Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2005 | Volume:3 | Issue:2|Papers Count:11

The theoretical and political frameworks of feminist thoughts emerge from some of the classical traditions of the social and political theories. Thus, first wave of feminism was influenced by liberation and second wave influenced by radicalism. Since the modem bourgeoisie which is based on liberation and equality has not been fully successful to extend these values to women, it disappointed some of feminist scholars. Considering the impact of social issues on women's lives, feminists have revised some of these classical perspectives or applied new perspectives to explain the women's position in society in a better way. Romanticism as a form of contemporary social theory admires "emotions" and adores the "past" and has had much appeal to some of the feminists because of some commonly shared assumptions in both feminism and romanticism. This has become a basis of aspiration for some feminists who emphasize on women's sentiments and its superiority instead of rational equality between men and women and the importance of women's movements. They believe in the existence of matriarchy in the golden age as an assumption and try to revitalize it. It seems that even though romanticism could be considered as a reaction to the problems arisen from rationality and modem development, but it is not a solution for the new world, as it is even true for feminism.    

Power and its accessibility is one of the most important issues in social science. In more traditional societies, the power was an important phenomenon in the family and most often it belonged to men. The occurrence of patrilineal led to the enhancement of male dominance and brought men many privileges. In this article it is tried to address some of the issues such as: - Recognition of power and its implications - Discussion of power in original thoughts - To identity an applied model to explain the relation between power and women in family arena. The methodology which is applied in this study is documentary one. In contemporary societies, gender roles in the family as discussed by functionalists (such as Parsons) is not convincing any more. Conflict and feminist theories also encounter deficiencies. Due to social changes, male domination is changing within the family sphere. And with women's involvement in the decision-making process, gender inequality in the family is going to be undermined.      

Even though contemporary approaches have dwindled the class consciousness and class identity, but at the same time, they magnify the gender and its political aspects. The growth of women's consciousness and redefinition of gender identity is partly due to their social participation in public sphere and partly due to women's movements. Despite common belief, even those women who do not believe in women's movements, they show an active gender identity because of the high level of awareness provided by mass media and other sources. Some factors such as structural, demographical, women's experiences, ideological tendencies and attitude are the most responsible in shaping gender consciousness. A along with other factors ideological prejudgments, life conditions in childhood and adulthood, cultural and gender socialization, access to some resources such as education for women, women's authority in the family and society are considered to be the most important factors affecting gender identity and consciousness. Despite the fact that social attentiveness toward gender inequality has grown remarkably, but the reaction of the public, especially women is still uncertain. For instance, it is not clear how Iranian women with different background evaluate their position in the family and social hierarchy. This article tires to present a theoretical model and identify those factors which can affect the gender consciousness.      

In this article, an effort has been made to discuss about three different approaches on the socio-political role of women in contemporary history of Iran. The first approach was made by those who do believe that throughout the history of Iran, the role of women has never been significant. Contrary to previous approach, some would argue that women have had some roles but it was rather destructive. Finally, others believe that Muslim women have had the most important role in socio-political development over the last decades. But despite the common belief, these women who played an active role in socio-political development were not related to royal families or intellectual communities. However, these approaches are scrutinized based on the documents and finally it is possible to conclude that Iranian women have played a rather constructive role in the history of development but they were not able to publicize their thoughts due their lack of access to the publication facilities.    

This article is an attempt to study the impact of socio-economic factors affecting women's attitudes from a sociological point of view. The data of this research was collected by using a questionnaire. A sample of 384 women aged 25-54 from Shiraz city, Iran were included in this study. To explain gender inequality, some theoretical approaches such as "Conflict", "Resources" and "Collins" model have been applied. Gender inequality was considered in five different areas such as: social participation of women, the status of women in the family and labour market, civil and legal rights of women and gender stereotyping. The result of research show that there is a significant relationship between independent variables (women's education, women's income, father's and mother's education, husbands' income, education of parents and mother's employment status) and dependent variable (gender inequality). The results also indicate that the most important variables are women's education, mother's education, employment status and the type of women's jobs and these 5 variables together can explain 57/9 percent of the variance of data.        

Women constitute half of the population and their position is important in development process of the countries. Thus, improving women's status is a necessary condition for a sustainable development in every country. To reach this goal many efforts have been made to empower women throughout the world. In Iran, during the last three decades, the status of women has considerably improved due to socio-economic development. Some improvements have taken place in favour of women at national and international levels which resulted in narrowing down the gap between men and women. Using the data from the country censuses (mainly from 1966 onwards) and other sources (mainly a survey on socio- economic characteristics of households in 2001), this paper aims to examine the improvements in women's lives compared to those for men. Findings show that improvements in women's status in terms of education, decision making in the family and health have been outstanding. But their situation in terms of social, cultural and economic participation has not been improved remarkably. A steady improvement of women's status in public and private sphere is noticeable. Some factors such as government policies towards development and population, changing Islamic laws, and willingness of women to enhance their situation are the main ones strengthening women's situation in the society.      

Fertility decline not only affects population structure in every country but also has many other effects. In Iran, since mid-1980s fertility rate has declined very sharply. This paper is based on research carried out in Yazd city, Iran in year 2004, and 388 women aged 15 to 49 were entered in this study. The method which is applied in this study is quantitative one and data is collected by structured questionnaire. The results of research show that infant mortality decline, greater share of men in family-planning decision making, an increase in women's marriage age and education are among the most important factors affecting the rate of fertility in Yazd.      

The aim of this article is to identify the needs of youth in underprivileged cities of Iran. Exploring the real needs of youth will provide an opportunity to offer them better services during their leisure time in summer camps. This paper is based on research carried out in four cities of Iran (Kohkilooyeh and Boyerahmad, Ham,Kerman, Khoozestan, Kermanshah). The sample consists of 300 students, 150 boys and 150 girls from secondary schools chosen through stratified random sampling. Data were analyzed, using descriptive statistics. Primary needs of youth which have been considered in this study include: school attendance, good relationships in the family, physical and sport activities, mutual respect and rights in the family, the attention of parents toward children nutrition and their health and so on. The result of research indicates that there is significant difference between boys and girls when it comes to their initial needs.