by Jasmine Chou
Four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare, a man not knowing much about the opposite sex, wrote play after play about men, women, and their relationships. Woman is equal to frailty in Hamlet. He is regarded as a genius in many respects, albeit apparently not having enough understanding of what women really are and what they can do. At the time, he couldn’t imagine that three hundred years later a female author named Virginia Woolf would write an essay titled “Shakespeare’s Sister” to respond to the unfairness of male-dominant societies. He surely wouldn’t believe that another hundred years later, those once regarded as frail would make serious progress for their social status and equal rights. However, perhaps Shakespeare was not ignorant and biased about women–maybe he was just not born in the right era to have the chance to learn. Luckily, you won’t have to worry about this if you are a student at NTU. There are classes waiting for you! The Women’s Research Program (WRP) is an institution affiliated with the Population Studies Center at National Taiwan University. They founded the “Women and Gender Education Curriculum” in the fall semester of 1997 and was designed to give students a full understanding of women and gender issues that are aroused through activists who make a claim for women’s equal rights. If you are interested in these studies, you simply have to go to the WRP and fill out a form to apply. Teachers and administrators there can always be consulted about any information related to these issues. To complete the curriculum you have to take at least 20 credits, including required and elective courses. After finishing all the courses required, you will receive a certificate. The courses are from many different departments and are related to all sorts of gender topics. There have been over fifty different courses since the program was founded, and the number is always increasing. Every semester, the WRP will choose about twenty courses for students to apply to. This semester, for example, there are fifteen courses open to applicants. Since you cannot possibly take all of the courses in a single semester, you might have to wait for some time to take the courses that interest you the most. Like other special programs the credits one takes for the Women and Gender Education Curriculum cannot be used as elective credits in most departments, which means you will probably have to delay your graduation in order to fulfill the curriculum. This may be a problem for some students who want to graduate on time. Nevertheless, spending one more year to fulfill this curriculum is almost like getting another degree in another useful field of study. Taking the courses will not only give you many new ideas in dealing with women and gender issues but also make you a pioneer of spreading those ideas to women of the new age. The certificate for completion of the curriculum will also be of great help if you want to continue further studies in this field in graduate school or if you want to apply for gender-related jobs. Women are something more than just frail. If you are already a firm believer in that, taking these courses and expanding your knowledge may even reinforce your belief. If you are not a believer, you are still welcome to take the courses, broaden your scope of life, and learn the truth about the “frail kind.” Even Shakespeare would change his mind! The WRP office is on the 4th floor of the old Research Library. You can reach them at 2363-0197; fax 2363-9565. You are also welcome to visit their website at http://www-ms. cc.ntu. edu.tw/ ~psc/c-index a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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