Always Learning

I was recently introduced to a website called edX. It is a website that offers academic courses and programs, many of which come from universities all over the world.

I found out about this through my university email, where they sent us a link to a program called "Gender and Intersectionality". This program is a program that was taught in Gender studies at the University of Iceland and was narrowed down to a 6 week online course. The course started on the 11th of May and will end on the 22nd of June. It is a very interesting course that I decided to take because I thought it would be something that might come in handy in my writing work and possibly in my brush with academia.

The course "Gender and Intersectionality" is a 6 week program that talks about gender and feminist theory and how other identifiers intersect with gender, such as religion, race, class, sexuality, nationalism and equality.

The first week focused on gender and religion and discussed how religion and religious identity impacts our thoughts on gender. This week we talked about things like biblical gender roles, which gender god is, the patriarchal nature of religion and the painting of women in religious texts and stories as either pure or sinners, and can lead men to doom. Other religions, like Hinduism, were mentioned as well. Specific stories that were discussed for instance were Mary Magdalene vs Virgin Mary, Adam and Eve and the fall from Eden, and the creation of Pandora in Greek mythology.

The second week was focused on gender and class, which mostly focused on the second wave of feminism and how middle- and upper-class women took charge of the feminist movement. This week went quickly through the history of feminism and the three waves of feminism and then discusses the first wave in some detail but mostly focuses on the second wave, as well as looking at the privilege that class can give you. People that are discussed and their work are Virginia Wolf, specifically "A Room of One's Own", Betty Friedan and "The Feminine Mystique", and bell hooks and "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center".

The third week focused on the intersection of gender and race and focuses on the third wave of feminism and put the fight of black women, as well as other minorities, to be heard in the feminist movement. It also talked about the struggles of black men as well as the privilege of being a man. It talks about the term womanism, as another term in place of feminism due to its history and stigma, and it's creation by Alice Walker, author of "The Color Purple". Other things discussed were Edward Said's "Orientalism" and his idea of alterity, which is close to out idea of othering, the objectification of black women's bodies and the life of Sara Baartman, racial profiling, and the colouring of Jesus.

The fourth week's focus was gender and sexuality, which discussed sexuality through the ages and how religion and the labeling of sexuality changed the way we think about sexuality. This week has less of a structure but it discussed the gender and sexual fluidity of ancient civilization and how colonization and the spread of Christianity made the male/female relationship the only "good" relationship. There was also a lot of videos from around the internet that discussed things like transsexuality, asexuality, sexuality amongst the disabled and the elderly. It was really just a broad discussion of our concept of gender and sexuality, in many ways similar to what has been happening in the world in recent years.

The last two I have not gone through yet so I don't know specifics. The fifth week, this week, focuses on gender and nationalism, which discusses the difference between nationalism and patriotism as well as how gender and our ideas of gender through history has impacted our view of nationalism. The sixth and last week focuses on gender and the idea of equality which I imagine will be about equality and how we think and view equality.

This course, so far, has been really good. I have really liked this course and I will probably take other courses or programs at EdX in the future. I will check in to see if I can find an interesting course in the future. I have mostly at this point used things like Skillshare and other similar platforms with small, sometimes bite sized courses.

EdX is a free site but they give you the option of getting verified for a small amount, which depends on the course itself. For "Gender and Intersectionality" a verified certificate was $50. They have all kinds of different courses in different fields and if you are looking for something more formal and academical than Skillshare for instance (I love Skillshare and it's bite sized courses) this is a good choice.

This is not a sponsored post, I just wanted to talk about this.