The Free Sense of Being University Women in the Present

We set out from the fact that out of the desire and freedom of women, the feminine revolution of the twentieth century has brought about a radical change in the world which is the real presence of women in a shared world, and specifically in the world of work. Also in the present day university: women students are the majority and there are more and more women lecturers and researchers who work there. In the text we explore the meaning of the paradox this presents us with, on the one hand, on seeing the evidence of this feminine presence in the university and, on the other hand, we perceive that the university institution, the university politics, has not allowed itself to be transformed by this change, and neither has it entered into dialogue with the free sense that quite a lot – or many – women are guided by in our doing at the university today in lecturing, in research and in management; nor with the free sense that some men also bring. We are guided by the desire to understand with more clarity what the free sense of sexual difference is really showing us, with questions and possibilities that are opening out to us in this present historical time that is so delicate and uncertain, and at the same time, with so much desire for something new, of sense, and creative. We present the text in two parts, in a dialogue in relationship. The first part, written by Remei Arnaus, in which she asks how it is that the free sense of being woman in the university does not bring in a visible way more recognition of feminine authority and, the second part, written by Anna M. Piussi which speaks to us of the need to attend to the reality of the present and of the possibilities that feminine freedom opens up in relation to the desire being unfolded by the women and men students, some men, and other men and women educators for a new political actuation.