The Perception of Gender Inequality and Lived Experience of Women: The Case of Iranian Women in Maragheh

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the “perception of gender inequalities in the lived experience of women in Maragheh”. The main question raised is: do women perceive gender inequalities in their lived experience and interpersonal relations? What are the contexts for the perception of gender inequalities? In addition, what cultural, social, and individual factors mostly affect gender inequalities in women? The research method was integrative, phenomenological, and survey. In-depth interviews were performed in winter 2015 and questionnaires were filled in fall 2016 in Maragheh. In addition, theoretical sampling and two-stage stratified sampling were used for qualitative and quantitative information, respectively. In the quantitative section, the reliability was estimated at above 0.7 for all variables. According to the qualitative results, the contexts for perceiving gender inequalities include: 1) society, 2) traditions and customs, 3) emotional attention, 4) nutrition, 5) clothing, 6) education, 7) facilities, 8) gender-related work and role-playing, 9) respect and appreciation, 10) purchasing toys, and 11) social interactions. In addition, the regression test results demonstrated that the social-cultural factors and age predicted 32.8% of the variance of the dependent variable, and the value of the correlation between the values predicted by the equation was 0.573. Furthermore, the highest and lowest impact factors were related to cultural capital (0.282) and age (-0.096), respectively.

Keywords: Perception of Gender Inequalities, Social-Cultural Factors, Lived Experience

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-1-02

Publication date: January 31^st 2020