WOMAN IN CULTURE AND ART (WOMEN'S RESEARCH)
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Nowadays, the audience plays a key role in the interpretation of cultural products including movies. Thus, discovering how the audience make sense of and interpret things can lead us to the social world underlying such interpretations. Women are among audience who could have different readings based on their cultural and generational experiences and background. Based on the interpretive paradigm, the present study aims to address the question: how would the female audience of two different generations interpret the movie Two Women? The study adopted an interpretive paradigm based on group interview as the research strategy. To this end, two groups of women from two different generations aged 20-30 and 45-55 years were selected purposively as the participants and were interviewed in two distinct groups. The interpretive analysis of the data revealed two different readings by the two different generations in terms of personality traits and the fate of the film characters at the textual level and in terms of such concepts as patriarchy and identifying with characters at the contextual level. However, the two groups converged in terms of their meaning making based on the conflict between tradition and modernity and the interpretation of events based on this dilemma.

This study examines votes, ideologies and goals of Iran’s cultural-intellectual currents after the Islamic Revolution in order to describe their scale and type impacts on women rights in Iran. In the first section, a theoretical explanation of the relationship between social currents and legal demands based on social realism approach along with viewpoints of scholars who believe in the correlation between social evolutions and legal developments is presented. In the second section, Iran’s cultural-intellectual currents after the Islamic Revolution currents have been grouped with respect to religion and their relation with tradition and modernity within an analytical-logical framework. The results indicate that in Iran, where rights and laws are derived from Sharia (Islamic law), opinion about this matter creates two general approaches: religious and non-religious, the former is consistent with Islamic rights and stand in the face of it attempting to eliminate the religion from legislation and the latter considers the basis of discrimination to be its religiosity. In following, the attitudes towards this tradition and modernity are the basis making the classification into Traditionalism, Civilizationalism, Religious Intellectualism, and Mixed Intellectualism in religious approach and into Secular Intellectualism and Political Intellectualism in non-religious approach; subcurrents performances and behaviors of each of these classes against the social evolutions and religious context of the society, make and determine different levels and types of women’s rights.

This paper provides a qualitative study on life style changes in Iran’s Kurdistan- Mariwan City. It tries to connect these changes to identity formation of women in this city. Mariwan, as a boarder city, due to its geographic, political and economic situation has faced an unexpected economic growth and lots of cultural transformations. Therefore, new life style as well as new formation of identity has emerged. This study examines the sources, processes and ramifications of these socioeconomic changes, as well as their impacts on women identity. Methodologically, this research is a qualitative study based on ethnography approach. Grounded theory has been employed for collecting and analyzing data. Based on purposive explorative sampling method, 53 in-depth interviews have been conducted with women married and single. Findings show extensive socioeconomic changes in women's life style. These changes mostly are in conflict with local socio-cultural values and norms. Based on the analyzed transcribed interviews and some observational material, several categories such as conditional, interactive and consequent categories have been extracted. Finally "Tense Identity" has been shown to be the core category of this study.

The current study aims to compare the expectations and purpose of marriage of women and girls in Shiraz. In this study, 180 participants (90 women and 90 girls) were selected to participate from the available population. The instruments to collect data were questionnaires and a structured interview. The participants completed the Socio-Demographic Characteristics Form and the Marital Attitude and Expectation Scale (36-item). To analyze the data, independent t-test and chi square were used. The analysis revealed statistically significant differences between groups in terms of marital expectations and its three main subscales including Intent to Marry, General Attitudes towards Marriage, and Aspects of Marriage. In sub-scales, the difference between married women and single girls in negative attitudes toward marriage, fear/doubts and love was significant. However, significant differences in the other subscales such as respect, trust, finances, meaning and physical intimacy weren't found. Moreover, significant differences were found in the purpose of marriage of women and girls, in emotional, religious, sociocultural, financial, and idealistic purposes (P<0.01), but the difference wasn't significant in sexual purpose. The overall result of this study suggests that women tend to have higher expectations of marriage than girls and the married women and girls' purposes of marriage were different.

In a sociological review of novels, the connection between structure and content of the story studied by considering the conditions and changes in society and environment in which they are created, and the modality of artistic reflection of the society in the world of the literary work is reviewed and analyzed. In this article, the authors present an analysis of the works of the famous Algerian female novelist called “Ahlam Mosteghanemi”. As a writer, she is romantic, but she deals with social and cultural situation in her country relying on community-oriented romanticism. She deals with many issues such as women’s rights, cultural poverty, social instability and conflict between tradition and modernity, and also describes the wounds and injuries imposed on the society through the colonialism. Based on the results obtained from this descriptive- analytical research, we come to realize that she could open a horizon to knowing different angles of occupation in Algeria, liberation wars at this country, results of colonization and mustiness of Arab communities. She also tries to keep her obligation to romanticism, using an emotional tone. Although her works have a critic tone, they are drastically different social realism.

The study of seals and seal impressions can make clear the dark corners of the social history of the Seleucid and Parthian. On the other hand, the analysis of personal and social position of individuals or groups for understanding the complicated relationship between human with other people or groups, also for the understanding of interactional relationships has gained special attention in historical researches. Among the above mentioned topics, the position of women has attracted particular attention. In this paper, 53 seal and seal-impressions of women with different designs from different parts of the Seleucid and Parthian lands are explained and analyzed. Pictures of women on the seals differ in style and motif including images of Greek women doing various chores and social activities, of which the Greek goddesses comprise more seals impressions in this period. samples from study centers such as uruk, Tel Kadesh, Seleucia Tigris, Nesa, Shush and Saleh Davood of Khuzestan were obtained. This article analyzes the designs, also the role and activity of women in administrative, political and social structures of Seleucid and Parthian. The most famous motifs of seals and seal impressions include Aphrodite, Tike and Athena goddesses. It should also be noted that using women in designs were more common in the Seleucid era, whereas in Parthian periods, other than three seals, the image of women were rarely used.

With the advent of Ilkhan (Mongols) in Iran, the art of illustrating book was officially formed and, from this period onward, this art prospered. Great Mongolian shahnameh, the painting masterpiece of Ilkhanid era, was illustrated in Tabriz as the first courtly illustrated edition during the time of Abu Sae' d Bahadorkhan; gradually afterward, other illustrated editions of Shahnaneh came into being. The purpose of this paper is to identify the social dimension of the great Shahnameh, and in particular the role and place of women in the pictures. The Author, using sociological approach, seeks to explore how art has reflected society. According to different adventures of this Shahname, 58 pictures of Shahnameh have remained that are scattered in museums and collections around the world. In this regard, 52 pictures of this Shahnameh are analyzed by analytic-descriptive method. Analysis tool is reflection theory in sociology of art. According to findings of the research, as women in Il Khanid era have special position and standing in the history of Iran, such that this era is known for equality of men and women, women are seen impressively and distinctively in pictures as well. These appearances in scenes with courtly themes are highlighted and the way of women's appearance in pictures is consistent with their life style. Thus, once again it's clear that the art works as a product of social values and beliefs are associated with their time.

This article investigates generational changes of child value and childbearing behavior among women before and after Islamic Revolution of Iran. Different generations of Iranian women, based on their shared common life experiences, have various and sometimes contrasting attitudes and perceptions towards the meaning and concept of child and childbearing. This research is cross-sectional and survey-based and the data are collected using questionnaire. Research population included five generations of Zanjani women. The 500 woman- sample consisted of 100 women from each generation. Two-stage sampling, based on PPS method, was used in this research.. Findings showed that the mean score value differences for child and childbearing among studied generations is statistically significant. The lowest rate of child value was related to women between 1992 and 1995 and the highest rate belonged to women before 1963. There was a reverse and negative relationship between individualism and childbearing. A positive and direct relationship is observed between religiosity and childbearing. The effect of globalization on child value among generation of 1979-1988 is stronger than other generations. Based on different historical and biological experiences and awareness of each generation as well as generational and structural conflict, changes in childbearing behavior can be explained; i.e., uneven and unequal distribution of opportunities, resources, and facilities among generations can be explained. Accordingly, generational changes of child value both historically and mentally as well as structurally and objectively can be explained. Women's experiences in terms of globalization in addition to their awareness and expectations improvement as well as changes in their roles and positions after Islamic Revolution in Iran have affected their perceptions and evaluations of child and childbearing value.