COURSE REFLECTION

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The second course I have taken with LeADERS appointment is PHIL 402: Gender and Philosophy. This course falls under the Diversity designation, which aims to provide the students with higher levels of cultural awareness, which means viewing and analyzing cultural differences that are present within our society. Not only did this course fulfill that institutional goal, but it also allowed me to examine the cultural biases I have presented within myself, and openly and honestly recognize the negative impacts of these biases. In a simple reading response assignment, we were required to read Dr. Cornel West's interview titled "Christan Love and Heterosexism," which evaluates the role of socialization and one's upbringing to be the major heir of this trend of heterosexism-- the inherent bias toward heterosexual pairings/couplings and against homosexual pairings. West explores his experience with the black Christian community to reveal some of the biases he found within himself, and this inspired me to do the same. 
 

WORK SAMPLE

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For this response, I decided to find some of my biases, specifically towards heterosexism, and examine the relationship to my Christian socialization. I sought to discover whether it was my Christianity that led to these skewed beliefs or whether something else within my upbringing was responsible. An extended quote from my work is below, separated by each step of the reflective process:

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​​​​​​​​​​​​As seen above, I felt moved by Dr. West, as he is a highly respected philosopher and political thinker, and he was able to do such a humbling act as to reveal his history as someone less refined. This is what growth is all about: in order to become better people, we have to be able to recognize and analyze our failures as humans and our misunderstandings. It is because of this I was able to vulnerably share about a time when my biases affected others, and this reflection is what will help me grow into a better thinker and, ultimately, a better person. 

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The above chart wonderfully demonstrates this growth process. By reflecting on my inherent bias towards heterosexism, I was at the cultural competence step of the continuum: I was able to recognize the cultural differences and accept any advice given to improve my behaviors. This is why I was able to become vulnerable about my experiences and share my growth. Now, the next step is to move towards cultural proficiency, which will require me to advocate for improvement in policy and institutional change, and hold my peers accountable for their biases, which will be a lifetime goal. My experience in this Diversity course has motivated me to become more culturally competent, and I have developed goals to effectively achieve this to the best of my ability. 

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SKILLS DEVELOPED

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These reading responses are weekly tasks, and we are given different readings each week, all developing our ideologies on philosophy as it relates to gender. Therefore, the ultimate purpose of this assignment is to show that we have critically engaged with the reading and are able to create a written report about it to provide our thoughts on it, moving the course narrative forward. I am the kind of person to write a lot of words to say a simple thing, and so often my responses to anything will contain multiple and different descriptions, analogies, and anecdotes to get my point across. These responses, however, are made to be more qualitative and not quantitative-- in fact, we are limited to a page worth of response. This can be a challenge for anyone, but for philosophy, this is particularly difficult. Yet, week after week I find myself able to fit my ideas within this word constraint, showing how my report-writing skills have developed throughout this course. 

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Tying into this, this pushed me to plan, organize, and prioritize my work, on two different levels. On the first level, I have to decide what is important to include in each response, and what can be removed to keep the message focused. Although it doesn't take me long to write a page-length response, when I have to carefully consider each word and each idea, this has to become a more precise process. On the second level, I also had to balance this course with the 5 other courses I was taking that semester, all of them being fairly reading and writing intensive. Not only did I have to work into my schedule when I could sit down and write the response, but I had to dedicate even more time to sit down and engage with the reading and the lecture, that way my response was meaningful despite my heavy course load. These skills will take me far in my career, as I know how to plan and prioritize my work in an organized manner, which aids me in creating written reports, which is what technical writing is all about. 

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LOOKING FORWARD​

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As stated in the "skills developed" section of this page, the ability to plan and organize work is interdisciplinary in nature, and I can see it applies to every piece of work I create from here on out. A lot of technical writing is creating written reports, which can be done for any line of work. Consequently, my work for this course has much better prepared me for what I will be doing after I graduate, on top of developing my cultural interpersonal skills. Being culturally competent goes beyond academia and beyond a career-- it is a part of every aspect of life, and through my time in the Gender and Philosophy course offered by ODU, I genuinely feel more prepared to implement change and fight for greatness when it comes to our inherent cultural biases. 

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Image Source: Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), n.d.