WOMAN IN CULTURE AND ART (WOMEN'S RESEARCH)
Year:2011 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

The survey conducted by the author between 1386 and 1388 has focused on understanding civilization, and on analyzing the relationship between age, gender, job, education and social class with the Iranian civilization. It has also made efforts to examine the interrelationship between civilization and sciences, especially humanities. The present article refers to the survey’s findings on civilization and gender: first, it will be shown how men and women differ in their understanding of civilization as a concept; second, gender differences in relation with civilizational categories will be revealed. This article will first discuss the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of civilization and the formation of civilizational cognition under the light of civilizational material and spiritual heritage. Next, the methodology and the sample study will be described. A report on and an analysis of the sample study will follow with regard to the definitions that participating men and women had of civilization, gender and civilizational belonging, and gender in relation with the role of sciences in forming civilizations. The article will finally open a discussion on the past, present and future civilizational perspectives in close relation with gender differences. Civilization is not necessarily a phenomenon of and in the past, While for many people civilizations belong to an unseen past, the fact remains that civilization enjoys a significant capacity to be reborn. In other words, we can stand witness to “a present-day civilization”. Civilizations are distinct, transcendent, glorious and artistic; they demonstrate diligence, complicated birth processes, and magnificence. Civilization has deep relations with spiritual and divine values which materialize civilization’s meaning and existence. These properties are quite time-bound and should be evaluated on a par with each era’s capacity. It is imperative to reinforce civilization as an abstraction and a reality among Iranian men and women in order for Iran to enjoy a civilizational space.

All texts whether historical or literary are various discources in which cultural and social phenomenon are revealed. The selection of Tarikh-e Beyhaqi by Abol Fazl-e Beyhaqi (a historical text) and Samak-e Ayar by Faramarz ebn-e Khodadad (a literary text) is because of their significant position in cultural, linguistic and literary texts. This paper's basic theme is that in Samak-e Ayar the female characters generally belong to the common classes whilst in Tarikh-e Beyhaqi the female characters belong to the aristocratic class. Therefore a comparative study of the two types of female characters in their own context can reveal the function of the discourse in creating dynamic or satic female characters in either of the two texts in question.

This article aims at investigating the gender differences and marriage status on student's attitudes and perceived personal, social and environmental limitation of performing prayers.1100 students of Shiraz University were randomly selected and completed a 77-item questionnaire developed by a researcher. Results showed that female ones mostly opt for individual prayer whereas male students preferred to pray collectively. Moreover, the females had more positive attitudes toward praying than males whereas female and male’s perception of the mass prayer’s leader and their attitudes toward themselves and other people’s familiarity with the principles of prayer were not significantly different. Furthermore, females had significantly perceived more personal, social and environmental limitation about performing prayer. Also there existed no significant difference between the unmarried and the married on attitudes and perceived limitation of performing prayers.

The Palestinian Women consider the Arab nation as a united one who are becoming a whole body through the common language, cultural, history and fate. The Arab nationalism is apparently considered in the contemporary literature of Palestinian women which well depict their thoughts and concepts. They believe in their homeland as the “Great Arab Homeland” and they attempt very much to encourage the Arab world to force the liberation of Palestine.

Disclosing the image of woman in an ancient society belonging to eighteen centuries ago is not an easy task. Nonetheless, investigating the works remaining from Mani followers helps us in finding some clear clues of the active social presence of women who were among the followers of Mani. Manichaean literature consists of a collection of texts written over centuries by his followers in different languages, such as Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, ancient Turkish, Chinese, Syriac, Coptic, and Greek; from the beginning of the last century, historical linguists have embarked on its decoding, translation, and interpretation1. In this study, the author has tried to carry out his investigations based on Manichaean texts; however, in order to avoid overspecialization, he has not quote these texts in original ancient languages.

Feminism was a social movement which entered various arenas, including art. With an objection to the all-inclusive dominance of men over the art arena, artists of this movement took step in the road. One of these artists was Judy Chicago, who created artistic works along with other feminist artists and introduced feminism to the world through her “The Dinner Party”. The secret to its durability and its distinction from other movements lies in its peculiar traits; it demonstrated that not only history has not been empty of female artists, but it has seen a lot of them as well. The Dinner Party is a perfect example of a feminist work trying to focus on the important role of women in art and society. The introduction of this unmatched work as well as some of its prominent women has been among the main reasons of writing this article.

Compliments and compliment-responses form adjacency pairs. These pairs include two utterances by two speakers in which not only the first utterance gives rise to the second utterance, but also necessitates that the second one be of a special kind. This paper studies compliment responses in Persian women and children. In the first part of this paper we present a description and classification of compliment responses in Persian speakers The second part of this paper is a comparison of compliments responses in 60 children (aged 6-8 year) and 60 educated woman. We used the “what a nice x” pattern and then recorded all their responses. ‘X’ was one of their personal belongings. The results show a great difference between the two groups. While adults use conventional formulaic phrases as compliment response, children do not use these fixed phrases and instead give an explanation (or description) about the complimented object.