The official chronicler proposes a hundred names of illustrious pioneers to baptize the new urban arteries
The streets commission – the work team of the Murcia City Council in charge of assessing the denominations for the urban map – will study at its next meeting to take a step forward to pay off a debt with the illustrious but forgotten Murcians. An initiative of the official chronicler Antonio Botías raises a hundred names of pioneers of the land, from the fourteenth century to the present, to baptize the new arteries and thus pay “tribute to those women relegated while they lived and invisible to today’s society”, argues the journalist and writer.
The proposal will be addressed at the next appointment of said commission, scheduled for mid-February, chaired by the mayor of Health and Digital Transformation, Esther Nevado, with powers in this area. Municipal sources point out the possibility that some of these female names that stood out in scientific, social and cultural disciplines are beginning to be implanted in those streets whose name must be modified in application of the Historical Memory Law.
In any case, remember from the municipal government team, the last word has the aforementioned commission, which includes experts, municipal boards and representatives of other groups.
In the list they appear from a 14th century surgeon to the first professor of the University of Murcia
Currently, the presence of women on the urban map is almost testimonial. The last study published in this regard, more than a decade ago, indicated that only 5% of the arteries remembered women who made history. In this time, it seems that the panorama has changed little. As a member of the streets commission, Botías regrets that “I have verified that the number of female proposals is almost nonexistent.”
To elaborate his initiative, the official chronicler relies on the research he has carried out “to compose the biographies of those Murcian women that history forgot despite the fact that they became pioneers in their times.” The result of this meticulous studio work is his book ‘Murcianas de dinamita’ (Trilenio Editorial, 2019), which collects the exploits of 150 exceptional Murcian women. The publication brings together the portraits of women «with splendid careers in very varied scientific, cultural and social disciplines; from 14th-century surgeons to the first councilors and judges, gravediggers, professors and academics, mystics and artists». “All of them – Botías maintains – stood out in their fields much more than their male contemporaries. In most cases, their machismo and misogyny condemned them to oblivion.
Artists and inventors
The proposal launched by the journalist for its assessment collects 107 pro Murcia, divided into fifteen areas. The most numerous is that referring to athletes (with sixteen names), followed by those that include communicators (14), writers (13) and artists (10).
Thus, the list includes, for example, the Jewish surgeon Jamila, licensed by the Council to practice the profession; the painter Magdalena Gilarte, who followed in the footsteps and style of her father, Mateo; Josefa Martínez Moya, first pharmacist; the inventor Laura Pérez, with a patent already authorized in 1916; and Francisca Moya del Baño, first professor at the University of Murcia (UMU).