti (1804), Chile (1823), Central America (1824), Mexico (1829) and ending in Brazil (1885) and Cuba (1886). In addition, literature gave rise to a romantic indigenismo, which only became realistic in the work of Clorinda Matto or María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and in the Mexican Revolution. We must highlight a precocious and visionary figure that today seems like science fiction, as if she had traveled in time: Flora Tristán.

Second mystery: the Liberators of love . The realism that showed the scourges of prostitution without redemption, in the mouth of women became a denunciation of social hypocrisy, which turned women into slaves of marriage without love. Abolitionism against prostitution and false marriage is empirically demonstrated in the work of Rosa Marina, journalist and essayist, Matilde Cherner, columnist and novelist; thanks to the psychological analysis of both genders in the work of Adela Zamudio, Íntimas; in the oratory of the social republicans (Modesta Periú, Guillermina Rojas and Orgís), before Fortunata and Jacinta or Misericordia de Galdós; with equal value in the narrative of Clarín (La Regenta, her only son) as in that of Emilia Pardo Bazán (La Tribuna, Doña Milagros, Memorias de un solterón).

Third mystery: The Travelers . The internationalism and openness to the world (Europe, America) that supposedly were inaugurated by “the men of” the generation of 14, was anticipated by the women of a large nomadic generation, which spans from 1868 to the Second Republic. It is true that the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and, later, the Junta de Ampliación de Estudios had a positive influence; but women like Emilia Pardo Bazán herself, Rosario de Acuña, Sofía Casanova, Teresa Claramunt, Concha Espina, Belén de Sárraga, María Lejárraga, Isabel Oyarzábal and a large cast of female travelers renewed Hispanic blood with the heartbeats of other peoples.

The Latin American authors who coincided in time and purpose with the Spanish liberals and republicans were also transoceanic nomads: Lindaura Anzoátegui, Clorinda Matto, Laura Méndez, Gabriela Mistral, Teresa de la Parra, Alfonsina. His journey began earlier, in sync with the Creole nations that reconnected with Europe and the USA, tilting Spain at first: Soledad Acosta, Eduarda Mansilla. The American women who can be called Liberators traveled the continent refounding the Pachamama and a political community yet to be realized: Juana Manuela Gorriti, Juana Manso, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton. The pioneers, Flora Tristán and Tula, crossed the ocean to germinate a new world that is already being.

Fourth Mystery: The Anti-Wars . The peace that made possible the economic development of Spain during the Great War should have been extended until the end of the Moroccan War, which would have prevented the Legion from invading Spain like a fanatical horde of yesteryear to destroy democratic legality. Women writers were the most persevering defenders of pacifism from 1909 to 1936: Carmen de Burgos (“War on War”), Catalan bourgeois women (Carme Karr), anarcho-syndicalist leaders (Teresa Claramunt, Teresa Mañé), socialists (María Lejárraga, Isabel Oyarzábal) and federal republicans (Consuelo Álvarez Pool).

These four historical "mysteries" should be added to the previous proposals for revising and overcoming the literary generations: singularly, Las Sinsombrero by documentary filmmaker Tania Balló, who has brought to light the living bodies of our ancestors during the democratic experience of the Second Republic, both writers and artists, before they were walled up with the repressive cement of the Dictatorship.

But there is still more to discover and decipher.

Sixth Mystery: The Memorialists . The entire generation of 1927, preceded by that of 14 and continued by the call of 36, who went through the dazzle of the Republic, the horror of the War and the abyss of the postwar period or the exhaustion of exile, agreed on the inner need of understanding her life through writing: memoirs in essay form (María Zambrano, Clara Campoamor), narrative (Rosa Chacel), elegy (María Teresa León), social autobiography (Constancia de la Mora), political analysis (Teresa Pàmies ). The payroll is huge.

So fundamental is memory in the work of Latin American authors, from Juana Manuela Gorriti, who uses it to bring together the sides facing the civil wars (unionists and federalists); going through the memory of Independence in Lindaura Anzoátegui, in which the native peoples participate together with the Creoles; the emancipatory experience of the Revolution according to Nelly Campobello, Marta Rojas or Gioconda Belli; the political and social movements for democracy in the work of Elena Poniatowska, Diamela Eltit, Laura Restrepo and a long and intense etcetera.

Seventh Mystery: The Apprentices . Perhaps the most brilliant movement in contemporary literature, which dates back to the romantic Bildungsroman (Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Sab and Dos mujeres) and the realist/naturalist novel of social education (Emilia Pardo Bazán, La Tribuna), survives in the form of prose poetic during the avant-gardes (Elisabeth Mulder and Rosa Chacel), becomes a critic of dehumanization in the Republic (Luisa Carnés, Tea Rooms) or violence in the War (Elena Fortún, Celia in the revolution) and arrives transformed until the post-war period to create people resistant to the acid of the dictatorship: Elena Fortún (Dark Path) herself in exile, Mercè Rodoreda, Carmen Laforet, Elena Quiroga, Dolores Medio, Ana María Matute, Carmen Martín Gaite, Josefina R. Aldecoa, among others of the same value. On that fertile soil grew the generation of 50 and the poetry of experience, which served as a bridge with the first democratic generation. Before “Cuéntame”, they told us.

All the great Latin American women narrators have created learning stories that have facilitated the initiation of generations of women and men in adult life, or have helped them recover the threads of the fabric of their lives from childhood, already in their maturity. We can focus on two that help to contemplate the entire History of the New Continent from its original roots in the life of any American woman: the mythical apprenticeship of The Inhabited Woman by Gioconda Belli, an authentic heroine of a multiethnic race, in which miscegenation it is not a pretext to erase aboriginal cultures; and the testimonial novel of the Nobel Peace Prize winner that transformed my vision of the world and changed the course of my life, like that of so many people who were born to solidarity through it: My name is Rigoberta Menchú and that is how my conscience was born.

More mysteries to explore or already explored:

Why is the image of the wise women distorted as "knowledgeable"?

It is a prejudice that proves false; a stereotype that prevents the passage to meet them.

I have explained reasons why businesses should choose the right “face” for their companies. The workshop ended with ad… https://t.co/QciphGbZFG

— Northern Innovation Lab Fri Jun 18 10:28:30 +0000 2021

Wise women have an empathy and life experience that many high-ranking wise men lack, as a consequence of the social rules of gender construction. In addition to knowing their profession and mastering academic or technical knowledge, they have learned to care for and raise.

It is amazing that the vast majority of women who dominated the language (writers, literary figures, thinkers, politicians, artists, journalists, nuns or mystics) had the ability to form a family, organize a community and put the lives of their creatures on their feet. or their peers, despite the enormous difficulties and the adverse environment in which they exercised their trades and professions.

The witch hunt is not confined to a distant period of European history. It has recurred repeatedly every time a woman has dared to demonstrate her autonomous wisdom. They were persecuted and injured for it.

Wise wounds are wiser?

Anyone gets hurt on the path of life, but that doesn't make you mechanically wise. Whipping yourself does not increase wisdom, if the comparison is allowed.

Women shamans in traditional cultures are usually people who have survived an illness or a social evil. Medieval mystics recognized themselves as a witness to the mystery. All of them have a personality enriched by the experience of care and by their splendid imagination.

During the first phase of the project in 4th ESO of IES Ítaca: Learning with women: Contemporary Literature in a gender key, every day we were surprised discovering new reasons for admiration in the biography and in the works of authors who had been stolen by male memory; in other words, by the canon that has prevailed in the academies and has been taught in the universities.

Many of them had to face the social curse for the simple fact of daring to practice writing or for wanting to make it their profession. María Rosa de Gálvez was totally erased by the historiography of men and reviled as the lover of Godoy, the ignoble prince, when in reality she had been a true heroine: abandoned in a hospice at birth, rescued in adolescence by a family of high ancestry and, later, mistreated by a rogue husband, from whom she divorced to earn a living by writing with enormous courage. I throw her out to denounce gender inequality and recognize the relationship between patriarchal violence and colonialism, making her an advance of liberal romanticism. The best proof that she was nobody's protégé was, unfortunately, that she died destitute.

We got to know her life and work, each one in her time of up to thirty authors through her works. I emphasize the latter. “Tula” Avellaneda was the most mature writer in Spanish during Romanticism, both in masculine and feminine terms and in all literary genres. Different men insisted on embittering her life and tried to denigrate her for being a woman, despite her value recognized by her contemporaries. The fact of losing her daughter and two husbands who loved her, as if her destiny sealed her curse, became a burden for her, just as other dramatic circumstances were for Carolina Coronado, the soulmate her. The homosexual writers lived her lesbianism clandestinely (Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Carmen Conde, Gloria Fuertes), although they left evidence of it, such as Elena Fortún. Several were divorced (María Rosa Gálvez, Doña Emilia, Carmen de Burgos, Carmen Laforet, etc.), de facto but without rights; and faced public vituperation while making a living as writers. They and many other valuable authors are women-Phoenix, who emancipated themselves by the force of their pen.

Unlike the self-made man, the self-made man, who presupposes that his individual prosperity automatically produces a social benefit, the wise women have an identity based on public service: to other women, to other people, not only to their own family. Their tireless struggle for life is in solidarity, because they helped others to live.

Did they know how to make themselves necessary...?

Any person is necessary for another, although the doctrine of romantic love has turned that authentic attachment into a demand for the absolute. Masterpieces are necessary for the formation of Humanity, any human being, so that the rescue of masterful authors was essential so that this dream of literary education would stop manufacturing people with one arm and lame, egotistical, apathetic or psychopathic for lack of of essential parts. But the social need is not based simply on the value of the works, but also on the vocation of solidarity, fraternal, sororial service, which is expressed in them inseparably from the aesthetic form.

Through the projects we have rescued the commitment of women writers to the emancipation of their gender, beginning with the great authors of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque: the querelle des femmes in which, in different ways, Teresa de Cartagena, Isabel de Villena, Teresa de Jesús, Ana Caro Mallén, María de Zayas or Juana Inés de la Cruz, among other congeners of her time. His works have their own relevance, but to discover and recognize them you have to read them, beyond the stereotypes that hide them. Cervantes shows that he consulted the wise women in his main works, especially in Don Quixote.

We could say something similar about the feminist vindication against gender stereotypes in 21st century video games, whose authors in Spain have stood up publicly to stand up for themselves and their companions (Protest, Nerfeadas), with the support of some men in the media and in the industry. Hence, in an interdisciplinary project in the social-linguistic field in 3rd ESO, we have mixed and compared these two showcases of the culture of their respective times: Don Quixote in the era of video games.

We have also organized and put into practice a project based on a game about videogames: a breakout-edu with the title We escape from the macho fantasy, which is based on the analysis of the international Feminist Frequency team to dismantle the stereotypes against women of fun but unforgettable way. We have used and profiled it in 2nd and 4th ESO and at the European Night of Researchers.

I imagine that video games will interest students. Why insist on reading forgotten or relegated writers? Shouldn't we worry more about reading the current ones?

In fact, both objectives go together, not only in our time.

There is a female genealogy , in which both women and men enter who assume their defense against the objective slavery of women for centuries. Its historical existence can be easily verified with the help of our Phylogyny. Women read each other from generation to generation, even if the dominant canon hid them. There are those who do not admit that feminism has shaped our world of common life, through that thread of transmission; just as they refuse to see that today in their own town or city some women are being subjected to sexual slavery and others to labor slavery, as a consequence of a legal vacuum.

The classical authors reveal to us that the values ​​of our time originated in them, as well as in humanist men. However, the humanism of men gave rise to patriarchal prejudices of great weight: the manual The perfect married woman, which recommends the confinement of women for life and their strict subordination to fathers and husbands, was written by Luis Vives, a humanist exemplary in other areas of life. His influence over the centuries was brutal. It was still given to literate women during the Franco regime.

It could be interpreted that the wise only matter to other women, like gossip magazines

It would only be a pretext to ignore them and avoid their recognition, since that was not the intention with which they wrote. They were addressed to any adult person, unless another intention was expressly made, as in children's literature.

It should be noted, in passing, that the world of women's magazines emerged in Spain during the liberal period, the regency of María Cristina and the reign of Isabel II, in a deliberate and propagandistic way. They obey the purpose of moralizing women and incorporating them both into the literary profession and into reading "within the patriarchal order"; in addition to propagating liberal values ​​in the fight against Carlism and traditionalism (cf. El Pensil del Bello Sexo, Los Hijos de Eva, among dozens of them). However, even the liberal publications were subjected to the hypocrisy of double standards for women and men, which Carolina Coronado denounces in its very pages.

The accumulation of biases that we identified in the “gossip magazines” occurred as a chemical precipitate in the monarchist reaction against republican progressivism, during the Alfonsine Restoration. It is then that the concept-network of the angel of the home is reformulated (manual by Pilar Sinués, 1881, whose title goes back to that of a magazine she directed between 1864 and 1869) and returns to the stage of “the perfect married woman”: confinement of women, along with other antisocial doctrines, to which Concepción Arenal responds with intelligence and courage (La mujer del porvenir, 1869; La mujer de su casa, 1883). That dialectic in the definition of gender never totally opted in favor of seclusion; not even under the anti-feminist repression of the Franco regime, as can be seen in the works of Carmen Laforet, the “weird girl”, whose protagonists would not be so weird when they were so widely read. Her learning novels reframed the relations between genders and affected both in a common Humanity.

The fact that the protagonist of a narrative work or that the poetic subject are women does not exclude men, nor the contrary, if her perspective as a reading public is taken into account.

So, isn't there a humanity of men and another of women?

If so, we would have to separate as many humanities as cultural categories. If we talk about common humanity, we will have to include women, as well as all ethnic groups, different sexual orientations and different languages ​​in a territory: Spain or the Iberian Peninsula and the multicultural nations of America. It is not a problem of representation, as in Parliament, but of wisdom or ignorance: it is not that they "have to be", it is that they are; and have been. The richness of democracy in each country and of global democracy are the multiple identities with which its citizens are formed through plural means of expression and, above all, a public education system that includes everyone.

It is impossible for a generation to grow up in humanity that has not read its wise women, as well as the wise men. Nor is it enough to enumerate a list of them for compliance or because of a "banking" concept of knowledge. We must design a memorable experience that incorporates them into our personal and cultural memory.

The responsibility as teachers is that this memory- forming experience be truly plural, intercultural and interclass: Latin American authors and writers of other Hispanic languages, noble women like Pardo Bazán and workers like Luisa Carnés. In addition, a wide margin of voluntariness must be foreseen in the choice of readings. During these two courses, we have based ourselves on the OER “Learning with women”, where information and readings from dozens of authors had been selected, as well as some topics for debate. However, for future courses we have a much broader compilation: the Filoginia anthology, an antidote that we needed against the misogyny still active in the academic History of Literature.

Why have you called your anthology “Filoginia”?

Phylogyny means “love of women”, not simply as expected of any normative heterosexual male, but in the sense of an empathic alliance that has distinguished supportive men and women in any historical context, regardless of their sexual orientation.

In the project "Consult the Wise Women" we also include men as referents of these "new" masculinities, which date back to no less than Cervantes and Lope de Vega (cf. Don Quixote in the era of video games), to dismantle with its aid is an extreme form of relativism that legitimizes evil disguised as historicity. “At that time, machismo was normal.” Are we sure or is it a bias disguised as historicism? There were different norms in conflict, although human rights were not universally established. Tan normal como lo contrario ha sido enfrentarse a la desigualdad rampante, como se demuestra incluso en la Biblia: Judith, Susana, María Magdalena. La violencia machista se denuncia con similar viveza en el Quijote o en Fuenteovejuna que en nuestro tiempo.

En consecuencia, celebramos la memoria de hombres contemporáneos como Jovellanos, Eugenio de Hartzenbusch, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Francesc Ferrer i Guardia, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Ramón J. Sender; y recordamos las contradicciones a que nos enfrentamos en nuestras propias vidas, como los ya citados y Feijoo, Galdós, Clarín o Ramón Gómez de la Serna en las suyas.

No obstante, la filoginia debería ser el marcador visible de nuestra época, una vez que nos hemos hecho conscientes del odio inconsciente contra las mujeres: la misoginia. No ha sido solamente un defecto de los varones —aunque no todos, como acabamos de recordar. También ha afectado a bastantes mujeres en forma de autoodio o desprecio de su propio género, como consecuencia de la tremenda sobrecarga de estereotipos y limitaciones a su desarrollo humano. La misoginia de antaño todavía nos envenena la mente, sin darnos cuenta, cuando suponemos que el patriarcado consiguió silenciar a las mujeres y, por tanto, no hay autoras de valía en épocas anteriores.

Pues bien, la filoginia se demuestra “consultando a las sabias”: leyendo sus obras para comprender sus vidas y conocernos mejor a nosotras y nosotros mismos. Con ese fin hemos elaborado una antología basada en el servicio público del alumnado de 4.º ESO en el IES Ítaca, cuando se ocupó de seleccionar, comentar y dramatizar las lecturas elegidas durante el curso 2019/20, en calidad de producto final del proyecto “Aprender con las mujeres”. Una versión distinta, en forma de tarea opcional, fue diseñada por la profesora Julia Orozco Cruz y se realizó en 2.º Bachillerato del IEDA en abril y mayo del 2021, con el nombre de “Gineauctoritas”.

Se organiza por periodos y por géneros literarios, de manera que sea cómodo usar sus referentes en las aulas, aun cuando sigan empleándose las categorías tradicionales: las generaciones y los movimientos estéticos. Cada apartado se acompaña de una introducción donde se presenta a varias decenas de autoras, con enlaces a su biografía y sus obras en formato escrito, sonoro y audiovisual.

Tal como recomienda oficialmente la UNESCO para impulsar “La biblioteca multicultural: portal de acceso a una sociedad de culturas diversas en diálogo”, nuestra pequeña biblioteca digital incorpora a autoras de todas las lenguas hispánicas en la Península: catalán, gallego y vasco, además del portugués, el francés o el italiano en América Latina y las culturas originarias de América.

Sin embargo, al menos en el mundo de la literatura infantil y juvenil (LIJ), hace bastantes años que se reconoce la autoría de las mujeres. ¿No es así?

Era imposible ignorarlas, dado que muchas creadoras de la literatura dirigida al público infantil y juvenil en español han sido mujeres. Ese terreno fue permitido a las escritoras desde el siglo XIX, junto con el supuesto dominio del ángel del hogar —en realidad, un subdominio— y la tradición del cuidado materno.

Grandes autoras españolas y latinoamericanas que se dedicaron profesionalmente a su vocación se sirvieron de la escritura y la edición de periódicos y revistas para mujeres, a la vez o sucesivamente que elaboraban lecturas infantiles, según puede apreciarse con ayuda de la síntesis biográfica de las escritoras en nuestra Filoginia, como también en el Catálogo de autoras y autores de la BVMC o del CLIJCAT: Fernán Caballero, Carmen de Burgos, Gabriela Mistral, Elena Fortún, Concha Espina, Marta Brunet, Dora Alonso, Carmen Kurtz, Gloria Fuertes, Violeta Parra, Clarice Lispector, Carmen Bravo Villasante, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Ana María Matute, Carmen Martín Gaite, María Elena Walsh, Elena Poniatowska, Isabel Allende, María López Vigil, Excilia Saldaña, Ana Rossetti… son solamente las más conocidas de una extensa producción, que comienza por el trabajo de las folcloristas y recreadoras de cuentos populares, cuentos maravillosos o leyendas.

Aun así, basta asomarse a elencos de LIJ como el portal especializado de la BVMC para comprobar, curiosamente, que hay más páginas individuales dedicadas a varones que a mujeres, precisamente en un mundo donde las autoras son tan visibles. De similar modo, el Gran Diccionario de Autores Latinoamericanos de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil considera más influyentes y reseñables, al menos cuantitativamente, a varones que a mujeres. Habrá quien siga sosteniendo que es cuestión de valores estéticos o que se debe a su poder de influencia, lo mismo que se afirma acerca de las “generaciones literarias”. Pero es una tautología: son influyentes los que se nombran y se los nombra por ser influyentes.

Entiendo que también hay que evitar una caída del lado contrario. ¿Qué pasa con los hombres en la ecuación? ¿Solamente caben los aliados del feminismo? ¿No se debe conocer a los autores consagrados por el canon? ¿Qué ocurriría si no fuera así?

Esas preguntas son exactamente las que se hacen bastantes varones y algunas mujeres durante el desarrollo del proyecto, por lo que deben ser tenidas en cuenta a la hora de planificar un proyecto de coeducación literaria .

La respuesta es simple: no estamos negando el valor de la Historia literaria, sino enriqueciéndola por el simple hecho de hacer posible el conocimiento y, sobre todo, la lectura de las autoras. Ambas cosas nos ayudarán a juzgar libremente si lo que se dice en todas las fuentes disponibles: libros de texto, enciclopedias digitales, presentaciones, acerca de tal o cual generación de autores es cierto o debe repensarse. Hay cataratas de información sobre la Ilustración, el Romanticismo, el Realismo, el modernismo y el 98, las vanguardias, el 14 y el 27, la posguerra y los exilios, la poesía social, del conocimiento y de la experiencia, el teatro independiente, la cultura pop y la posmodernidad, la novela experimental y la vuelta a la narratividad. Hay que seleccionar, comprender y sintetizar esos contenidos con pensamiento crítico.

En cada fase del proyecto se tiene en cuenta lo que pueda decirnos el libro de texto, si es norma del Departamento, así como los materiales creados por el alumnado de cursos anteriores. Desde este año, 2021, también contaremos con los itinerarios didácticos diseñados por el INTEF para la educación literaria en 3.º y 4.º ESO, que podrían ser todavía mejores si en el plan germinal se les hubiera ocurrido recordar a las autoras, por derecho y por imperativo legal. No se puede obligar a nadie a leer, excepto a quienes enseñan a leer. Me parece inquietante que no estén ellas en esa síntesis, pero la carencia se puede subsanar si se difunden los materiales que hemos creado en este proyecto, precisamente para hacerlo más fácil. Si también se silencia lo que hacemos, entonces será más difícil.

¿Quiénes han participado en la “Consulta a las sabias”?

Muchos aprendices, mujeres y varones, entre los que me incluyo, junto a estudiantes de secundaria y bachilleres, adolescentes en el IES Ítaca (2.º y 4.º ESO) y personas adultas en el IEDA (ESA I, 1.º y 2.º Bachillerato).

Además, reivindico con gusto el trabajo colaborativo de la red “Regreso Feminista”, de la que forma parte también la periodista educativa Carmen Iglesias, junto a docentes de distintos niveles de enseñanza. Tendría que nombrar a todas las personas que la integran (tres decenas), pero destaco a las compañeras literatas que me han orientado y aconsejado: las organizadoras del III Encuentro de Docentes de Lenguas en Bilbao, Bloggeando (Marimar, Adela e Irene), Itziar López y Maru Domenech (“Mujeres en el tintero: nueva antología revisada del 98”); Rosa Ortega Ayala, quien me abrió los ojos a la realidad de 365 autoras relevantes por medio de su Calendario 2019: Tiempo de literarias con modelo flipped para visibilizar las escritoras; Tesi Romero sobre el Cantar del Mío Cid con perspectiva de género;Manuela Fernández, acerca del Romanticismo y las Sinsombrero; la maestría de Fran Prendes para dinamizar una comunidad coeducativa; las múltiples incitaciones de María Adela Camacho Manarel, directora del IES Lagunas, en nuestro blog compartido, y el apoyo de María Jesús García San Martín, cuando le hablé de la primera versión de este proyecto.

El proyecto gamificado, que se pensó al principio como una factoría conducente al diseño de juegos digitales educativos por el alumnado de distintos centros, no contó con el apoyo privado que se esperaba; pero se convirtió en bien público en forma de proyecto de innovación reconocido por la Consejería de Educación andaluza, con el objetivo de crear materiales curriculares de licencia CC. La gracia del asunto es que el alumnado realizara dicho trabajo como un servicio a la comunidad educativa, en forma de producto final.

Debo decir que la “Consulta a las sabias” está directamente vinculada con el Proyecto EDIA del CeDeC, por dos razones: 1) porque hemos reutilizado y adaptado el REA “Aprender con las mujeres: Literatura Contemporánea”, que se diseñó durante el curso 2018/19 con el apoyo de sus responsables, Cristina Valderas y Lola Alberdi; 2) porque la creación de REA por medio del programa eXelearning, con licencias CC BY-SA de cultura libre, hubiera sido imposible sin su asesoramiento.

Durante el curso 2019/20 estuve colaborando en el IES Ítaca con la dirección: Carmen Lázaro; y con la coordinación TIC: Carlos Antonio Monago, pero el confinamiento decretado en marzo de 2020 obligó a que el proyecto se limitara a los grupos a mi cargo. En 4.º ESO nos dedicamos a estudiar la Literatura Contemporánea en clave de género, de modo que cada grupo-aula leyera y comentara a casi una treintena de autoras, con el fin de fabricar una antología: Filoginia, así como una colección de relatos y juegos para introducir a otras personas en la historia de emancipación de las mujeres. También pusimos en práctica un proyecto sobre videojuegos en 2.º ESO: Let's Play, orientado al conocimiento de sus distintos géneros a través de los juegos documentales, informativos y críticos que son resultado de la cultura libre y el ciberactivismo. Su producto final consistía en elaborar un comentario crítico que fuera un paso más allá del mundo youtuber, de modo que se incorporasen valores artísticos y éticos. En ambos niveles se aplicó y mejoró el breakout-edu Escapamos de la fantasía machista, sobre los estereotipos de género en los videojuegos, en relación con las mujeres de distintas culturas en el planeta.

Al año siguiente me enviaron en comisión de servicio al IEDA, que atiende mayoritariamente a personas adultas, lo que permitió la incorporación de otros compañeros al proyecto: Ignacio Vallejo, profesor de 1.º Bachillerato; y Julia Orozco Cruz, docente en prácticas del MAES de la Universidad de Sevilla. Nacho Vallejo diseñó una tarea de producción excelente, dedicada a los relatos de Emilia Pardo Bazán: “Relatos de mujer”. Julia organizó una tarea opcional para 2.º Bachillerato, en forma de proyecto: “Gineauctoritas: Mujeres literarias del siglo XXI”, que produjo una antología comentada con un gran valor añadido, fruto del proceso de reflexión que ella había diseñado sobre las autoras y su obra. A mí me tocó diseñar una tarea de producción en el Ámbito de Comunicación de ESA I, que comenzaba por el conocimiento de cuatro autoras de sendos géneros literarios y el comentario de un poema de Gloria Fuertes, hasta concluir ensayando una creación literaria breve: “Ellas son autoras”.

Además, utilizamos el breakout-edu en varias actividades de divulgación del grupo investigador sobre Justicia Lingüística de la Universidad de Sevilla: en la Noche europea de los Investigadores y como arranque del proyecto “Jóvenes con Investigador@s”, acerca de los sesgos de género en el procesamiento del lenguaje natural (NLP) por la Inteligencia Artificial (AI), que impulsamos desde la US con estudiantes de 1.º Bachillerato de Sevilla y Ronda. Los resultados de la investigación se presentaron en el Congreso de JconI 2021.

¿Os habéis inspirado en otros proyectos similares?

Sí. Afortunadamente, tuvimos la oportunidad y aun la necesidad de apoyarnos en la investigación previa que se ha realizado con enorme esfuerzo:

Personas comprometidas con estas redes nacionales e internacionales se habían preocupado por rescatar del olvido las obras de centenares de autoras desde el Medievo a la Edad Contemporánea.

El proyecto ha discurrido en paralelo con otras dos experiencias simultáneas que compartían objetivos muy similares: “Texturas” de Antonio Garrido y Raquel Soler en el IES Alhadra y el IES Al-Ándalus de Almería; “Mujer tenías que ser”, de Raquel Martín en el IES María Rodrigo de Madrid. Hemos hecho todo lo posible por confluir en el futuro; y hemos empezado a hacerlo a través de la red #RegresoFeminista y también en el grupo de docentes de lenguas que ha generado el proyecto EDIA. Nos hemos apoyado mutuamente en momentos de apuro y desánimo por los obstáculos que encontrábamos en el camino.

Pero con quien más y mejor he comentado los episodios de esta investigación pedagógica ha sido mi amiga Nuria Roldán, filósofa, profesora y feminista, que enriquecía con sus renonancias y su sabiduría las lecturas que se contienen en el proyecto. Gracias de corazón.