WOMENS STUDIES
Year:2009 | Volume:6 | Issue:3 (18)|Papers Count:7

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between religiosity and modern attitude among seminary and university students inthe city of Shirāz. This is asurvey method research with the questionnaire as its data gathering tool. The statistical society includes all women students of Universityof Shirāzin three programs concluding with BA, MA, and PhDdegrees. For women student of religious schools in Shirāz city during years of 2005-06, we chose to use stratified sampling, a sample which included 294 persons. Research results show that religiosity of seminary women students is very high compared to that of university students. On the other hand, to compare modern attitude, the constructed scale between two groups shows that in all dimensions except two dimensions of universalism and citizenship, university students have higher modern attitude. Finally, there is a negative relationship between religiosity and modern attitude among all respondents, while such relationship is not a significant one among seminary women.

Criminological theories as well as the historical experience of developing countries imply that alongside the process of development and the increase of women social participation, the gender ratio of criminality changes and the proportion of female among the criminal people increases. This paper examines the issue in Iran. In this regard, the relationship between the indices of socio-economic development and women social participation, on the one hand, and the ratio of female criminality (the proportion of convicted women to the whole convicted people) on the other, during a period of 20 years (1981–2001) was examined. In addition to that, the number of women arrested by the police in different provinces is observed for four years, 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2003. The association of these arrests with the level of development of those provinces is inspected.The data revealed that according to 20-year period statistics, there is a negative correlation between the proportion of female crime and development variables. However, the comparison of the provinces with regard to the level of development suggested that the mean of arrested female in less developed provinces is less than that of other provinces and there is a weak positive relationship between development and female criminality. In general, the findings of country level data are inconsistent with the Western theories and experience. These findings require more inspections and explanations.

Violence against women is assumed to be the result of patriarchy values and unequal distribution of gender power in the family. In this framework when masculinity power of men is threatened, violence occurs. This paper is a case study that pursues open hypothesize test. The study has accomplished via qualitative method and deep interview technique among 30 women who experienced violence and sought help from Āmol’s Counselling Centre. The results show when women challenged dominance and questioned their subordinate relationships in the family by resisting instrumental attitude, the majority of them faced violence. These results also indicate that modernity, by exposing these women to important resources such as education and employment has fostered resistance potency in them.

In this article we studied the relationship between marital distress in mothers and marital distress in their married children. Research design was ex-post-facto. Our case population was the women who participated in training courses of Tehran cultural centres. For selecting the sample group improbable sampling method was used. Sample group consisted of 120 young spouses and 240 their mothers. In other words, Sample group consisted of 480 persons. Survey data was gathered using marital distress questionnaire. The results showed a positive correlation between marital distress of mothers and marital distress of their married children.Furthermore a positive correlation was observed between marital distress of mothers and marital distress of their married children on subscales of sexual dissatisfaction, problem-solving, communication, affective communication, and aggression.

Empowerment is the multi-dimensional process of having access to power resources to increase personal and group potentials to reach purposeful objectives. There are a number of methods to empower women at different levels and dimensions, of which, micro credit initiatives have, in the last two decades, gained paramount significance by influencing the various dimensions of women’s lives in terms of improvement in the quality of their well-being.One reason these credit networks have gained popularity is that they are, generally, offered to women in the form of voluntary groups, an offer which does not require any collateral or surety. Micro credits are central to the process of women empowerment in various ways, of which we can point to alleviation of poverty, enhancement in social capitals and savings, entrepreneurship, life expectancy and women control over financial decisions. The present study aims to investigate both the positive and negative role of micro finance networks in different aspects of women empowerment in the rural area of Posht-rūd, Bam, KermānProvince. The study examines women empowerment in four aspects: economic, social, psychological, and cultural. The research has been conducted using a survey method through deep interview with 108 female members of the micro loan Fund of Posht-rūd. The research findings indicate that active participation in micro-finance networks will have an effect on enhancement of social, economic, and psychological abilities of women. However, it was revealed that such attempts could not significantly influence the cultural potentials on the part of women participating in the study.

A recent occurrence in the world of work is the phenomenon of women being stuck at lower levels. Literature shows that attitudinal factors and prejudice are the most important obstacles preventing women from occupying the managerial positions, which in turn are related to organizational practices known as glass ceiling. The purpose of this research is to consider attitude of education department staff and their wives and husbands toward women’s management. For this purpose attitudes toward women’s management scale, and attitude toward obstacles for women management scale, were conducted on 82 staff members from five regions of education department. These staff members and their wives or husbands were selected by random sampling technique. Results indicated that men had more negative attitude toward women’s management. Results also indicated that men and participants who had more negative attitude toward women’s management pointed to personal factors and personality traits as obstacles for women’s management. But women who had more positive attitude pointed to social and cultural factors as obstacles for women’s promotion to managerial positions. The results were also indicative of the fact that wives’ or husband’s attitude toward women’s management is in relation with women’s special problems and informational obstacles. These results were discussed through attribution theory and related research.

The purpose of this study is to examine the participation barriers in regular physical activities and sport of the women employed in Education Organization of Arāk. The research method is a survey-descriptive one. For data gathering a researcher-made questionnaire with reliability of 0.96 has been used. The statistical population was 2739 women employed in the Education Organization of Arāk in 2006, among which 350 participants were selected through random and cluster sampling techniques. The majority of the participants were officially employed, and about 40 percent of them had between 11 to 20 years of service. In terms of marital status and ownership, 91 per cent of them were married and more than 80 per cent of them owned a private home. Descriptive statistics and Freedman Rank Order Mean Test indicate that biological, psychological, personal, scientific, financial, economic, and social problems are not important factors that prevent subjects from participating in physical activities and sport. However, technical, facility-related, administrative, ecological obstacles are respectively effective barriers in preventing the subjects from participating in physical activities and sport.