I. Teaching Gender in Psychology at a South African University

Gender courses and women’s studies departments have proliferated in South African tertiary institutions over the past decade (Bonnin, 1995). These developments tie in with changes in the constitution of the country as well as the ‘almost worldwide emergence of women’s studies as a field of research, teaching and study’ (Mama, 1996: 2). A focus on gender and the inclusion of such debates in the curriculum is relatively new in South African psychology, which has been historically dominated by white, middle-class men (Seedat, 1990; Shefer et al., 1997), with black women particularly underrepresented (Levett and Kottler, 1997; Potgieter and de la Rey, 1997). Although there is some international literature on teaching gender in tertiary institutions (for example, Culley and Portuges, 1985; Gardner et al., 1989; Lewis, 1990), there are only a handful of works reflecting on gender interventions at tertiary sites in the South African context (see Bonnin, 1995; Kottler and Long, 1997). This paper aims to contribute to discussion about the teaching of gender in South Africa and internationally, by reflecting on a gender course taught in the psychology department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a historically black South African university located in Cape Town.