Situate(us) and Question(us) through a Design Course-Device. Our First Experience as Teachers of the Course Design, Gender and Feminisms

From a feminist pedagogy perspective, in 2023 we carried out for the first time a class called Design, Gender and Deminisms in the Design School of the Universidad Católica de Chile. We would like to share the development and contradictions of that experience of co-learning through theoretical and practical tools and methodologies from the field of gender studies and its relationship with design. This was carried out through theoretical lessons, text reviews, case studies, and development of design projects that incorporate an intersectional gender perspective in their processes and results so we—students and teachers—could question, situate, and rethink ourselves. Now that the semester is over, we feel able to reflect on how the course questioned the way students design, making them interrogate the different parts of the design process to a point where design to truly transform the gender gaps feels impossible. The experience also leaves us asking ourselves: Is it possible to teach from a feminist pedagogy perspective based on the joint construction of the learning experience in the context of an educational system where the relationship between university and students is similar to the one between services and clients?