Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2002 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:11

Women"s governance in three villages of "Ask", "Aphoos", and "Toocheh Ghaz" has been reported in Iran. The aim of this article is to present the processes of the ceremony in Ask village which is located in 90 km. from north- east of the capital city (Tehran). The methods of the study are participant observation and review on secondary data and documents. In the past, this ceremony had different functions of economic, social, political and even military. But it seems, at present only social function has remained. Women"s governance is established in the middle of spring, when all the men of village are out of the village to attend another ceremony. The day before, village women elect a woman with high capacity in leadership, management skills and experience. Then few women are selected as ministers in the government structure. No men are allowed to stay in village and women voluntarily take the responsibility to guard the village. Men come back to the village in the evening and women governance is over.

This article intends to study the role of time and place (written where and when), its impact on the changes of opinions and its relation with women’s rights. Time and place are two influencing elements on jurisprudence. They are considered important factors in changing the opinions of the jurisprudents. That means the changes that occur in human society and alter the order of society, change in the decree of the jurisprudent and consequently make changes in the human understanding of the religion. The issue of the provision of women’s rights and reforms or legislating new rules in this field is an old debate. In Iran, like some of the Islamic countries, there have been many discussions on the way of adaptation between religious laws - which is manifested through jurisprudence and perception of jurisprudence – with the time, place and its respective essentials. Because, according to the general rule in our legal system, implementing any correction or new legislation should be approved by jurisprudents. This dependency adds to the sensitivity of the necessity to consider time and place in jurisprudence and the opinions of jurisprudence. It should be noted that at present situation and on the basis of the jurisprudential views, there is a possibility of making changes and correct some of the rules related to women.

In this article, the generational attitudes towards three gender issues within the framework of three generations: young, middle age and elderly have been studied. The object is to respond the following three questions: 1. Do various generations have different attitudes towards women?2. Is this difference the same in both urban and rural societies?3. Is there any difference between the generational attitudes of men and women? The radical feminist approaches emphasize that the patriarchal attitude has brought about a negative attitude towards women and it has marginalized women from the public atmosphere of the society. Besides these attitudes, there are also moderate views placing emphasize on the process of mental redevelopment concerning the gender issue. This process emerges when societies change from traditional stages to transitional and new stages.The results of the research data which have been collected by using the survey method and technique of oral interview in Tehran and Kashan indicate a meaningful difference on attitudes towards women among three generations: young, middle-aged and elderly, in urban and rural societies and also between men and women

Studies on wife abuse show that men committed violence behavior against their wives have experienced a high degree of violence in their childhood. Children who have witnessed their mothers being beaten in their adulthood, girls have tendency to tolerate the violence and boys perceive the abuse of wife as their right.The aim of the present article is to study wife abuse and contributing factors in Iran . Data gathered through a random sample of 180 women in two groups of women who were beaten by their spouse and after complaint were referred to legal medicine or Women who were referred to the physician for other reasons. The most important finding of the research was that the factor affecting wife abuse is culturalThe men who had witnessed their mothers being beaten in the family in childhood, husbands addicted to drugs and with criminal records and those with more than one wife have a higher tendency to violence against women

Women are experiencing violence in different ways either in the private sphere (by father or husband) or in the public sphere (society). Concerning the irretrievable impacts of violence for the women and society as a whole, this issue has not been considered seriously by the governments. The primary object of this research is to study the disguised violence, a violence that exists in families but due to different reasons is not reported to judicial and governmental centers. With regard to this objective, the principles of conflict and hegemony theories have been used. The method of this research is of a referential and survey type. This research has studied the violence from the perspective of married women and men of Shahre Kurd (162 women and husbands) in the year 2001. Variables such as employment, education, relations before marriage, type of marriage (imposed or optional), men’s authority in the family, relatives’ intervention in the course of marriage life and age difference have been tested. The findings of the research show that the variable of authority and men’s hegemony in the family are the most significant variables in spreading violence against women.

This article discusses the role of time and location in jurisprudence, its" impacts on the changes of jurisprudent"s opinions and it"s relation with women"s rights. Time and location are two important factors in these processes. That is changes in the society causes changes in decrees, in judgments and as the result evaluation in the people"s understanding of religion.Provision of women"s rights with reforms or enactment of new laws is an old debate. In Iran like some other Islamic countries the issue of the adaptation of religious rules time, location, needs and necessities have been a major issue for discussion. Based on the legal system of Iran, any type of reforms in the present laws or development of new law should be approved by jurisprudentes. Such a situation of dependency adds to the importance of taking time and location into consideration by jurisprudentes. It is noticeable that, at present and with the existing jurisprudentes" opinions, reforms, and changes in some laws regarding women"s rights is possible.

The object of this article is to present the gender analysis to development projects planners and introduce its application through experience in Iran. Gender analysis is a kind of methodology which displays a comprehensive image of share and role of the women and men in the respective society. Similar and difference backgrounds of women and men and where their roles complete each other are the subjects of this method. The practical framework of gender analysis includes four main issues: 1. Profile of development 2. Profile of the activities and roles of women and men3. Profile of women’s and men’s access and control over their resources and needs4. Designing a blueprint to reduce gender inequalities and adapting men’s and women’s needs for developmentThe application of gender analysis in the workshop in the presence of experts of rural development shows the necessity of holding training courses and the promotion of the planners of rural development projects in this field.

Application of qualitative and participatory methods on rural development issues indicates similarities in findings with quantitative methods as well as possibilities of more in-depth data analyses. The present article has been developed on the basis of a research finding that was carried out by using appraisal method and participatory technique. This research has been conducted with the object of identifying and getting access to data in four pivotal areas in the domain of women’s studies in Garmsar region in 1999 and 2000. The research findings show the extent of the work and activity of rural women, their admirable understanding of environmental conditions and degradation factors of environment and their low participation in collective decision-making of rural society. Thus by qualitative methods it is possible to gather the necessary data on : rural women’s knowledge of their surrounding environment, their activities, methods of their participation in the process of decision making, their needs, problems and priorities.

This article is a glance at the provision of financial services to women in other countries of the world. The article will deal with the Islamic and non-Islamic developing and developed countries. In these countries governmental and non-governmental organizations have been established to present financial services to women. The objectives of the establishment, methodology, activity domain and performance framework in these organizations have been summarized. Some of the most important non-credit services and projects presented to the women by these organizations are as follows:Social welfare services, educational services in technical and managerial fields to gain necessary skills, activities on achieving economic independence, advisory and cultural services and conducting research projects. The considerable point in this study is the differences between the approaches, types of services, objectives and performance of the organizations in developed countries as compared with developing countries

This is a report on the ceremony of women’s governance in three villages, “Ask”, “Afous” and “Tooche Ghaz” in Iran. This paper presents the objectives and method of holding this ceremony in “Ask” village, which is located 90 km northeast of Tehran by using the existing documents and also participatory observations of female students. In the past, this ceremony has had economic, social, political and even military functions. But today its social function is observed. The women’s governance in the village occurs in the middle of the spring when all the men leave the village to gather snow for “Barf-e Chal” ceremony. Then the women take control of the government. A woman with characteristics of authority in leadership, seriousness in management and efficiency is selected. In the governmental structure, some ministers are assigned. The men are not permitted to attend the village and a number of women guard the village voluntarily. The one-day women’s government ends in the afternoon upon the arrival of men into village.

This article is an attempt to criticize universalism in the epistemological foundations of social sciences and to apply the rationality concept in the modern era. It will help restructure these foundations by realizing the reasoning and production of knowledge by generations and gender. The application of the rationality concept in positivism and universal meaning has resulted in the neglect of rational and unique features of different social groups and in particular women. Such negligence has aggravated the present social sciences’ intricate problems. Change in the meaning of rationality universalism and replacing it with a concept which centers on pluralism will provide a ground in which the efforts of postmodernists in pluralistic assumptions of generation and gender understanding can become legitimized.