زنان و باز تعريف هويت اجتماعي

Women and Redefinition of Social Identity

In recent years, due to expansion of modernism and modernization at a global scale, there have been developments at cultural and structural levels resulting in changes in social roles, womenʹs awareness. The expansion of education and of employment amongst women have, on the one hand, reduced the utility of the traditional model of woman, and on the other have created difficulties in coordinating traditional roles with those required by the modern roles. This would lead to an identity crisis for women. The sole solution envisages that womenʹs social identity be defined by women themselves.This research studies the factors, which have made women think about their traditional identity, resist the gender stereotypes, and redefine their social identity. The study using the survey method carries out its analysis at two levels, individual and structural. The result of the survey shows that amongst the total factors under study, education has rendered most effects in redefining womenʹs social identity. Next to education are values, views, life style, and the dominant role identity. Each of these has respectively played a greater role in redefining womenʹs social identity. In addition, structural position, as compared with individual identity, has had greater effect in womenʹs redefined social identity. Of the two factors of education and employment, education, which equips women with identity-creating cultural resources, has been more efficient, compared to employment, which renders independence and the necessary material resources, in redefinition of womenʹs and in helping them resist stereotypic beliefs based on gender difference.