Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2006 | Volume:4 | Issue:1-2 (14)|Papers Count:9

"Gender role" is one of the fundamental terms in gender-related discussions. In recent decades the social scientists and in particular the feminists have investigated the formation of gender roles and as a result, several theories have been formed to explain this phenomenon. Having reviewed a set of most important micro and macro theories of gender roles, this article offers a multi-factor explanation in this regard, consistent with Islamic teachings. In this explanation, different biological, psychological and sociological factors have been accounted for, thus the contribution of each and the relations among them have been discussed. The most important conclusion of this discussion is to confirm the influence of natural sex differences on formation of gender roles while avoiding deterministic analysis of this hypothesis.

Globally, today particularly in the developing countries, much attention is paid to how to achieve the goals of all-out development that is sustainable and human development. This paper proposes the question that what role does women’s increased participation play in attaining sustainable development in the Muslim countries. What is the prospect for these countries? Drawing on the experiences of the developing countries, writers hold that a comparison of the conditions of the Middle Eastern nations with those of the Muslim countries of Southeast Asia demonstrates that sustainable development in the Muslim countries cannot be realized without women’s extensive participation. Thus, women’s increased participation in the development process of these countries is essential. More importantly, what guarantees the materialization (manifestation) of such an objective is the existence of adequate inclination to facilitate the conditions for women’s engagement in the development process.

Sociological analysis of gender relations in films has always been important to sociologists due to monitoring social relations and structures. In this research, the researcher tries to investigate quality of gender relations in Iranian films after the revolution. The fundamental question of the research is how gender inequality is represented and constructed in interaction of men and women in Iranian films. The theoretical framework in the research is social constructionist approach of Erving Goffman based on which concepts, variables and hypothesis of research have been defined and constructed. The Method of research is content analysis, by which 62 Iranian films are analyzed. In This article, it is tried to introduce brilliant thinking of Goffman and analyze gender displays in Iranian films by using Goffman’s visual analysis model.The findings of research approve the presence of significant gender displays in Iranian films within the framework of Goffman’s visual analysis model, while expressing the reconstruction and reproduction of gender values and norms in Iranian cinema after revolution.

In Iran, entrepreneurship is a new phenomena and the research in this subject especially on women entrepreneurship is very limited. In spite of the fact that most of the Iranian women cooperate in economic, social aspects and especially in higher education, the society is not rewarding their contribution and efforts in economic affairs. In this national and broad research, all the factors effective in the women entrepreneurship were taken into consideration. Having reviewed the literature on educated women entrepreneur population, a list of relevant and influential socio-cultural factors was gained.  For the purpose of identifying influential socio-cultural factors on educated women entrepreneur, a questionnaire was designed and corrected by the experts and a pretest. This article presents a part of the results about socio cultural factors. The results point out that among socio cultural factors including positive attitude of others toward woman entrepreneur, social values and beliefs, existence of role models, the balance of work and family life, training and environmental motives, according to binominal test, only positive attitude, of others toward woman entrepreneur encourage women entrepreneurs to start the business, however other factors have no significant influence.

Different cultural assumptions of "selfhood" in East and West cultures provide the individuated self-concept in West and collective self-concept in East, which in turn influence how individuals judge their well-being and mental health. While discussing how culture influences formation of self-concept, this paper examines the relationship between cultural pattern of collectivism and self-esteem with well-being among Iranian and Canadian female students. The results show that in Iranian girls collective tendencies have a significant role in formation of self-concept and in mental health, whereas for Canadian girls personal self-esteem is the most important factor.

The study of social mobility is part of urban studies. Iranian sociological investigations do not reflect much about the problem of women’s social mobility; while understanding the dynamics of women’s mobility and its extent can help in planning and policy-making within the framework of social studies. The present research probes into women’s inter-generation social mobility in an Iranian urban setting: that of the city of Tehran. This research measures girls’ inter-generation social mobility (the new generation), as compared to that of their mothers, by considering indices such as level of education, number of children, age of marriage, status of job, and the choice in spouse selection. Moreover, factors influencing inter-generation social mobility have also been analyzed and assessed. The findings show that the girls under the study (sample population) had greater upward inter-generation social mobility, as compared with their mothers. This is demonstrated by a comparison of values of indices of inter-generation social mobility with the earlier generations. This comparison indicated an increasing upward tendency. Among factors influencing such a tendency, the parents’ income was of paramount importance, within other independent variables. Whereas, so much as their grand mothers were concerned, the same importance was attached to the age of marriage.  

The research conducted on "domestic violence on women" have paid little attention to the fact that this phenomenon is resulted from the disruption in healthy social and family relationships as well as lack of available valuable resources for women. Therefore, this study attempts not only to contemplate on such elements as the shape of relationships in directed family, manner of gender socialization in directed family,  and capital and available resources for women, but also to examine the violence on women from the viewpoint of couples’ relationships. Theories such as social learning, resources availability, gender socialization and interaction have been used to explain this matter. The results show that the types of relationships in the family play an important role in determining the quantity of violence against women. Also there are some meaningful relationships between gender socialization, capitals and available resources for women and the shape of relationship in the family. In multivariable analysis, discursive relationship and monthly income are found to be the most important factors on violence on women and the explanatory coefficient for explaining variance in violence on women is 77%.