March 8 is International Women's Day.
Briefly explain what feminism is ("The radical belief that women are actually people" is one of my favourite definitions), and the ideas behind International Women's Day. The official website for IWD gives a historical timeline. One opening discussion question might be "Do you think that there are things that men can do but that women can't?" (and vice versa). Another one could be "If a woman goes to work and the husband stays home, do you think the husband will do a good job of caring for the children?"
Write the following countries on small pieces of paper: Thailand, Malaysia, China, Australia, taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea (you could only just choose a few out of that list too). Which country do you think is the most sexist? The least sexist? Can you put them in order?
Read the (somewhat plagiarized) text (attached) to find out more about IWD and the survey of Asian/Pacific nations to see which countries had a better equality score - By the way, South Korea comes in last place - leaving a lot of room for discussion and maybe even an argument or two.
Use your own judgement with this. A friend of mine had a (middle-aged) Korean man yell at her for even suggesting that men and women were equal.
