Women and the Experience of Social Exclusion (A Qualitative Study of Female Housewives in Sanandaj)

Given their identity formation in the context of family and home, as a dominant functional identity, housewives are prone to be subject to social exclusion, as opposed to other women. The present study seeks to identify the areas, contexts, interactions and consequences of social exclusion of housewives, in light of their lived experiences. The present study was carried out with a qualitative approach and within the grounded theory framework. Sampling was conducted using purposeful sampling and maximum diversity, and a semi-structured interview was used to collect the data. The sample comprised 29 female Sanandaji women participants, aged 22-46. The results of the research suggest that the fields such as gender stereotypes and home-based socialization are involved in the social exclusion of housewives. Thus construed, the daily routine and homogeneity of housekeeping have served as facilitating and bipolarizing factors of the family atmosphere, and the reduction of identity as intervening conditions. The housewives’ semantic reconstruction and understanding of house-keeping implies the restriction of privacy and individual freedoms, external care and control, and redundancy in decision-making areas. Facing such challenges and circumstances, the housewives have tended to resort to strategies such as critical review, adaptation, virtualization of communication, and personal growth. On the basis of the present study, the housekeeping experience of the housewives has given rise to interpersonal disorders, d issatisfaction, social disappointment, social isolation, and power abandonment.