...Solé i Puig detailed the challenges faced by migrant women entrepreneurs through examples from different nationalities and ethnicities: limited language skills, social...

CAPITOLINA DIAZ MARTINEZ In the third and final session of the 5th CIS Conference on Sociology of Gender, Capitolina Díaz Martínez, current recipient of the 2025 National Prize for Sociology and Political Science, gave a presentation entitled "Sociology without female sociologists. Anatomy of a disciplinary expulsion ." “The historical absence of female sociologists is the result of an epistemological and institutional process that has defined who can produce legitimate knowledge. It is not an empirical deficiency. It is not due to oversight or a lack of quality or output. It is a structural effect, not academic negligence.” In a detailed epistemological exposition, she has meticulously outlined how the sociological canon has been constructed through a series of mechanisms that have excluded women, compiling a list of these exclusionary practices. She illustrated this with the cases of four pioneering women in sociology: Harriet Martineau, Jane Addams, Marianne Weber, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The list of exclusion mechanisms — “or erasure mechanisms” — includes, according to their research: excess, absorption, particularization, silencing, and displacement. Capitolina Díaz concludes that these pioneering women were rejected because they were “too much”: too empirical, too committed, too situated. “What is not cited, what is not transmitted, what is not taught, ceases to exist.” When a female sociologist discovered a theory and received recognition for it, her identity was diluted, even if her discovery was incorporated into the canon, but without a name. The topics of her study were considered minor because they were everyday or natural; issues such as reproduction or caregiving were excluded from analysis, and instead of being considered scientific and theoretical, they were categorized as activities labeled as having a lower academic level: philanthropy, travel journalism, or activism. For Capitolina Díaz, these mechanisms of exclusion, invisibly, continue to operate today in a similar way to how they did in the erasure of the pioneers.   CARLOTA SOLÉ I PUIG Carlota Solé, winner of the 2023 National Prize for Sociology and Political Science, focused her speech on describing the situation of immigrant women entrepreneurs. “Immigrant women are interested in and committed to entrepreneurship despite different forms of oppression and adverse conditions. They stand out for their resilience and their resolute attitude towards risk.” Solé i Puig detailed the challenges faced by migrant women entrepreneurs through examples from different nationalities and ethnicities: limited language skills, social networks confined to the home or a few friends, linguistic and cultural barriers, lack of understanding of legislation, and difficulties accessing financing. “Digital media represents an empowering alternative for migrant women entrepreneurs.” “The family plays a very important role in the process of creating and maintaining a business. They are influenced by the sociocultural environment, family dynamics, self-perception, and the interaction between their status and their expectations.” The professor explained how the key to success and progress lies in new technologies: the connected mobile phone can boost, even in hostile contexts such as that of refugees, access to entrepreneurship for immigrant women. “The use of digital tools facilitates their communication, discussion and decision-making, access to courses or online marketing, but it also represents a digital divide that can separate them.”   She also highlighted some characteristics of their entrepreneurial approach: work-life balance is practically nonexistent, they employ other women of the same ethnicity, they tend to diversify their clientele, and they create small businesses with low technological requirements that are usually established in the home context. For these women, starting a business is a means of upward mobility. Their motivations center on the need to escape a discriminatory market and on self-affirmation. “This work deserves to be supported, valued and reinforced with training and mentoring programs, access to microcredits and specific funds, support networks and associations, or legal and administrative advisory services.”   INSTITUTIONAL CLOSING CEREMONY At the closing ceremony, the Secretary of State for Migration, Pilar Cancela Rodríguez, spoke, thanking the organizers of the conference for "being able to listen to those who know, those who understand." And he asserted: “Talking about migration today is revolutionary. We must construct a narrative that allows us to reclaim essential issues such as human rights. There are 58 forgotten crises.” The Director General of the CIS, Silvia García Ramos, concluded the event by stating that "thanks to the research of sociologists, today we know more about how inequalities are constructed and, above all, how they are overcome." The president of the CIS, José Félix Tezanos, reiterated that the five women awarded are “a treasure of knowledge and ability to present” and announced that the intention of the Center for Sociological Research is to publish a book that compiles the presentations from these conferences.

CAPITOLINA DIAZ MARTINEZ In the third and final session of the 5th CIS Conference on Sociology of Gender, Capitolina Díaz Martínez, current recipient of the 2025 National Prize for Sociology and Political Science, gave a presentation entitled "Sociology without female sociologists. Anatomy of a disciplinary expulsion ." “The historical absence of female sociologists is the result of an epistemological and institutional process that has defined who can produce legitimate knowledge. It is not an empirical deficiency. It is not due to oversight or a lack of quality or output. It is a structural effect, not academic negligence.” In a detailed epistemological exposition, she has meticulously outlined how the sociological canon has been constructed through a series of mechanisms that have excluded women, compiling a list of these exclusionary practices. She illustrated this with the cases of four pioneering women in sociology: Harriet Martineau, Jane Addams, Marianne Weber, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The list of exclusion mechanisms — “or erasure mechanisms” — includes, according to their research: excess, absorption, particularization, silencing, and displacement. Capitolina Díaz concludes that these pioneering women were rejected because they were “too much”: too empirical, too committed, too situated. “What is not cited, what is not transmitted, what is not taught, ceases to exist.” When a female sociologist discovered a theory and received recognition for it, her identity was diluted, even if her discovery was incorporated into the canon, but without a name. The topics of her study were considered minor because they were everyday or natural; issues such as reproduction or caregiving were excluded from analysis, and instead of being considered scientific and theoretical, they were categorized as activities labeled as having a lower academic level: philanthropy, travel journalism, or activism. For Capitolina Díaz, these mechanisms of exclusion, invisibly, continue to operate today in a similar way to how they did in the erasure of the pioneers.   CARLOTA SOLÉ I PUIG Carlota Solé, winner of the 2023 National Prize for Sociology and Political Science, focused her speech on describing the situation of immigrant women entrepreneurs. “Immigrant women are interested in and committed to entrepreneurship despite different forms of oppression and adverse conditions. They stand out for their resilience and their resolute attitude towards risk.” Solé i Puig detailed the challenges faced by migrant women entrepreneurs through examples from different nationalities and ethnicities: limited language skills, social networks confined to the home or a few friends, linguistic and cultural barriers, lack of understanding of legislation, and difficulties accessing financing. “Digital media represents an empowering alternative for migrant women entrepreneurs.” “The family plays a very important role in the process of creating and maintaining a business. They are influenced by the sociocultural environment, family dynamics, self-perception, and the interaction between their status and their expectations.” The professor explained how the key to success and progress lies in new technologies: the connected mobile phone can boost, even in hostile contexts such as that of refugees, access to entrepreneurship for immigrant women. “The use of digital tools facilitates their communication, discussion and decision-making, access to courses or online marketing, but it also represents a digital divide that can separate them.”   She also highlighted some characteristics of their entrepreneurial approach: work-life balance is practically nonexistent, they employ other women of the same ethnicity, they tend to diversify their clientele, and they create small businesses with low technological requirements that are usually established in the home context. For these women, starting a business is a means of upward mobility. Their motivations center on the need to escape a discriminatory market and on self-affirmation. “This work deserves to be supported, valued and reinforced with training and mentoring programs, access to microcredits and specific funds, support networks and associations, or legal and administrative advisory services.”   INSTITUTIONAL CLOSING CEREMONY At the closing ceremony, the Secretary of State for Migration, Pilar Cancela Rodríguez, spoke, thanking the organizers of the conference for "being able to listen to those who know, those who understand." And he asserted: “Talking about migration today is revolutionary. We must construct a narrative that allows us to reclaim essential issues such as human rights. There are 58 forgotten crises.” The Director General of the CIS, Silvia García Ramos, concluded the event by stating that "thanks to the research of sociologists, today we know more about how inequalities are constructed and, above all, how they are overcome." The president of the CIS, José Félix Tezanos, reiterated that the five women awarded are “a treasure of knowledge and ability to present” and announced that the intention of the Center for Sociological Research is to publish a book that compiles the presentations from these conferences.