Cora Chan on Gender, democracy, and the legal academy: Afterword to the Foreword by Gráinne de Búrca, Rosalind Dixon, and Marcela Prieto Rudolphy (ICON)

"Gender, democracy, and the legal academy: Afterword to the Foreword by Gráinne de Búrca, Rosalind Dixon, and Marcela Prieto Rudolphy"
Cora Chan
International Journal of Constitutional Law
Published online: February 2025

Abstract: This Afterword reflects on the Foreword’s three key contributions—proof of a gender gap in the legal academy, revelation of the problem’s complexity, and an exploration of solutions—from the perspective of a woman scholar specializing in constitutional law in Hong Kong, a former British colony and now a special administrative region of China. While Hong Kong is an international financial center with a strong higher education sector, and its government is explicitly committed to gender equality, the territory is steeped in traditional Chinese values and culture and has undergone a sharp authoritarian turn since the protest movement in 2019. It therefore provides an interesting vantage point from which to assess issues of gender in the legal academy. In particular, this Afterword cites and provides data substantiating the existence of a gender gap in Hong Kong’s legal academy, highlights the intersectional challenges arising from authoritarianism, marketization, and gender as well as other forms of marginalization, and underscores the relationship between gender equality and democratic governance.