زن در توسعه و سیاست (پژوهش زنان)
سال:1380 | دوره:1 | شماره:2 |تعداد مقالات:11

The importance of the role of women in cultural development has been emphasized in much social and ethnographic literature. By using the term “house” with the idea of both “physical entity” and “emotional atmosphere”, the role of the woman as the maker of both the emotional atmosphere of the house and the entity of the house has been studied in this article. In historical studies on pre-industrial periods, women have been mainly the producer of the emotional atmosphere of the house and from that period onwards, women have been expected along with men also to build the physical house. Studies have shown that social damages and the emotional atmosphere of the family in reducing many social abnormalities is important. This article also recognized the emotional space of the house as an important factor for development. A question that is raised here is that if it is supposed that both men and women work in the public realms in industrial and post-industrial world, how is emotional atmosphere of the house built, i.e. the atmosphere, which is necessary for cultural development? At the same time, according to research findings, women have entered the public domain but the men do not tend to undertake responsibility in the domestic domain. Furthermore, there are still many social and cultural obstacles in the way of women and their activities in the public sphere, and they do still encounter some discrimination.

Change in perspectives on rural development from “agricultural growth” to “integrated rural development” has resulted in the need to look closely at the social and cultural life of local people and the development of social policies by using a participatory approach. This article presents part of an experience within the framework of the empowerment theory. It aims to understand better the needs of rural women and their readiness to participate in developing projects and applying qualitative research methods in women’s studies. Following a group discussion in this workshop on the existing situation, their expectations for the future and how to put these into effect, rural women paid more attention to the establishment of a bank in the village as one of their needs. This article does not intend to defend this decision or evaluate its results, but this experience indicates the potential of qualitative methods in studies on rural women. It also indicates that in the present situation, the women of the village of Hesarban are mostly in the first and second stages of empowerment theory.

One of the indications of a country’s development is the rate of womens economic participation. The results of the studies taken indicate that in addition to the low rate of women’s participation in Iran, the trend of its changes has also been slow. Of the other characteristics of the women’s labour market, certain issues can be mentioned, for example: • A higher rate of unemployment among women compared with men, even among young women with higher education degrees in recent years. • A serious shortage of job opportunities for women with high school diplomas • Lower opportunities of access into top management professions. It seems the increasing unemployment rate throughout society has reinforced gender attitudes in the labour market. It is such that in 2001, the unemployment rate among women in urban society was 28 percent - almost twice the rate among men. So women with a secondary education and women with tertiary education face an unemployment rate of 42.4 percent and 22 percent respectively. Using the data of the Statistical Center of Iran within the framework of institutional economics and in line with the improvement of the position of women in the labour market in Iran, this article evaluates the performance of the Third Development Plan and suggest some reforms.

This article is an attempt to deal with gender equality, on a theoretical level, in the political domain. First the basic approaches towards gender equality in the political domain are presented for discussion. Following that, three approaches: gender equality, difference and inequality as three perspectives of equality-orientation, difference-orientation and inequality-orientation are selected. Then the political domain is divided into three parts: citizens’ rights, political participation and the tenure of political posts. Afterwards, the attitudes of 210 members of the University of Tehran’s students are recorded in a survey. For this purpose the statistical methods, one-variable analysis, variation analysis, co-efficiency and path analysis are used. The results of the research findings indicate the impact of external factors. For example an individual’s attitude towards gender equality is conditioned by the social adjustment of the individual in the family, his personal opinions, and his behavior. In general, most of the students have difference-oriented attitudes towards gender in the political domain and they are less in favor of gender inequality on gender equality. But men have a higher tendency towards gender inequality than women

The objectives of this research is to analyze the role of women in the informal economy by calculating the added value of the services of housewives at home. The research has been conducted in Ardal City based on 250 married women. The services of housewives at home has been studied on the basis of the impact of such factors as age, education, the profession of either spouse, the duration of marriage, and family. For this purpose, different aspects of housewives’ activities have been considered, namely: childcare, helping with the children’s education, preparing food, house-cleaning, shopping for domestic goods, handicrafts, and producing dairy products. Studying these subjects theoretically from different social and economic aspects, the researchers developed a theoretical framework for the research. This research was conducted through a survey and simple random sampling. The most important finding indicates that the share of women amounts to 65 percent of the added value of the household; the men supply 15 percent of the added value, and the rest is attributed to other members of the household. The highest portion in the total added value belongs to food preparation, amounting to 58 percent.