Bridge the Gap: Rethinking Women Through Debates in the Common Core at HKU

Abstract

This presentation explores how students of both sexes debate women's issues in the Common Core classroom at HKU and its implications on teaching gender in a General Education context. In Spring 2017 I revamped a Common Core course titled CCHU9043 Rethinking Women: The Big Debates, which engages over 100 students in discussions about women's livelihood across time and culture. Both the lectures and tutorials use the debate format to encourage students from diverse backgrounds to rethink everyday issues such as dating, marriage and housework, first on a personal level, before then making philosophical enquiries about gender relations, sexuality and reproductive rights. Students debate questions including 'Are single women still being stigmatized in the 21st century?' and 'Is marriage more or less challenging today than in the past?' The aim is to encourage students to rethink women's position in everyday settings through interrogating each other, an activity still too rarely seen on campus. The presentation explores, particularly, how the big class debates promote dialogue and understanding between the sexes by exposing students' stereotypical views and expectations towards each other. Students' verbal and written responses reflect that gender issues are mostly discussed among members of their own sex, but hardly between the sexes. The course allows students to challenge their assumptions about women's experiences and develop friendships across all ten HKU faculties and between the sexes. The presentation concludes by exploring the possible approaches to teaching gender interactively in General Education and how the course echoes the UN's HeForShe initiative at HKU.