Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2008 | Volume:6 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

Female competence to judge is a controversial matter amongst interpreters and the religious jurisprudence (Foghaha), to the effect that some scholars by virtue of Holy Koran and sayings of the Immaculate claim that women have no competency to judge.Having a comprehensive analysis of the references made by opponents of female judgment including those made to Holy Koran and sayings of the Immaculate (Massomin (ع)) this article attempts to reject such claims. Nowadays, the frame and shape of judgment has changed, and the matter of gender is ineffective in rendering it. However, close analysis of the verses of the Holy Koran and the tradition of the Immaculate (Maasomin (ع) does not reveal that this responsibility is handed over only to men and the female gender is negated, thus the idea claiming that female judgment is negated in Holy Koran is rejected.

There are two perspectives regarding women judgment. One approach believes that "being a man" is one of the essential elements of judgment and claims that women can not be a judge. Another one, believes that "being a man" is not an essential element of judgment and there is no difference between women and men in this regard.This article seeks to investigate about these two approaches, because choosing each of the choices will have a great influence on society.Ultimately, it can be concluded that the arguments of the first approach (which is opposed to female judgment) can not prevent women from being appointed as judge and the reasons on which they are based can be rejected easily. Therefore accepting the approach claiming that women can become a judge just like men is not so unpredictable.Recent bill of family protection emphasized on women judgment in family courts. This shows that women can be appointed as judges just like men.

The available literature and accessible references show that the study on the role of “Women in Science” has been conducted in few countries. Sociological studies focussing on the subject are scant and no such research has been found to investigate the professional status of the female faculty members of Esfahan University.This research attempts to reduce such a scientific rarity. To this end, three critical questions are answered in this study: (1) What are the experimental-educational characteristics of the women?; (2) What is their organizational and scientific position regarding their attendance in committees, decision councils, administrative and managerial affairs?; (3) According to the women's opinion, what factors affect their professional status?Professional status refers to the scientific and organizational position of female faculty members. The sample population includes all the female faculty members of the University. Data is collected through a questionnaire and semi-structured interview.Some important findings of the research are: Only ten percent of the University faculty members are women. Based on the U-Mean Whitney Test, there is not any significant difference between the scientific position of the female and male faculty members of the University while the difference is very obvious regarding their organizational and managerial positions. The female faculty members of the Esfahan University believe that gender discrimination and role conflict are the most important factors affecting their organizational position, while their academic male colleagues consider role conflict as the sole important factor affecting organizational position.

Women's strong will to obtain higher education degrees and to work as faculty member of universities is an undeniable fact in Iranian current society. Nevertheless, female faculty members just like many other women encounter some career problems which can affect their emotions, attitudes and behaviors. This article aims at answering the three following questions:- What are the career problems of female university faculty members?- Is there any significant relationship between individual characteristics of female faculty members and their problems?- Is there any significant relationship between the problems and job tendencies of female faculty members?The surveys are obtained through interviewing 290 female members of non-medical faculties of state universities. The survey shows that a noticeable number of female faculty members face two major problems. The first problem is inconsistency between family-job role expectations while the second problem consists of discrimination against women.Among demographic variables only age, ethnicity and scientific position are statistically related to the so-called problems but only in a limited way. In addition, interaction of family-job roles and gender discrimination has a significant negative relationship with job satisfaction and sense of fulfillment from their affiliated organization.

Nowadays it is believed that social capital has influential role both in decreasing expenses of activities and people's success in attaining their aims. Social capital is one of the theories that explain social pathology by combining criminology theories with micro and macro level discussions about social structures and networks.This study empirically investigates the relationship between family social capital and youth delinquency by utilizing Coleman’s family social capital theory and Hirschie's social bonding theory. In order to investigate that relationship a sample population consisting of 410 third grade high school students studying during the year 1386-1387 in Sanandaj city is used.This study is a survey study and students answer the question in a self-report manner. Results of regression analysis based on gender of respondents indicate that inter-family cognitive social capital has the greatest power of explaining boy's delinquency meanwhile inter-family structural social capital has the greatest power of explaining girl's delinquency.

This paper highlights the increasing importance of "Women's Health" issues and aims to examine and analyze the published scientific papers in this field in five Iranian academic health journals during the last decade, by using content analysis method and gender analysis and feminist theory approach. According to the result, journals have produced an overall of 1069 papers in 102 journal issues. Among them 177 papers (16/5%) are about women's health and 160 papers (14/9%) are about women's health priority issues in Iran according to a women’s health national survey conducted by Women's Cultural and Social Council.The published papers are related to only 15 subjects out of 23 priority issues of women's health. It also shows that 51% of these 15 subjects are about the first 3 items (i.e. pregnancy and after pregnancy cares, malnutrition, and women's cancers). However, it seems that analyzed journals and their academic organizations as well as state research institutes should pay further attention to women's health problems and priorities and also try to publish and use the knowledge produced.

This study investigates the relationship between meaningfulness of life and hope, happiness, depression and life satisfaction. Participants consist of 382 women who work in schools and other educational organizations in Shiraz. The techniques used include Life Regard Index (LRI), Depression- Happiness Scale (DHS), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and Adults Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS). In order to examine reliability of measures Cronbach alpha coefficient is used. Similarly, factor analysis and internal consistency methods are applied to determine validity.Results show that (a) There is a positive and significant relationship between life's meaningfulness and hope, happiness and life satisfaction whereas there exists a negative and significance relationship between meaning in life and depression. (b) Results of sequential simultaneous multiple regressions show the significance of the mediating role of hope in the relationship between meaning in life and indices of mental well-being (happiness, life satisfaction) and depression. Meaning in life increases happiness and life satisfaction. In other words meaning in life indirectly and in interaction with hope can increase happiness and life satisfaction and at the same time decrease depression.