A Comparative study on Women’s Attitudes towards their Social Roles in Cities with High and Low Socio–Economic Development (A Case Study of Khuzestan Province, 2010)

Historical experiences of the western communities indicate that in practice, it was after the industrialization of the Europe that the women’s participation in public domains of production as a social necessity took form. Following that, the women’s attitudes towards the social positions and roles were also changed. The Iranian society never experienced such an introvert process of social-economic development. The existence of incongruous and unbalanced socio-economic structures in Iran paved grounds for women’s involvement with objective experiences and different mental world and sometimes conflicting one in connection with their social roles. For this reason, today, even women themselves are facing many ambiguities and conflicts in defining their social roles. The identification of factors and relationships in the process of formation of women’s attitude towards their social roles can strategically lead to the promotion of their participatory-seeking attitudes. At the same time, such an effort can help with the efficient use of existing human forces in the society. The pivotal issue in this study is that it seems the women living in the regions with a high socio-economic development has a more equality-oriented attitudes towards their social roles as compared with the women living in a low development region. For this purpose, a study comprising of a sample of 400 women with a settlement record of over 15 years in urban regions of Khuzestan province was performed. The findings of the research show that with reliance upon the theoretical elaborations and with reference to the practical findings of research, it can be said that the women’s attitudes living in developed cities has a meaningful difference in comparison with those of the women residing in undeveloped cities. At the same time, the results of statistical tests of this research indicate that there is also a meaningful difference among women’s attitudes with regard to the rate and nature of economic, social and cultural development of their city of residence.