Women writing for change

Women Writing for (a) Change is a creative writing experience that supports the lives of women for whom writing is, or is becoming, an important creative and spiritual practice. This class is designed to provide a safe and supportive space for women who want to explore their writing voice. This class takes the proven techniques designed by Mary Pierce Brosmer and offers them within a cross-cultural virtual context. For the moment, these writing circles are open only to women. Each session is conducted by trained facilitators. 4 cr.hrs. See what former participants were saying.

Asian matriarchal societies

A number of tribal societies in India, Malaysia and the Philippines have preserved typically matriarchal features. Analysing such features helps us identify the variety of elements in ownership, parental authority, social roles and kinship that make up the web of male-female relationships.

Careers for women with a family

In modern society many women combine pursuing an active career while caring for children. This often results in tensions. The course examines how professional women in a number of countries cope with these stresses and which approaches have been found helpful to reduce conflict.

The causes of women's emancipation in the twentieth century

The twentieth century has seen an upsurge of women's emancipation in education, politics, commerce, the sciences and professional occupations in Western countries. What caused this phenomenal social change? What can leaders in other parts of the world learn from the beneficial and harmful effects of this far-reaching social transformation?

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Christology in feminist and international perspectives

The course moves through five modules:
* Christology in contemporary critical perspectives: Europe and North America
* U.S. North American Feminist Perspectives
* Latin American Liberation and Feminist Perspectives
* African Feminist Perspectives
* Feminist Christologies from Asia

Church in the round. Feminist interpretation of the Church

The Catholic Church and some Protestant churches have traditionally functioned as a patriarchal & hierarchical pyramid. This course outlines the revolutionary insights of Lettie Russell who proposes a new model based on both contemporary values and the vision of the original Christian communities.

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Culture and gender in Muslim countries

It is frequently, wrongly, assumed that the practice of Islam is uniform in all Muslim countries. In fact, customs and culture vary greatly from one Muslim society to the next. This course documents such differences, analyses their causes and draws conclusions that allow a clearer distinction between culture and religion.

Democracy and the emancipation of women

Are democracy and the emancipation of women necessarily intertwined? This course studies the historical connection between the two and cases where the connection failed. What can social leaders learn from such past experiences?

Divinity and gender in ancient India

Traditional Hindu society is indisputably patriarchal in rights and practices. At the same time it manifests a preference for female symbols in worship and religious myths, a preference that may have arisen from the influence of the Dravidian cult of the mother goddess. The course examines whether this underlying preference predisposes Hindu society to female emancipation.

The education of women and social development

Research shows that the level of literacy and education of women correlates with the level of social and economic development of a country. The course examines in particular what kind of education contributes most to lifting a society out of poverty.

The effects of globalisation on gender issues

Our world is rapidly becoming internationall integrated, partly through trade links, partly through the new means of communication. This has a great influence on exposing gender issues and, at times, on stimulating social change.

Female genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation is mainly practised in the Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt. It is not known in other Muslim countries. The course analyses the history of the practice, its cultural origins, its being embedded in religion and effective approaches to combat the abuse.

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Female infanticide

Girls are killed at birth in some parts of India and China when they are seen by the parents as competing with male offspring. Although poverty is the main cause of the practice, strong cultural and religious prejudices also lie at its roots.

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Role Perceptions of Women in Children’s Literature

All ages and cultures have used story as a means of telling new generations about the past and educating children about desired codes of behavior. Story telling seems to have been important to human beings even before writing became a means to preserve these tales. Accordingly this course will begin by examining the oral narratives used by mothers to inculturate their daughters. You will learn to decipher the hidden wisdom and to discern the social conditioning implied in stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood." Then, once learned, these skills will be applied to modern English literature designed for children. Overall, this course will enable women to recover the past in order to better design the future for their mothers, sisters, and children. 3 cr.hrs. Dr. Pat Pinsent

A number of questions are inevitably raised during this analysis, in particular in relation to the way in which children's literature shapes the perceptions of young readers.

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Feminism, redemption and Christian Tradition

This course is based on Mary Grey's ground-breaking work Redeeming the Dream. Redemption cannot be said to have really come to women unless they are fully integrated in all aspects of the salvific process initiated by Christ.

Gender and microcredit

The course will cover the following topics:

• microcredit & microfinance as a tool for poverty allevation and women's empowerment
• assessing organizations that are directly or indirectly involved in the credit delivery system
• the connection between awareness, personal decisionmaking and liberation from poverty
• the specific place of women in micro-economic units such as the family, the village, etc.
• the role of Self Help Groups as a mechanism to deliver credit effectively, etc.

Man and woman in God's image - wrestling with gender in the thinking of the Church

The book of Genesis asserts that God created 'man' in his own image. The original Hebrew phrase permits this to be understood as either referring to the male only, or to both man and woman. The course is based on the life-long study of Kari Børresen. We follow the discussion in detail, from the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church to well into the Middle Ages. We assess the consequences of this anti-feminist trend in Tradition for the position of women in the Christian Churches.

Marriage and gender in Bantu Africa

Bantu culture, which covers a large slab of the African continent, dictates marriage customs including the dowry system and polygamy. The Bantu concept of women's role still determines the fate of many women in African societies.

No Church leadership for women according to Sacred Scripture?

In many major Christian Churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, women are still excluded from church leadership. This means that women:
* cannot be deacons, priests, bishops or popes
* cannot run a diocese, preside at the eucharist, forgive sins through confession or the anointing of the sick, impart authoritative teaching on faith or morals, etc.

The traditionalists claim that the exclusion of women from church leadership can be proved from the inspired scriptures. This course aims to show that they are wrong. Sacred Scripture does not ban women from church leadership.

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A prophetic spirituality of justice

This course focuses upon the integral role that "acting justly" plays in the self-understanding promoted by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith traditions. Guided by the feminist writing of Dr. Mary Grey, this course enables participants to rediscover the pivotal role that peace-making, doing justice, and sharing resources have with the prophetic spirituality of the Abrahamic faiths. 3 cr.hrs. Dr. Mary Grey

Spirituality is …“that which ultimately moves you- the fundamental motivation of your life.

The 'Querelle des Femmes' in post-renaissance Europe

In France, Germany, Italy and England, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, women were submitted to academic and social debates focusing on their status as human beings. The exchanges revealed both the deep-seated cultural and religious prejudices prevalent at the time and the emergence of a group of militant women.

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The rise of male domination in ancient cultures

Male domination in western societies has been associated with the arrival of systematic agriculture and the concomitant need of state building. Others claim that man's social dominance is inborn. The course examines such claims and proposes tentative conclusions of relevance to women's emancipation.

The suppression of women's writings during the Enlightenment

The injunction, found in 1 Timothy 2,11-15 that women should not teach, prevented women from being educated in the Middle Ages. Women's writings, if any existed, were genrally ignored. This prejudice continued even during the time of the Enlightenment.

Women and international law

Women have gradually acquired more rights in various countries. Conventions of international law have had, and still have, a beneficial influence on national policies. The course studies the extent of provisions made for women in present-day international statutes, and assesses how they are being implemented on local level.

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Women's economic status and health issues

A person 's poverty directly affects his or her physical well-being. The course examines how women's poverty in particular has contributed to diseases that women suffer in many parts of the world. The course proposes models of alleviation that tackle both the economic condition and the improvement of health at the same time.

Women’s leadership in the Church according to Christian tradition

This course has the following learning objectives: (a) to trace the historical stages of development in women’s involvement in Christian ministry; (b) to become aware of the various social and cultural prejudices that gradually caused the ban on women’s ministerial leadership to be enshrined in Church law; and (c) to be prepared to assess the correct rules of assessing what is, and what is not, genuine Christian Tradition. 3 cr.hrs. Dr. John Wijngaards

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Women leaders in the European Middle Ages

In spite of the overwhelming patriarchal ambience, medieval societies did produce some outstanding women leaders. Some ruled as queens or held other political posts. Others performed leadership roles in a religious context, as abbesses or spiritual writers. The course examines the status that was accorded them in their own contemporary society, and evaluates some of their lasting contributions.