WOMENS STUDIES
Year:2007 | Volume:5 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

In the past decades, the social science traditional conceptualization and quantitative research and its dominant hegemony especially in the area of family violence have been heavily criticized by feminist researchers. Nonetheless much effort has been already made to integrate and combine qualitative and quantitative with their defenders in recent decades. This approach emerged as a third methodological paradigm and distinct research type in the 1990s.The article serves two purposes. First, introducing two main feminist (with qualitative perspective) and family violence approach (with quantitative perspective) in the study of violence against women, examining its weaknesses and strengthens. Secondly it examines some of researches in this case, emphasizing necessity of using mixed approaches in the study of violence against women in the family context in order to achieve an enhanced understanding of life and experiences of woman in particular and that of other studies in this field in generally.

The performance of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), measured by employment growth, and hence their ability for job creation as a remedy for unemployment has been an important area of economic debate since the last three decades. However recent studies, mostly in developing countries, have found evidence that gender has significant effect on SME performance. Utilizing profit regression technique, this paper examines the effect of employee's gender composition in cooperative sector on SME growth using data obtained from General Census of Manufacturing and Mines in Iran (GCMM). This includes 12,000 manufacturing SMEs, with 1 to 99employees. The results suggest that employee's gender composition in cooperative sector has no significant effect on SME growth. Using Heckman’s two-step procedure, we find that sample selection bias is not a problem in the study of manufacturing SME growth in co-operative sector during the years of the Second Development Plan in Iran.

This study examines the relationship between sex roles, narcissism, and adjustment in the Iranian female youth. The number of students who completed the Personal Attribute Questionnaire, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), along with measures of self-esteem and empathy as the markers of adjustment is 147. Overall, the data indicated that masculinity was positively related to whole narcissism scale. This relationship is apparent in both adjusted and maladjusted components of narcissism; that is Authority and Self Sufficiency for adjusted ones and exploitativeness for maladjusted one. Masculinity also positively related to self-esteem and negatively to empathic concern. On the other hand, femininity was negatively related to NPI in whole and Authority, Self Sufficiency (adjusted ones), and entitlement (maladjusted one) subscales. It also had negative relationship with self-esteem and positive relationship with empathic concern. Androgyny appeared the healthiest sex role because of positive relationship with Authority, self-esteem, and perspective taking and also not being related to maladjusted narcissistic components such as exploitativeness and entitlement. Multiple analyses of variance indicated that sex roles were different in subscales of narcissism, self-esteem, empathic concern, and personal distress. These results somehow confirmed previous results about relationships between masculinity and narcissism and alsorelationship between androgyny and adjusted functioning. However the negative relationship of femininity with self-esteem and adjusted narcissism was in contrast with previous findings in western countries and perhaps the reflection of cultural norms in Iran which was discussed.

The present article, using a qualitative-comparative depth analysis, attempts to examine the existentialist roots in some feminist writings of the 20th century. It tries to show the convergence of values and methods manifested in the feminist-existentialist thinkers. The theoretical basis of the present research is that feminism, instead of being an interpretive school, can be conceived of as a more changing way of thought which is following different ideologies. That is to say, ideologies are followed by feminism that has an agenda for change. In accordance with this reading and critique, the different narratives of feminism, cannot reach a reasonable depth without finding and weighing the ideological schools on which these narratives depend. The research’s hypothesis is that one of most important of these ideologies is existentialism, and that existentialist feminism, as a forerunner of radical feminism, rose to prominence due to the attractive elements inherent in existentialism, and come to its demise due to weaknesses and shortcomings inherent in such school of philosophical.

The main objective of this descriptive study is to analyze patterns of involvement of rural women and men in agricultural tasks associated with physical participation, access to resources, and autonomy in decision making. The population consisted of male and female village residents in Kerm`ansh`ah Township (n = 148425). Using a multistage sampling, 382 residents were interviewed. Results revealed that middle-age women participated more in livestock production than their male counterparts and performed time-consuming tasks such as mechanical weed control and processing of agricultural products. Moreover, women had less access to resources with less autonomy in deciding for resources and income than male farmers. Using Two-Way Analysis of variance, there were a significant difference in physical participation, access to resources, and decision making autonomy among four groups of middle-age male, female, and young male and female residents. Implications of the findings for rural development practitioners in Kerm`ansh`ah Township include taking into account the gender roles in agricultural tasks when planning rural development programs.

The aim of this study is to investigate the significance of various structural, intrapersonal, and interpersonal constraints inhibiting women from participating in recreational sports. Women's personal attributes were also considered in the analysis. To this end, the hierarchical model of leisure constraints was utilized to help us not only recognize the constraints in Iran but also check the adaptation of this model with the country's existing situation. For this reason, the hierarchy of the three-fold constraints inhibiting women from participating in recreational sports was investigated, at the same time, the differential effect of the three constraints on women with different personal attributes, including age, job, number of children, marital status and education, was identified. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire provided by the researcher. It was first checked for the reliability and validity and was then distributed among the women in Tehran. The results of the analysis showed that among the three constraints, structural constraints are the first and intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints occupy the second and the third position respectively. This result holds with all women with different personal attributes. Another finding was that the order of the constraints in three-fold hierarchical model was not approved by the study.

The book Tazkerat-al-owli`a is a prose literary text compiled by Sheikh Farideddin Mohammand Att`ar Neysh`ab`ur`i which appears in biography of some of the Gnostics. There is a lot of information about Gnostic personality figures characteristics in this book. It is in such biographies that the role and effect of Women is seen. A careful studies of Tazkerat-al-owli`a, reveals the visage of women in the forms of mother, wife, sweetheart, Gnostic. The book contains some points about sister or Gnostics’ daughter and also old women and slave-girls. The present article analyzes and studies women’s visage in these forms providing sample from the Tazkerat-al-owli`a text