Each time a girl opens a book and finds a womanless history, she learns she is worth less
Myra Pollack Sadker
A press conference was held on Tuesday, April 23, on the launch of the research program “Women’s History Archive: Cyprus Online Library on Gender“. The project is implemented by the Promitheas Research Institute in cooperation with the University of Cyprus and the Center for Gender Equality and History. The Project is implemented in the framework of the Program Restart «Social Innovation 2016 – 2020» of the Research Promotion Foundation and is co-funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the EU Regional Development Fund.
Dr. Sotiroula Yiasemi talked on behalf of the Research Instituted Promitheas, and pointed out that this project aspires to contribute towards the effort of bridging gender inequalities and improving the role of women in Cypriot society. The project will cover the period from the late 19th to the first half of the 20th century and aspires to reconstruct the history of Cypriot women, highlighting the invisible contribution of women to our society, aiming at breaking historical myths related to women and gender, and which deter the ability of modern individuals and societies to overcome gender stereotypes and become positive agents of change.
The main objective of the project is the creation of an online data base – The Cyprus Library Online for Gender (CLiO) that will be openly accessible to all and will host all the data collected during the implementation of the project. Data will include primary sources such as interviews, and secondary sources such as publications in newspapers and magazines, archives of individuals or of organisations etc.
Andrea Neophytou, researcher at the Center of Gender Equality and History, mentioned that the idea of creating a historical record on women’s history arose from the finding that the female presence is nearly absent in dominant historical narratives. The invisibility of women in historical narratives forms a separate scientific field which preoccupies researchers at the international level. This project attempts to cover part of this gap in Cyprus where the absence of women is traced on multiple levels such as in school textbooks, historical monuments, academic historiography, street naming and others.
Dr. Miranda Christou, Assistant Professor at the University of Cyprus, referred to the educational part of the program, which – as she said – is the development and design of an effective pedagogical approach in relation to changes on gender stereotypes. The final outcome will be the creation of an educational kid, accessible to the public, in order for the teachers to have access to ready-made educational material on the history of women in Cyprus.
During the press conference, the official webpage of the project was presented which will host the online library that will operate via a data search engine. The link of the webpage is www.clioforgender.com.
Any correspondence with the project team may be done through clioforgender@gmail.com or call at 22432111.
Watch the press conference