EMPIRICAL RESEARCH PROJECT SAMPLE : THE
STATUS OF THE WORKING WOMEN IN SOCIETY
INTRODUCTION
It is largely
held that women all over the world have been made to suffer discrimination and
deprivation of various kinds since the beginning of time that they have all
along been denied even such basic rights as access to literacy and
property.Women in the workforce earning wages or salary are part of a modern
phenomenon ,one that developed at the some time as the growth of paid
employment for men,but women have been challenged by inequality in the
workforce.Until modern times,legal and cultural practices combined with the
inertia of longstanding religious and educational conventions,restricted
women’s entry and participation in the workforce.Economic dependency upon
men,and consequently the poor socio-economic status of women,have had the some
impact,particularly as accupations have become professionalized over the 19th
and 20th centuries.
Women’s
work or woman’s work is work believed to be exclusively the domain of women and
associates particular stereotypical tasks that history has associated with the female gender.It is paticularly used with
regard to work that a mother or wife
will perform within a family and household.The term may be pejorative,because
historical advertisements have promoted the misrepresentation of women as only
house maids.
Methodology
The aim of this
research is to investigate the reason for the low status of working women in society and o try to
remove the accepted prejudice gradually.
Research question:Why do women
have lower status in comprison to men in society?
Research design:The research
study is employed as a qualitative research design. A qualitative research
includes varied methods in focus, containinga naturalistic and an interpretive
approach towards its subject of content, which indicates that qualitative
researchers investigate the matter in their normal settings and interpret the
phenomena with regards to the context that people convey to them.
Setting: This research
was conducted with people in Turkey. The chosen research is about women have
lower status in comporison to men in
society.
Participants: The research was
conducted with working women, (assistant coach, tourist guide, english teacher,
receptionist) housewives and working men,(tourist guide, sales expert,
architect).
The people age is approximetly 25-30.
The research question was asked to seven women and three men. Four of these
women are working women and three are housewives. Also, three men has profession.
The interview was conducted with a total of ten people.
Procedures of data collection: The data
collection tool is interview with the working women, housewives, working men.
The research question was asked by e-mail. During the interview one question was
asked.
Procedures for data analysis: First, the
research question was determined. Second the interview was analyzed. Throughout
the process the about women have lower status in comporison to men in society
were analyzed.
Ethical issues:One ethical issue
was addressed in this research.
Findings
In this study
due to this problem in the literature, the interview was conducted with people.
“Why do women have lower status in comporison to men in society?” the question
was asked ten people.
These answers I received:
1.
Man’s right to speak, and women’s right to speak,
and women’ s right to speak and prossess and rule in man, which has not always
had a voice, partriarchal culture is due to the fact that is has a language
that glorifıes the man who humiliates the unique women.(Esra Atana, assistant
coach)
2.
The reason women have less status is that they react
more emotionally by acting with emotional and maternal common sense. So, I
think that men are more successful because they have less sense of logic and
pity and have styles to suppress women and never support them. However, women
can succeed as long as they are supported.(Nesibe Kandemir, tourist guide)
3.
I think it does not have less status, they are not
known only because they do not know that there is a women behind every
successful man or something, for example Osman marketing fılm there was a scene
there girl ” Sahan Gokbakar” likes, but he does not want. The girl says: “I
wish our brains, what we feel, if we have a tool to tell the other person,”
then the marketing company is fomous holding the owner, I mean everthing
belongs to women, but the women does not have enough apportunities and
entrepreneurship, seems to have.(Uğur Pamukçu, tourist guide)
4.
Actually, it is just a perception. Thinking in people’s
minds is fıction. Is there anything that men and women can’t? No. It can be a
judge or a teacher or a doctor or a president. However, considering the numeral
of employees in any intitution or private company, the numeral of women is less
than men. This is not because of discrimination, because every women is
confıdent and unable to do all the work, actually ıf women are confıdent, maybe
they will do better than men. In addition, most women do not work housewives,
the man has to work because he has to support the house, but the women does not
see herself in this case, the men is worked, the women acts with the logic that she stops at home, and
some men act with the logic that the women stops at home and the child stops.
Naturally,when you look at it, two of the ten employees in a workplace or
institution of ten people are women and eight men. That’ s why there is an
imbalance. Men and women are equal in every institution, and now componies want
to increase the numeral of female employees and affers priority to balance the
numeral.(Şahin Arslan, sales expert)
5.
Women has always been looking after the home and
raising children. Men has always been the head of the family and putting money
on the table. It makes the women dependent on the man which gives him higher
status. Slowly it starts to even out but still a long way to go.(Sofia Gökkaya,housewife)
6.
Hmm it is such a diffucult question..Actually in my
opinion it comes from ancient times when women were supposed to give a birth
and stay at home and men were hunting to feed them..at that time physical
superiority was much more important, but know in the modern word, knowledge is
a real power so thanks to that we are able to step forword to the some level as
men.(Dina Belle, english teacher)
7.
There might be many reasons up to geographic location such as education
level,media,family factors,religion but one of the main reason is biologic and
physical speciality of the women.In most countries and cultures there is a
belief that women must interested in children,home works etc. Basicly,ıf the
women gets pregnant,it means she has to
stay for from the work for the long period for the business life, and in the
period she must breastfeed her child many times a day,take care of him/her and
should take care of homeworks as we told.All this together not only take
her away from the social life.Education level is another factor.In the
past,percentage of the high educated women was lower than todays and that
caused a belief that man works,women take care of home and family.In the
childhood,we give girl child a cooking set or doll but same we give the boys as
a hunter.It makes boys more dominant than girs from the childhood.And think
about the tales,at the end of the most fairy tales release of the woman is
always done by a prince or the man..(Eren Tüter,Architect)
8. Due to the pressureof men on women, that is to a
patriachal society, the numeral of working women is decrease. However, the
numeral of working women has increased recently.(Hacer Kandemir, housewife)
9. The inequality in the undeveloped regions of our
country that should not be.. The reason why women are exposed to this
inequality comes from the fact that they cannot stand on their own feet and are
financially dependenton men. But nowadays, it is the inequality that can be
maximized even if it does not end in every region with the development of women
themselves, standing on their own feet, and increasing women who can earn their
own lives and stand on their own feet..(Kübra Toraman, resepsiyonist)
10. I think men and women have the same status. However,
the reason for the lower numera of women working in business is that the women
wants to be a housewife and the pressure of the man on the woman.(Nermiye Deveci,
housewife)
Conclusion
Based on the responses I
received, I can conclude that society is male dominated. Although it appears
that we are a male dominated society, the progress of women can not be
overlooked. Research has shown that women are slowly and steadily rising in
society, however, biased and stereotypical attritudes towards women will never
go away completely. In a perfect world, gender discrimination would be
nonexistent, as men and women would combine their unique powers into building a
harmonious society. Unfourtunately, this is far from the case. Nowhere in the
world do women share equal social and economic rights with men or the some
access as men and development are creating new challenges for women’s rights as well as some new opportunities for
advancing women’s economic independence and gender equality.
In the real world, discrimination
against women is painfully evident aspecially in the workforce.
The biggest
leader of the Turkish Republic,Mustafa Kemal Atatürk says:If a society confine
only one gender to reach centuries requirement ,that society has to weaken half
to half.
REFERENCES
Hughes J.A.,Sahrrock
W. W. 2007. Theory and methods in sociology.An introduction to sociological
thinking and practice.Palgrave Macmillan,1-16. (www.amazon.co.uk)
The book name, Deeds Not
Words: The Story of Women’s Rights,Then and Now Helen Ponkhurst
The book name, Of Women: In
the 21st Century Shamı Chakrabartı
LondonSchoolOfEconomics:https:www.theguardian.com/commenstisfree/2011/sep/07/gender-studies-anti-discrimination-case
