Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: Carmen Domínguez becomes the first woman to head the UC Private Law Department

With a career that has been marked by outstanding participation in predominantly male spaces, the academic from the Faculty of Law Carmen Domínguez was recently called to direct the Department of Private Law, a position in which she was preceded only by male professors.

“It is a great emotion. I entered the faculty 23 years ago at the Department of Civil Law and I was the first woman to be a professor of civil law at UC, and before that I had been the first female professor of this subject at the University of Concepción, where I studied my undergraduate degree ” says the academic, who comes from a family where grandfather and grandmother, father and mother studied law. Two of his sons also study the same career at UC.

“It is a great emotion. I entered the faculty 23 years ago at the Department of Civil Law and I was the first woman to be a professor of civil law at UC “- Carmen Domínguez, director of the Department of Private Law UC.

The Private Law Department led by Carmen Domínguez is currently made up of 55 teachers, 51 men and four women. And one of his hopes is that more female lawyers can enter and actively participate in the disciplines that make up this department: civil law, Roman law and private international law.

“This appointment is very important and constitutes a milestone for the Law School, as it is the first woman to assume this position. Without a doubt, the leadership achieved by Carmen Domínguez opens the doors for other women to see that it is possible and follow her example ”, says the director of Gender Equity at UC, Silvana Zanlungo.

“Without a doubt, the leadership achieved by Carmen Domínguez opens the doors for other women to see that it is possible and follow her example” – Silvana Zanlungo, Director of Gender Equity at UC

Generate community contributions
The function of department directors in the Faculty of Law is to help the authorities in the organization of their area, of teaching, and to contribute to the academic evaluation of professors, among other tasks.

For Carmen Domínguez, one of the main challenges is also coordinating activities that bring together the department as a whole and “that allow us to mark a presence, make the voice of professors reach technical subjects, in bills, in important debates in the that we can make a contribution. I think that this last part is where I would most like to influence, due to my own previous experience ”.

The civil law professor and doctor of law at the Complutense University of Madrid founded and directed the UC Family Center for twelve years, which allowed her to gain experience in the task of generating community, and from that to raise teaching initiatives, extension and research.

“It is exciting to think that I have reached this point on the road where I can be given this confidence and can take on a task that is also very challenging to be able to generate new projects and contribute to our Private Law Department being the one with the greatest contribution in Chile ”, he points out.

His personal objectives also include bringing more women closer to positions of authority in the area of ​​law, and particularly in private law. “We still have a challenge, to see why more women are not entering the department. There is no other teacher in the department who does the entire cycle, the seven semesters, “he says.

“I believe that for more women to reach leadership positions, female students need role models, they need to see that it is possible,” she reflects, also thanking the support she received from her faculty and from the UC in terms of conciliation. . However, for her it is clear that there is still a lack of progress in conciliation and co-responsibility, both in the academy and in society as a whole, in order to open more spaces for female leadership.

Carmen Domínguez was part of the Women and Academy II Commission and is currently part of the Advisory Commission of the Gender Equity Directorate, generating important contributions from that space to the UC community.