Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2002 | Volume:1 | Issue:4|Papers Count:17

There is no single sociological theory which can explain the full extent of women"s social participation in the developing countries. An analytical framework is developed to serve the objectives of the research. This article presents a summary of most important findings on the types and intensity of women "s social participation in the city of Tehran. Factors related to their social participation are divided into four groups: values- culture, family, personality and socio-economic characteristics of the individual and her family.. Religious and charity organizations have the highest rate of participation (over the group mean) and the levels of other types of social participations are much lower. Based on the intensity of social participations women are grouped into four categories: (1) Absolutely non-participants 38%, (2) Isolationists 31%, (3) Cultural participants 14% and (4) Social Participants 16%. Structural and family norms are among the most important factors related to low levels of participation.

Women can play effective roles in the economic development of countries by presenting their potentials. Therefore ignoring them means not using all economic possibilities of the society. The objective of this research is to identify the effective factors on urban women’ s participation rate, the impact of higher education on their participation rate and presenting women’s labour force. In order to achieve this objective, the data secondary analysis of the Statistical Center of Iran has been used. In this research the Probit model has been employed. The results of this model in this research indicate that the most important factor in urban women’s participation in the labour market of Iran is their level of education. An increase in the share of women with higher education in coming years can increase urban women’s participation rate annually by about 0.5 percent alone. Delayed marriage age and the relative share of single girls will be the second effective factor in increasing women’s participation rate.

Women"s management has brought up admirable achievements in the organizations of different countries. But in most of the government organizations of Iran the tendency is toward appointing male managers. It seems the reasons of such selection are more gender factor rather than capacities and abilities of appointees. According to management theories, there are many factors behind the issue. This article aims to answer the question of:" With the improvements in women"s education and social participations in recent years, why women do not have access to managerial positions in the government?" Factors of organization"s culture, male managers" attitude toward women and their managerial skills have been studied. The findings provide evidences on negative attitudes of male decision-makers about women"s abilities for management. Also, organizational culture does not favor the presence of women at the management level. In addition, there is no significant difference between male and female managers in their cognitive skills.

Sociology as the science of studying human relations has been always criticized for ignoring women’s issues. Evidences of male-dominated social sciences along with marginalization or invisibility of women in sociology can be shown in different fields of this scientific branch. The objective of this article is to study the position of women in an Iranian journal of sociology. For this purpose the following journals were reviewed: Social Quarterly Journal, Alameh Tabatabaie University, Letter of Social Science, University of Tehran, Journal of Sociology Association and Quarterly Journal of Women’s Research, University of Tehran. In this research, in order to study and determine the share of women in the content of the journals, only the quantitative measurement of data in each journal was included. The results of the study indicate two levels of decision-making in sociology journals: the level of top decision-making as in scientific councils which has not been open to women up to 2001, and contrary to that the lower level of decision making, i.e. judgments in which the specialties of women are used.

There are many factors contributing to academic achievement in adolescents. Some of these factors are cognitive and some are non-cognitive. Identification of non-cognitive factors and recognizing which one has a role in academic achievement is very difficult. Therefore the theories of educational psychologists such as Lazarus and Volkmann have been used. They believe that the socio-economic position of the family and its ability to cope with crises are two important non-cognitive factors influencing academic achievement. In order to study the relation between coping with crisis and academic achievement, and the socio-economic position of young adult girls as important non-cognitive factors, 328 third grade girls’ students of junior school were selected. The selection was performed by using multi-stage random sampling from junior schools located in the south, centre and north of Tehran. The results of the research indicate a positive relation between academic achievement and problem-oriented coping style and furthermore positive relations between socio-economic status and academic achievement. Also no meaningful relation was observed between ways of coping with crises and socio-economic status.

Sociology as the science interested in human relations has been critisized for ignoring women"s issues .Evidences on male dominated social science, along with marginalization of women as sociologists and population to be studied from their own perspectives, can be provided on different grounds. The present article takes a critical approach to study women"s position in the scientific journals of sociology in Iran. Journals of University of Tehran, Allameh Tabatabae University, and Association of Sociology have been reviewed . The findings show two levels of decision making: 1) Higher level of decision -making with more authority on selecting articles for publication and policies of the journal, e.g. editorial board or scientific committees. 2) Lower level of decision -making with consultative positions such as reviewers of the articles. Women are mostly absents in higher level of decision making . However, they have been asked to review some articles based on their specialty areas. The journal of "Women"s Research" is the exception.

The relation of participation with a country’s development has given a new and broad dimension to the issue and it is necessary to prepare appropriate grounds for women’s participation in the society. There is no single theory in sociology that could be employed to explain or elaborate women’s social participation in particular in developing countries. Therefore, a specific conceptual framework was designed for this research. This article presents part of the research findings that has been conducted by survey method. The research has been conducted for the purpose of studying the rate of factors influencing women’s social participation in Tehran. The research variables include cultural and socio-economic characteristics, values, and the family. The findings indicate a higher than average level of religious-charity participation and low tendency towards other kinds of social participation among women. On the basis of the rate of social participation, women are divided into four groups: The most passive group of women 38 percent, isolationists 31 percent, cultural activists 14 percent and women with the highest rate of social participation 16 percent in the respective society. The structural and family constraints are reported as the most considerable obstructions in the way of social participation.

Violence against women, especially partner abuse has affected one third of women worldwide. This article has been developed with the cross sectional method on married women under the supervision of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, with the objective of studying prevalence of wife abuse and its related factors. The research has been conducted on the basis of multi-stage random sampling in the year 2001. In this article, the social acquisition theory which emphasizes on the impact of social and environmental situations on violence towards an individual has been used. Data analysis indicates: The rate of wife abuse is at the level of western countries, i.e. 41.7 percent and there are three kinds of wife abuse with the highest frequency: 1. Negligence 63.1 percent. 2. Contempt and reproach 37.5 percent and 3. Abuse and insult 30 percent which indicates the spread of psychological forms of wife abuse in society. By control of intervening factors, four factors related with wife abuse were identified: 1. Observing mother being beaten by father in childhood, 2. Experience of insult and contempt of mother by father in childhood, 3. Psychological disorder of woman, 4. Criminal record of the husband.

In recent years, the theoreticians in the field of “sociology occupation” have paid more attention towards the issue of gender and process of job selection. They confirm that the process of job selection and job promotion in particular for educated women has different characteristics as compared with men. Study by survey method on the position of female faculty members in three universities, i.e. University of Tehran, Shahid Beheshti University, and Alameh Tabatabae University indicates gender is a determining factor in recruitments. Furthermore, it shows that women have no presence in the managerial level of universities. The repetition of the same research and questions over ten years ( 2001) to identify the changes indicate that despite the fact that women have gained more knowledge and experience and their participation at low and middle managerial ranks has increased, there is no considerable change in the higher levels of management. Also decision-making committees and councils are completely under the control of men. The most important reason for this situation is the culture of patriarchal attitudes and lack of confidence in women’s capabilities.

Women’s Management has had remarkable success in the organizations of other countries. But the general tendency in most of our governmental organizations is to appoint male managers. It seems the reason of this is due to gender rather than and ability. In order to find the reasons for this attitude, different viewpoints have been presented. The theory of the natural system believes that the informal relation of power determines organizational behavior. Also Hillman, Bas, Scott, Shefritz and Hid believe that the social status quo and clichéd causes for fewer women assuming management positions have had important roles. The present research is of the survey research kind. It seeks to answer the following question: Despite the fact that in recent years, many tangible achievements have occurred in the field of education and women’s social participation in our country, why is that women have not been able to secure a considerable share of managerial positions of administrative power for themselves. To respond to this question, factors related to the organizational culture, attitudes of male managers towards women and managerial skills of women have been studied. The results of the research show that organizational cultures have brought about fewer women in managerial positions of the government. Also male managers do not have a positive attitude towards the managerial capabilities of women. In addition, whereas there is no meaningful difference between intellectual skills of women and men, there is a meaningful difference between human skills of female and male managers

The rate of women’s economic participation in Iran is similar to undeveloped countries, while the rate of their literacy and education is comparable with developed countries. The objective of this article is to discuss one of the reasons for this conflict. This discussion is based on the North theory. He states that if the cost of time opportunity is measured with real wage, by an increase in the production output in the society, this cost will increase in terms of volume of goods and services. With regard to the policies of the Third Development Plan on reducing the rate of employment in the governmental sector and also the ineffectiveness of employment in the informal sector for educated women, identification of factors influencing demand for labour force in firms seems to be necessary. In this research the data secondary analysis of the Centre for Statistics of Iran has been used. The findings of this research indicate that formal institutions (i.e. rules and regulations) have the highest impact on the level of women’s employment. This by itself is made under the impact of cultural and social institutions. A review of labour law in Iran shows the measures that have been considered by law to support women’s employment. At the same time it includes the costs that a firm and society should pay.

Using the Mid theory, the present article intends to study the impact of games in the formation of individual character and socialization of the individual. Electronic games have considerable roles in filling the spare time of children and adolescents. The object of the present research is to respond to this question: what are the main bases in designing computer game and what image of women’s character has been portrayed by computer games? In this research the referential method and secondary analysis of other researches have been used. Studies indicate that today the three elements of violence, excitement and gender are the most basic subjects of these games. A review of the contents of these games from a social perspective shows the impact of it on women concerning the role of gender. This is because in these games most of the time women are presented in passive roles and in its extreme as victims. Although boys have an active role in instigating playing the game, these games appeal more to the boys, and the girls’ desires are ignored. Thus computer games are more male-oriented entertainments and the girls have less interest in filling their spare time in this way.