Sociology
Somayeh Rahmani; aboutorab talebi; Mohammadsaeed Zokaei
Abstract
Subjectivity is the reflexive experience of awareness and individual agency in interaction with self and the real, symbolic and institutional others. The purpose of this study is to understand the social and semantic complexities of the Kurdish women subjectivity. This study has been conducted using ...
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Subjectivity is the reflexive experience of awareness and individual agency in interaction with self and the real, symbolic and institutional others. The purpose of this study is to understand the social and semantic complexities of the Kurdish women subjectivity. This study has been conducted using in-depth individual interviews, within the framework of interpretive-constructivist approach and grounded theory method. Based on the findings the subjectivity of Kurdish women can be understood through the experience of suspension as a central phenomenon. This experience was classified under the four concepts of suspension of cognition and agency, suspension of lived experience, conscious suspension of fear, and suspension as a strategy. Normative institutions, regulatory institutions, being in the minority and economic status are among the categories related to background conditions and institutional relations, experience of subjugation, social connections and resources available to the individual are considered as intervening conditions. Protection strategy, resistance strategy and negotiation were recognized as three types of strategies. by showing the complexity of subjectivity in Kurdish women's experiences, this study shows that the subjectivity of Kurdish women is slippery and combined, mixed and multiple, and in the three categories of female subjectivity, passive-unembodied-internal subjectivity vs. Embodied/active and delocalized subjectivity are placed.
Sociology
Mohammadtaghi Karami Ghahi
Abstract
The specificity of the coronavirus pandemic is indebted to the ironic fact of returning to the ancient tradition of quarantine at the threshold of the 21st century and the utmost progress of medicine and hygiene. Considering the gender aspects of home quarantine, this research aims at understanding ...
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The specificity of the coronavirus pandemic is indebted to the ironic fact of returning to the ancient tradition of quarantine at the threshold of the 21st century and the utmost progress of medicine and hygiene. Considering the gender aspects of home quarantine, this research aims at understanding women’s gendered experience of COVID-19. Under the verstehen interpretive paradigm, we analyze the experiences of twenty-three 30-52-year-old, married women who were interviewed during the first home quarantine in 2020. The content analysis of these women’s experiences gave us four conceptual patterns include crisis, female double subjectivity and endurance, feminine suspense and body management under the panic, and masculinity and the deconstruction of the dominant image by returning to the importance of fathers’ status. Overall, the calling of women to the center of the crisis and the disruption of the usual social order offers the Iranian women a historically subjective role and the opportunity to construct a different image of their feminine self in individual, family, and social levels. Meanwhile, the genealogy of pandemics shows that the centrality of the “housewife” as the dominant discourse under crisis is temporal, as the society returns to its misogynist origin with the passage of the crisis..
Introduction
COVID-19 as a critical global incident in the 21st century emerged in the utmost development of medicine and of global health metrics. The unknown nature of the pandemic and of the preventative and treatment methods, in addition to the fear of the high risk of contamination and death, added to the curiosity of the disease and the mismanagement of the whole condition. In consequence, the most they could do about it has been to apply the traditional Middle Ages method of quarantine. As the sole preventative and even treatment method, home quarantine turned home and family into the main alternative in front of governments in retreating COVIC-19. The social understanding of COVID-19 as a disaster in its primitive treatment framework finds additional gender orientations.
Research Question(s)
The current research answers two questions: 1) what is women’s gendered experience of themselves and the male other during COVID-19? And 2) how has the process of women’s subjectivity in their reflexivity of selves, the other, and the social world during COVID-19 been experienced?
Literature Review
Gender is the most important and original element in the construction and meaning of the self (Wharton, 2012: 37); thus, it provides the major source of knowledge for constructing the male or female self (Goffman, 1977: 301-331). It is constructed through the social process known as tenderization (Macé, 2015: 17-18), representing the social status, and the rationality and legitimacy of one of the fundamental divisions and various social orders that are observed in every society. It is the socio-cultural and micro-political produce (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 125-151) that is maintained in a body of gendered behaviors and expectations constantly obtained and lived as part of the socialization process (Holmes, 2010: 125-151). Understanding gender as a social phenomenon that has stood the test of time, adds to the significance of gender experiences in a crisis-relevant framework.
Disasters expose individuals to conscious action by interrupting the ordinary flow of everyday life and setting them free of the habitual norms of thinking and acting (Schütz, 2003: 19). Crisis is defined as a trial opportunity in terms of encircling people in painful situations that oblige finding new skills and creative problem-solving capabilities, mostly accompanied by pain and pressure (Martuccelli and de Singly, 2012: 73-80). The trial and the social experience that comes with it, are the intersection of individuals and the social structure, in which the rationale for action emerges during the trial situation and the social experience, itself composed of three segments: “integration”, “strategy” and “subjectivation” (Dubet, 1994: 136(. The social world is the context in which effective action takes place in the heart of experience and the knowledge of the surroundings. The individual’s knowledge of the social lifeworld is organized around the meaning of her actions under circumstances where she targets the control of her lifeworld and social relationships and locates herself at the center to recognize and utilize the elements that maximize this purpose (Schütz, 2003: 10-11). The social experience and the improvement of capabilities that are required for dealing with difficult situations are inclusive of the two processes of subjectivity and reflexivity.
Subjectivity is a fulfilled social process formed around the reflexive subject in which, in a process of working on the self, the subject attains new consciousness for the constant reflexivity, redefinition, moderation, and reformation of one’s consciousnesses and actions. In this process, personal life turns into a project open to new restrictions, worries, and concerns as well as new opportunities and untried experiences (Giddens, 2021: 22). Reflexivity is performed in a bedrock of the individual’s critical distanciation from and assessment of oneself, others, and the social lifeworld (Martuccelli and de Singly, 2012: 73-80). Therefore, reflexivity and “the narrative of individuation” in modernity are understood and experienced in the context of internal and external clashes (Bertucci, 2009: 43-55).
Methodology
After defining the individual and his conception of social reality as the prospects for understanding social phenomena (Martuccelli and de Singly 2012: 76), this research is conducted in the verstehen interpretive framework and constructivist epistemology. The method applied is basic qualitative research (Merriam, 2015: 46-48) and the techniques for gathering and analyzing data are semi-structured in-depth interview and thematic analysis. The sampling method is purposive while the population is made of 23 married women between 30-52 from Tehran and Alborz provinces while maximum diversity in age, appearance and class and religious affiliations has been observed in their selection. Due to the state of quarantine in 2020, the interviews were conducted via WhatsApp application and in the form of oral questions and answers that have been defined based on the research guidelines.
Results
Four dominant meaning patterns and their sub-meanings as identified in the thematic analysis of interviewee’s narratives include: crisis, subjectivity and double feminine resilience (the loss of the functionality of the concept of roles in explaining the complexity of feminine experience, the frustration with being oneself and the resulting duplication of crisis harms, the emergence of woman as the heroin subject), suspension of femininity and body management under disease panic (deference of femininity in the return to the natural body, the unbearableness of the lived time waiting for the disaster, the deferred gendered life in the panic of the moment of crisis), masculinity and the deconstruction of the dominant image in crises (the perplexity of masculinity in the entanglement of the spaces for social familial life, the lack of domestic work skills and men’s avoidance from the private sphere, expectation for disaster and the lack of masculine authority), and the return to the importance of paternal status in the experience of crisis (the absence of paternal emotional authority in waiting for disaster, gendered consciousness in the shared experience of disaster and the demand for the presence of father, financial support as the precondition for good fatherhood).
Demographic information table
City of Residence
Marital Status/Number of Children
Employ
Education
Age
Name
Number
Tehran
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
36
Sima
1
Damavand
1
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
36
Mehri
2
Tehran
1
Housekeeper/ Home job
Bachelor’s degree
38
Fatameh
3
Tehran
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
36
Saba
4
Karaj
2
Employee
Master
52
Hanieh
5
Mehr-shahr (Alborz)
2
Employee
Bachelor’s degree
48
Fahimeh
6
Karaj
2
Teacher
-
-
Mahoor
7
Tehran
2/ widow
Teacher
Master
44
Zeynab
8
Karaj
1
Employee
Master
38
Samareh
9
Tehran
1
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
30
Pariya
10
Karaj
1
Pharmacist
PhD in Pharmacy
38
Shamisa
11
Damavand
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
36
Sahar
12
Karaj
1+ Pregnant
Teacher
Bachelor’s degree
36
Sogol
13
Tehran
2
Employee
Bachelor’s degree
35
Mina
14
Tehran
1
Housekeeper
Master
38
Mehrana
15
Tehran
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
40
Azadeh
16
Tehran
1/Ddivorced
Teacher
Bachelor’s degree
40
Mahshad
17
Mehr-shahr (Alborz)
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
41
Asal
18
Roudehen
-
Employee
Bachelor’s degree
30
Soheyla
19
Tehran
2
Nurse
Master
39
Minoo
20
Kamal-shahr (Alborz)
1
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
37
Samira
21
Roudehen
2
Teacher
Bachelor’s degree
38
Mojgan
22
Roudehen
2
Housekeeper
Bachelor’s degree
37
Elham
21
Conclusion
The COVID-19 crisis as compared to other disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and war, has been experienced around the center of home and family, leading to the disruption of the normal, everyday life order of the house. Defining home quarantine at the core of controlling the disease brings women to the central position in crisis management. At this central position, women begin to work on their feminine self, learn new skills, and improve these capabilities due to the demand that is created by the crisis and the disruption of the previous order of social life. Meanwhile, and especially because of the absence of the government, further pressure, mental and psychological, put on women for appropriate reaction. Overall, in the dominant discourse of social sciences which is defined with pathological approaches, being under such circumstances of extra pressure makes people, especially women, more vulnerable. This is while the COVID-19 crisis has been a historical moment in women’s subjectivity and individuality, especially for Iranian women. Nevertheless, the historical accounts of pandemics as crises and disasters show that though women are the subjects called to the center in all these accounts, as a result of which house and household management around the discourse of the “housewife” turns into the dominant discourse, this centralization of femininity is temporal and restricted to those historical moments. With the return of society to its normal order, women are once again deprived of the central position; in other words, the misogynist genealogy is back there as the dominant discourse.
Acknowledgments
I am obliged to the Allameh Tabatabae’i University for allowing me to conduct this research. I extend my gratitude to Dr. Dabbaghi, Faculty of the ATU for her kind assistance in compiling the research proposal and completing the interviews, Dr. Shf'ati for joining the team in the initial analysis of data, and Dr. Khazaei, Faculty of the University of Tehran and the main colleague of the project.
Sociology
bahram nikbakhsh
Abstract
Physical appearance as a form of capital has been the focus of sociologists in recent years because "aesthetic capital," like other forms of capital, can be accumulated and utilized in social exchanges. The general purpose of this research was to collect information about the dimensions and meaning ...
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Physical appearance as a form of capital has been the focus of sociologists in recent years because "aesthetic capital," like other forms of capital, can be accumulated and utilized in social exchanges. The general purpose of this research was to collect information about the dimensions and meaning of appearance, and to do so, the questionnaire tool was used. The present research participants included all people between the ages of 15 and 60 in a statistical sample of 384 people in Ahvaz City. In this regard, statistical measures for both the "accumulation" and "utilization " dimensions of "aesthetic capital" were studied based on a parallel survey design using ordinal logistic regression (o-logit model). The findings showed that there are double standards based on specific norms regarding "accumulation" and "utilization " of "aesthetic capital." Furthermore, the existence of double normative standards depends on the "context" of society, in a way that these standards in "accumulation of capital" mean more approval of women's behavior, while the double standard in "utilization of capital" means more approval of men’s behavior. As a result, aesthetic capital, as something that depends on the context, regulates gender norms.
Demography
Latif Partovi; Mohammad Shayanmehr
Abstract
The elderly are among the most vulnerable groups during crises and gender is one of the most important factors in this regard. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences of lived experiences of young elderly people during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Using a qualitative method, 13 young elderly ...
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The elderly are among the most vulnerable groups during crises and gender is one of the most important factors in this regard. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences of lived experiences of young elderly people during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Using a qualitative method, 13 young elderly people (60-74 years old including 7 men and 6 women) were selected through purposive sampling in Mahabad and interviewed using a semi-structured format. The data were analyzed using Colaizzi method. The results were classified in two themes including "Transformed home and dwindling physical and spiritual powers" for women, and "Social distance and disturbed retirement life" for men. Based on the results, it is concluded that during pandemic older women were exposed to double physical and psychological pressures inside home while men faced increasing in emotional pressure due to not being able to go outside. Therefore, it is suggested that in policy formation, while understanding the different position of young elderly men and women, especially the situation of women, pay more attention to the role of family members and their social support in addition to official supportive measures.
Mohammadtaghi Karami Ghahi
Abstract
Arbaeen walk in its current form is a novel ritual and diverse social phenomenon. The diversity comes from the multiplicity of pilgrims’ narratives and the variety of meanings people attach to it. The feminine narrative of Arbaeen walk, despite all its diverse meanings, is neglected and marginalized ...
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Arbaeen walk in its current form is a novel ritual and diverse social phenomenon. The diversity comes from the multiplicity of pilgrims’ narratives and the variety of meanings people attach to it. The feminine narrative of Arbaeen walk, despite all its diverse meanings, is neglected and marginalized by the formal, masculine meta-narrative. The present research aims at comprehending women’s foot pilgrimage experience through the thematic analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 women aged between 22-68 made in the camps (moukeb) of the pilgrimage route. The findings show that as part of the feminine subjectivity, the female pilgrim constructs herself as a fragmented identity in form of five major themes: fatigue of everyday life and ridding of modern life monotony; gratification of self-imposed, sanctified pain; memory of war and the fluid meaning of body; historical feminine subjectivity averting everyday life objectivity; and spiritual illumination in moving from egoistic, habitual behavior to altruism. The female pilgrim re-presents herself as an active subject by assimilating her experience of Arbaeen walk to the Ashoura agony and its aftermath incidents, thereby deconstructing and re-constructing herself through critical reflexivity on gendered stereotypes constructed in the formal discourse of Iranian society.
Minoo Salimi; Ahmad Naderi
Abstract
Since earthquake has a wide range of effects on people's lives, we can think of it as an important variable in the changes of societies’ social life. The social consequences of the disaster vary according to age, gender, economic and social class. Children, women and low-income people are among ...
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Since earthquake has a wide range of effects on people's lives, we can think of it as an important variable in the changes of societies’ social life. The social consequences of the disaster vary according to age, gender, economic and social class. Children, women and low-income people are among the most suffering groups. This qualitative research has been conducted with the aim of understanding the women’s lived experiences of earthquakes in Sarpol-e-Zahab. This study has used a phenomenological approach and conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 women affected by the earthquake. As a result, there are 90 interview texts and 10 written texts of informant’s lived experiences and their interpretation, which are recorded in 120 semantic units. The findings of the study, which are 18 sub-themes and finally 5 main themes, show that women go through very difficult conditions. Identity crisis and their incompatibility with the post-earthquake condition, sexual abuse, committing suicide, decreasing in the age of committing suicide, earthquake and post-earthquake phobia, sudden lifestyle change, lack of peace, lack of facilities and financial capacity, qualitative and quantitative difficulties and disorders in schools, the increase in family strife, the increase in divorce, the increase in violence have caused social, psychological and cultural unrest in this city.
Sociology
Zahra Mirhosseini; Elaheh Ghorbani
Abstract
The phenomenon of labor children is one of the social problems that has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. However, in many cases, the female children of labor having been neglected. In the present paper, it has been attempted to investigate the lived experience of female ...
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The phenomenon of labor children is one of the social problems that has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. However, in many cases, the female children of labor having been neglected. In the present paper, it has been attempted to investigate the lived experience of female children of labor using a qualitative research method and conducting phenomenological studies. To this end, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 girls of 6 to 16 years of age who had the lived experience of both working and living on the street. The research findings show that the girls’ perception and description of work on the street and the understanding of their narratives can be categorized into four main themes: “Contextual and ethnic characteristics”, “Typology of daily activities based on gender”, “Spatial domains of work”, and “Skills and techniques”. The research findings also show that the backgrounds and contexts of girls’ work on the street can be categorized into the following four categories: “Living in disintegrated families”, “Poverty and helplessness”, “Girls’ labor as support for the family”, and “The double exploitation and strict control of female children of labor”.
Sociology
Ebrahim Ekhlasi; Yaser Rastegar; Manoochehr Khorram
Abstract
The functions of religion and the moral and behavioral teachings stemming from it with regards to the qualitative maintenance and promotion of the institution of family has been accepted by the majority of sociologists. The purpose of this study is to identify the extent to which the couples of Bandarabbas ...
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The functions of religion and the moral and behavioral teachings stemming from it with regards to the qualitative maintenance and promotion of the institution of family has been accepted by the majority of sociologists. The purpose of this study is to identify the extent to which the couples of Bandarabbas are oriented towards the Quran’s teachings regarding family and marital relations, and also to study the correlation of the aforementioned orientation with the variables of satisfaction in life, emotional relations, sexual relations, espousal incompatibility, and semantic formation of gender. These variables have been deemed important in the theories and studies related to women and family. The subjects of the study are 400 married people living in the city of Bandarabbas who were selected based on a probability cluster sampling method. According to research findings, the average of orientation toward the Quran’s teachings regarding family and espousal relations in the sample was 77%. Research hypotheses testing showed a significant relationship between the aforementioned variable with the other variables of the research. Furthermore, there is a direct significant relationship between family and espousal relations and satisfaction in life, emotional relations, and sexual relations. In contrast, this orientation has an inverse significant relationship with the variables of espousal relations and espousal incompatibility. The conclusion of the study is based on the theoretical analysis of the observed correlations.
Sociology
Soheila Alirezanejad; Nikzad Zangeneh
Abstract
The present study aims to examine the effect of women’s access to money (as a power relation) in power relations in underprivileged families, and the initial research question is that based on access to money, how are the power relations between spouses in these families categorized? The study ...
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The present study aims to examine the effect of women’s access to money (as a power relation) in power relations in underprivileged families, and the initial research question is that based on access to money, how are the power relations between spouses in these families categorized? The study was conducted with the institutional ethnography method and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and through employing observational techniques (direct and indirect), in-depth unstructured interview, focused group discussion (FGD), and creating graphs of daily activities in two local communities of women, being Tekkieh Shohada (District 10) and Dastan Sabz (District 15) of Tehran. Findings show that money and power in family, even in a definite economic class, are deeply gendered concepts. Pocket money, allowance, visible money, invisible money, savings, inheritance and gifts from parents, informal loan funds and Mahr, are all funds to which women have access or which are resources for women. Women’s economic agency in the communities studied is defined as earning invisible money (through frugality) and managing male money. Female power is mostly close to influence and is persuasive and passive; meaning that it is formed through conformance to men and is of the executive dominance and less important in the general picture of things. Controlling the way of spending the money earned by women, refusing to give money or cash assistance, and preventing women or children’s basic needs such as food, medicine or other medical services from being provided, are all forms of economic abuse which women have experienced in the communities studied here. In return, emphatic tolerance can be imagined as a situation in which husbands, despite the difference in access to money, can adjust the power relations in an amicable way.
Nematollah Fazeli; Meisam Ahrabian Sadr
Abstract
Nematollah Fazeli Meisam Ahrabian Sadr Date of Receive: 2009/5/24Date of Accept: 2010/4/28AbstractIn the thirteenth century Iran, there was triple full-covering clothing – Chador-Ruband-Chaqchur – in which women were encompassed, during their public and civic presence, so that almost no part ...
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Nematollah Fazeli Meisam Ahrabian Sadr Date of Receive: 2009/5/24Date of Accept: 2010/4/28AbstractIn the thirteenth century Iran, there was triple full-covering clothing – Chador-Ruband-Chaqchur – in which women were encompassed, during their public and civic presence, so that almost no part of her body could be seen. Such clothing was creating various possibilities, routines, and margins; in other words, in the context of social behavior, this kind of clothing was used, evaluated, and connected to the texture of everyday action, but its very essence found its importance and prominence in connection with two basic functions: covering and deforming. Women’s clothing went to fight with defined forms and specific shapes. This clothing surrounded bodies, and wiped out their boundaries. So, anything surrounded by Chador and Ruband disappeared and remained hidden from eyes. Secrecy, like a shield, like a hiding fortress, drew a secure shell around bodies, removed them from objective surface and gently pushed them into the depths. Nevertheless, one can ask at what time and in what regularity women’s clothing became a social problem, and why and in accordance to what specific objective necessity the request for revising was arisen? In the way of answering to this question, a wider process can be considered. In fact, from the middle ages ofthirteenth century, confronting with obstacles were on the way of Iran’s new changes, actors were invited to struggle with manifestations and appearances of secrecy.After a short introduction, discussing the issue, and referring to some theoretical and methodological topics, this text presents a historical review of secrecy process in thirteenth century Iran, in three phases: in the first part, there is a description about daily use of women’s clothing, its conditions and requirements; the second part talks about the routine and flexible functions of this kind of clothing; and finally, based on descriptions and implications of previous parts, the last part refers to the results of this process, considering the perceptible ruptures and breaks that the rule of covering could create at that time.
