Political sciences
Alieh Abbasi; mahmoudreza rahbarghazi; Amir Masoud Shahramnia
Abstract
IntroductionThe present study aimed at analyzing and deeply understanding the process of identity formation among women using postmodern feminist approaches based on the grounded theory method in the city of Yasuj. In this study, an attempt will be made to explore the causes, strategies, and consequences ...
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IntroductionThe present study aimed at analyzing and deeply understanding the process of identity formation among women using postmodern feminist approaches based on the grounded theory method in the city of Yasuj. In this study, an attempt will be made to explore the causes, strategies, and consequences of a phenomenon called "the formation of women's identity within traditional contexts."Research MethodThe qualitative research design was employed for this study. In this study, a qualitative research methodology was based on the classic version of the grounded theory by Strauss and Corbin (2015). Data collection was through semi-structured interviews with 27 women living in the city of Yasuj. Data analysis to develop contextual concepts from the interview data was done through open, axial, and selective coding. The accuracy of the data was determined by the participant review and comparison with related theoretical sources. Lastly, the focused codes and the core code were found through the data analysis regarding the formation of identity in women.Conclusion The findings of research illustrate that in the level of causal conditions, women's identity formation is rooted in hegemonic patriarchy, gender othering, and religious authoritative discourse. For Foucault (1978), such discourses of power and social surveillance hold tremendous significance as agents in shaping women's identities. It is through the process of social reproduction that such discourses have managed to instill patriarchal roles and norms onto women, which have implications for curbing choices in career and educational pathways. Lacan further moves to show that women, in interaction with structures of symbolization, remain incomplete in identity—a constant state—that through a system defining them as the "Other," their sense of self is molded and they remain wanting. In contextual conditions, the normative discursive system and symbolic religious order support Apollonian gender roles through family and religion. Butler (2011) claims that the gender identity of women is reproduced by the norms being performed. Such performances get shaped within the framework of gendered embodiment and hegemonic dress code where women's bodies serve as sites of social and cultural surveillance in society. It is in this system where they also experience a family structure based on gender, which makes them fit into the latter roles enjoyed in the family. Among intervening processes, institutional gender discrimination and normative deterrence act as barriers to realize the modern identities by women. Within intra-family power relations as well as patriarchal capitalism, the same is considered distinguishing toward preservation of traditional roles and economic constraints on the woman. This would also lead to bodily control, whereby social and economic institutions monitor the bodies and identities of women and further limit their access to independence and autonomy.The data show that women in Yasuj developed two main strategies in response to the studied phenomenon: acceptance or resistance. In the acceptance strategy, influenced by traditional and hegemonic discourses, women accept imposed gender roles, likely due to internalizing social and religious norms reinforced by institutions like family and religion. According to Foucault (1978) and Butler (2011), this acceptance unintentionally reproduces power structures, as women legitimize social control over their bodies and identities. Women may feel pressured to pursue education or employment while also facing traditional family responsibilities imposed by society. Resistance, on the other hand, involves women, as conscious agents aware of oppressive discourses, striving to reframe their identities and challenge imposed sex-based roles. This can manifest through opposing forced marriages, seeking economic and educational independence, or building independent identities via social media. From a postmodernist viewpoint, such resistance directly challenges patriarchal power mechanisms and works to alter dominant discourses and reshape women's identities. Acts of defiance, like rejecting dress codes or refusing educational and employment limitations, symbolically allow women to critique existing structures and create new narratives.Finally, the results expose that the identity formations among women can be viewed as resulting in three kinds of outcomes: negative, mixed, and positive. In negative outcomes, power discourse and social surveillance are used as tools for the purposes of controlling women. According to Foucault (1978), power over bodies and identities of women is wielded through apparatuses of social institutions. Institutions like family and religion force women to adhere to gender roles and control their activities through monitoring mechanisms. The autonomy lost within this structure is a direct consequence of social surveillance and cultural pressures. According to Butler (2011), the female body becomes a playground to exert one's power, eliminating all regular decision-making processes for women in career perspectives as well as personal lives. But this is achieved through internalization, wherein women unconsciously internalize such social norms that have been influenced by power discourses and thus simply accept their restrictive roles. Through the theory of subjectivity developed by Lacan, these norms are internalized in identity/women and become part of their nature, whence they start acting as if these limitations were natural and unchangeable.In the mixed outcomes, the discourse of resistance and acceptance comes forth as one of the central issues in describing a process in which women find themselves at the juncture of accepting traditional norms while resisting them. Butler (2011) frames this struggle symbolically as a struggle about possession of women's bodies, whereby their bodies become a site of reproduction and opposition to these norms. Herein lies a duality of roles: women are situated in a dual space between family and society. The former expects them to continue with traditional family roles, while the latter presses them to assume more modern roles in the public sphere. It is this identity conflict that arises out of the patriarchal and post-colonial pressures which leads to deeper identity tensions. From Foucault's 1978 perspective, this can be understood as thus, a sort of pulling between the subject and the social order whereby the female subject is multiplied since she has internalized the social norms, and at the same time she is trying to emancipate herself from expected standards. This leads to an endless pull between the self and social order.Identity and embodiment reconstruction in positive outcomes from a place of change: women get their identity and independently make reconstructions against the confining discourses. While Butler (2011) and Foucault (1978) recognize that women's bodies are used as arenas to duplicate social norms, they equally emphasize these can also turn into spaces of resistance and redefinition of identities. It is this resistive force that further develops the cuerpo in reformulating their bodies and identities anew, free from such discourses. This process also leads to the development of resistance against dominant discourses. In this case, women support an additional view of independence and find new ways towards progress and autonomy by refusing and challenging social and traditional norms. This kind of resistance will lead to bodily autonomy and control whereby, through challenging and rebelling against the patriarchal structures of power, women regain their bodies and behaviors and achieve economic and personal independence as a way of showing resistance to social order and institutional control.
Sociology
Omid Ghaderzadeh; Freshte Khairandish
Abstract
One of the conceptual and theoretical constructs that facilitate comprehension of patriarchy and women's inferiority is gender socialization. The current research aims to address the sources and dimensions of gender socialization through the perspectives of women. The present research was conducted using ...
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One of the conceptual and theoretical constructs that facilitate comprehension of patriarchy and women's inferiority is gender socialization. The current research aims to address the sources and dimensions of gender socialization through the perspectives of women. The present research was conducted using thematic analysis and qualitative methodology. “Gender roles” is one of the dimensions of gender socialization. Our analysis of women’s narratives revealed four primary themes: “identification with home,” “instrumental roles,” “The patriarchal care system,” and “glass ceiling.” The self-concept and personality of women are influenced by gender stereotypes, which are evident in public spaces, family administration, girls’ marriages, and marital relationships, as evidenced by the narration of women. The gender stereotypes related to women’s personality have been influenced by the “genderization of public space” and “insecurity of public space” gender stereotypes related to public spaces, as well as the “expressive identity,” and “genderization of education and employment” gender stereotypes based on women’s narrative. The gender stereotypes in the field of family management are “risklessness and dependent decision-making” and “gender separation of planning and management in the family.” The gender stereotypes related to the selection of a spouse and sexual relations are “urgency and strictness in the marriage of girls” and “women as sexual objects” and “as honor.” The primary sources of gender socialization are “family” and “mass communication media.”
Siroos Ahmadi; Kheyri Hamidpoor; hamid sedaghat; Fatemeh karami
Abstract
Violence against women is any form of gender-based violence behavior that causes physical, sexual, psychological harm and pain to women. Such behavior can be done openly or covertly by threatening, coercing, and outright deprivation of liberty. Violence against women is a phenomenon in which women are ...
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Violence against women is any form of gender-based violence behavior that causes physical, sexual, psychological harm and pain to women. Such behavior can be done openly or covertly by threatening, coercing, and outright deprivation of liberty. Violence against women is a phenomenon in which women are abused by the opposite sex because of their gender and simply because they are women. In this regard, the present study seeks to investigate the violence against women among women in Bushehr in frame of the qualitative method using the grounded theory. Participants were 12 women who were interviewed in a semi-structured manner and then the data were analyzed using three-step coding of open, axial and selective. The findings indicate the existence of five axial categories including "patriarchal culture and institutionalized gender inequality", "quality of couples' interactions", "legitimization of the cultural system to violence", "women's strategy against violence" and "reproduction of patriarchal attitudes towards to women ". The core variable of the research is "the rule of patriarchal ideology and the hegemony of male domination"; Violence perpetrated by men against women in any situation is affected by the strong position of men in interpersonal and social relationships. Masculinity as a strong factor impacts on violence against women and violence is influenced by the patriarchal system.
zahra khavari; Alireza Mohseni Tabrizi; Seid Mohamad Seid Mirzaee
Abstract
Alienation is the product of the modern world, which began to expand as a result of changes in the division of labor, the process of production and the expropriation in the world, which resulted in the fragmentation of the individual's relationship with himself and surrounding world, also destroying ...
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Alienation is the product of the modern world, which began to expand as a result of changes in the division of labor, the process of production and the expropriation in the world, which resulted in the fragmentation of the individual's relationship with himself and surrounding world, also destroying the human essence. Accordingly, the women affected by this issue, as a result of inequality and gender discrimination policies, deprivation due to the expropriation, instrumental look and commodification in the media have been strongly affected. The purpose of this research is to explore and interpret the women's experience of "self-alienation and strategies to get rid of It" using the grounded theory method. Purposive sampling was used for data collection and finally, 20 women have been selected for in depth interviews in Mashhad. Data were analyzed through the three coding process. The results of the study show that: obedience of domination, Theatrical character and other causal categories that have been interpreted in the text, have exacerbated the self -alienation for women. These conditions along with the weakening the power of will and authority, have reduced their opportunity to experience, self-knowledge and talents. Therefore, to get rid of this enclosed world, women have offered various strategies, the most important of which is improving the level of awareness and knowledge of women about themselves and the world around them so that they can continue to renew their essence and build their social world with freedom and awareness.
Sima Raeisi; Hossein Tafazzoli; Mohammad Tohidfam; Ahmadreza Taheri
Abstract
Achieving political development requires the political participation of social groups in society, particularly women's political participation. In any society the fulfillment of proper participation of women in policy making is hindered by specific obstacles. Accordingly, in the present study, attempts ...
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Achieving political development requires the political participation of social groups in society, particularly women's political participation. In any society the fulfillment of proper participation of women in policy making is hindered by specific obstacles. Accordingly, in the present study, attempts have been made to examine the barriers of political participation of women in the Baluchistan region by means of institutionalization and qualitative techniques; qualitative interviews with elitses in Baluchestan provided themes for researchers to specify condition of political participation of women among the Baluch. Findings in the present study state that barriers of political participation of women can be considered from two aspects. First, the way official institution looks at women, second, the culture of Baluchestan people. The results suggest that the main obstacles are informal or intangible institutions, such as fathers or patriarchal culture, and some religious beliefs, which, on the one hand, are the causes of women's poor selflsteem in political activities. On the other hand, legal and formal institutions appear to reflect the less formal institutions that have undergone some kind of institutional process. Nevertheless, participatory institutions such as Islamic councils of the city and village have been able to effectively reduce the influence of informal institutions on gradual political participation of Baloch women.
Women's Studies
Hosein Bani Fatemeh; Mohammad Abbaszadeh; Mohammad Bagher Alizadeh Aghdam; Nayyer Mohammadpour
Abstract
Violence against women is a major obstacle to the development of all societies. The violence can be seen in all forms of physical, economic, legal, social and cultural life both in the public and in private spheres. Considering the importance of the subject, this study has been conducted among 20 - 60 ...
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Violence against women is a major obstacle to the development of all societies. The violence can be seen in all forms of physical, economic, legal, social and cultural life both in the public and in private spheres. Considering the importance of the subject, this study has been conducted among 20 - 60 year old married women in Tabriz city. The research sample was selected using snowball method. Qualitative data were collected from 24 married women in Tabriz using semi-structured interviews about the main aspects of the research. Data analysis was carried out using the grounded theory and using an open, axial and selective coding approach. The results have indicated that men's physical violence against women reflects a number of tensions and stress. The concept of “stress” in this research indicates the men’s reaction to external and internal pressures in the public and private spheres. In other words, stress is a negative reaction of men to the situation and present situation in the society from which the violence is one of its consequences.
Volume 7, Issue 1 , May 2009
Abstract
Fable literature is one of the bases in which sexual stereotypes are reproduced. Like all other scientific fields, it continuously delineates a repetitive image of women. Therefore, this article aims to study how literary texts reflect sexual discrimination in a specific culture and how they deal with ...
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Fable literature is one of the bases in which sexual stereotypes are reproduced. Like all other scientific fields, it continuously delineates a repetitive image of women. Therefore, this article aims to study how literary texts reflect sexual discrimination in a specific culture and how they deal with reproduction of sexual division; specially how these injustices are drawn in Mr. Dolatabadi's selected works.The Results of the research shows that in Hejrate solyman, Bashobeyro,Jaye khaliye soloch, kalidar story books, harshness plays the main role and appears with various origins and in different forms (clear and hidden) and thus overcomes and defeats women. The method used in this research is content analysis.
Volume 4, Issue 14 , September 2006
Abstract
Sociological analysis of gender relations in films has always been important to sociologists due to monitoring social relations and structures. In this research, the researcher tries to investigate quality of gender relations in Iranian films after the revolution. The fundamental question of the research ...
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Sociological analysis of gender relations in films has always been important to sociologists due to monitoring social relations and structures. In this research, the researcher tries to investigate quality of gender relations in Iranian films after the revolution. The fundamental question of the research is how gender inequality is represented and constructed in interaction of men and women in Iranian films. The theoretical framework in the research is social constructionist approach of Erving Goffman based on which concepts, variables and hypothesis of research have been defined and constructed. The Method of research is content analysis, by which 62 Iranian films are analyzed. In This article, it is tried to introduce brilliant thinking of Goffman and analyze gender displays in Iranian films by using Goffman’s visual analysis model.
The findings of research approve the presence of significant gender displays in Iranian films within the framework of Goffman’s visual analysis model, while expressing the reconstruction and reproduction of gender values and norms in Iranian cinema after revolution.
Volume 2, Issue 2 , June 2003
Abstract
Globalization is an encompassing phenomenon, which has created challenges for all of humanity. The family, as a social institution, has experienced some transformations brought about by globalization. The issue under study in this paper examines the potential impact of globalization on the family and ...
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Globalization is an encompassing phenomenon, which has created challenges for all of humanity. The family, as a social institution, has experienced some transformations brought about by globalization. The issue under study in this paper examines the potential impact of globalization on the family and the challenges and the opportunities that are created by globalization for today's family. The results of this study point to fact that the family in the era of globalization will continue to survive. However, there will be changes in the family structure and in the relations between family members. The typical nuclear family will experiences transformations, and greater varieties of family types. Additionally, the power structure of patriarchy within families, women's greater awareness, their social participation, employment and education, will transform their status in the family and society. While globalization can have the potential to create opportunities for the eradication of patriarchy and increase of women's rights, it also holds many challenges in the realm of identity and structural relations of family members. As such, it is important to understand globalization in its various dimensions and its possible impact, so that its positive opportunities can be harnessed and its challenges be appropriately addressed.
