ES
Élida Alfaro began her professional career at the SEK-Atocha School, back in 1965. During that ten-year period, she began to implement revolutionary measures to achieve maximum equality between men and women at a time when schools were segregated by sex. Thanks to her work ethic and iron will, she made great strides, particularly in the area of sports, to bring girls together with boys and to do away with stereotypes that seemed immovable at that time.
After receiving the lifetime achievement National Sports Award for the Arts and Sciences Applied to Sport, she has wanted to thank SEK Education Group for the opportunity it offered her to begin her career, a career that continues to be forged today.
Firstly, congratulations on being given the National Sports Award for the Arts and Sciences Applied to Sports.
Thank you, it is for me and all women who fight for equality.
How did it feel to receive this important award?
I feel it is a reward for over fifty years of work in sports, and it highlights women’s work in sport.
What do you think are the most significant reasons you have been given this award?
For this award, in particular, my research, study and support for gender equality in the field of sport. Through the Women and Sports seminar that we give in the Faculty of Sports Sciences we have conducted research studies and hold an annual conference where we strive to end discrimination in any field, but specifically in sport, our field of expertise.
What are the most important differences in professional life compared to when you started?
I think we have made great strides, but there is still a great deal to be done, to change the cultural stereotypes surrounding men and women, the fact that women are still ascribed a series of family and social obligations and gender stereotypes that do not affect men or their work life.
What have been the most important objectives that you have set yourself in your professional life? Have you achieved them or are you still working towards them?
I think they are very broad objectives, which affect society, and social changes are very slow and very difficult to achieve in a short time, but we have managed to take into account the fact that there are important differences in the way men and women are treated in sports, or in the media, in terms of prizes, in terms of support for athletes’ development, even in physical education classes. There are still differences that need to be overcome, what happens is that the achievements, as I say, are cultural changes. We have to make greater efforts in education to do away with traditional stereotypes, and to foster new, egalitarian stereotypes, for women and men to be treated equally.
What do you think we all should be doing, not just women, but men too?
To raise awareness that society is made up of people and that these people have the same abilities in society, work and personal life, and therefore, it is not fair for there to be differences, for example the gender pay gap, the lack of work-life balance that fundamentally affects women, ultimately, for the law to be applied, because we have some of the most progressive laws of any European country, but there is a gap between what the law says and what happens in real life. These laws are not generally applied for different reasons, I believe that more social support is needed, more awareness in society and obviously more help from men.
I understand that a demonstration is planned on 8 March in favour of women’s equality, and when I found out I thought men should also go …
I am not a staunch feminist because I believe that the issue is not that we should be treated the same, it is that we should have equal opportunities, because it is evident that women and men are different from the biological perspective and therefore we are different in terms of lifestyles, biology and development. So, the issue is not that we are treated equally, because if they treat us the same, it is under masculine precepts and it would continue to affect us in a different way, so we have to fight for equal opportunities for all people, for both men and women.
Political movements are all well and good, but I believe you have to deal with reality and see where there are differences, where discrimination exists and deal with it in an appropriate way.
This is what happens with politics many times, there is a lot of talk and little action …
In this country, as in many others, it is easy for politicians to legislate, but it is harder to enforce these laws. For example, I know, in the field of sports and in other areas, that there is manifest discrimination in women’s and men’s pay, in grants, even sports awards are different and yet, despite the fact that our constitution says that we are equal and there is a law of equality that establishes that we have to be equal, it is not enforced.
Women have to be aware that we must demand our rights and be treated as equals based on our needs, and for the law that currently protects us is really applied. And I emphasise education, because I believe that school continues transmitting traditional gender stereotypes, and that girls from an early age must be taught to stand up for themselves so that society does not discriminate against them.
Girls must be educated from an early age, from when they are small.
Education is fundamental, but professionals are not trained properly. Of course, here boys and girls are educated together in the same classroom but, nevertheless, the model that is usually being transmitted is the male one. There are still problems, but little by little. When I studied, for example, schools were segregated by sex, with boys and girls in different classrooms.
Tell us about your experience at SEK-Atocha school?
I started doing sports at the Instituto Beatriz Galindo, where I studied. There I started doing gymnastics and we were Spanish champions for a few years. Then I studied Physical Education and, when I finished, I started working at the SEK School in Atocha 94, which was the SEK girls’ school. At that time, they were separated, the girls’ school was in Atocha 94, and I started work there and have always felt very supported by SEK in all the proposals I have made. I think that SEK has always worked for coeducation, it was a pioneer in Madrid to advocate it based on the Villar-Palasi Law of 1970, and I have always been supported.
I understand that you received a lot of support from Doña Carmen Olmo and Don Felipe Segovia. What kind of support did they offer you?
Doña Carmen Olmo was head of SEK Atocha School when I started working there. From the beginning I strived to liberalise and promote sport for girls and they gave me support by letting me work, supporting the festivals we held where the changes could be seen in the sports uniforms. When I started at the school girls PE kit was knee-length knickerbockers and a knee-length skirt, and when I proposed a change because it seemed it limited freedom of movement, obviously I was supported. That was very important to me.
Then, when coeducation began, the Arturo Soria school began to teach boys and girls, and I raised the possibility that the physical education classes be mixed and that in some occasions the activties were for boys or girls, in such a way that , in the year 74, in a gymnastics festival that was held at the Palacio de los Deportes, I presented a physical education activity with music, for boys and girls together, which was new, and they were always very understanding, supportive and let me work. Doña Carmen Olmo was a very open-minded woman despite of the times. Don Felipe Segovia had a mind set on progress.
What has your experience at SEK meant for your subsequent professional career?
It has given me a lot, because it was where I started to develop professionally. I started at the school in 1965 and I stayed until 1975. Then I was offered at place at INEF in Madrid and I told the school and they understood, it was a new professional opportunity, but I have always continued collaborating with the school. They understood that I needed to move on.
I am very grateful to SEK because I have always been given a lot of support, a lot of understanding, even after I voluntarily left the schools to go to work at the University and that was not an obstacle for them to continue maintaining an extraordinary relationship with me, even calling me to give courses. I feel very grateful.
That must also be because you made a good impression on the school.
Things are the way they are for a reason, obviously. What is true is that SEK Education Group, now with Nieves and also under Felipe Segovia, has set the course for progress in the field of sport. For example, it was one of the first schools that financed and hosted the national teams so that they could combine study, training and sports.
That gives an idea of the forward-thinking and progressive vision of SEK back then.
What specific memory do you have of SEK-Atocha school?
I have many, it is difficult for me to point out one, they have all been positive.
Interview by Sergio Barrado (Department of Communications, SEK Education Group)
