Oney, Gender, Development (Case study the Fund of Women Beekeepers in Rameh)

Money has been known as an economic and abstract attribute. Thus it is expected that money is not gender sensitive. On the other hand, to alleviate poverty and produce equal opportunities and especially women’s empowerment, the development planners usually inject various amounts of money to communities based on different plans like microcredit. By giving these micro loans, the development planners expected that the women benefiting from this opportunity would begin a small business, make money, and save some money to repay the loan as well. But the lenders confronted with different expectation coming from various layers of the community (based on diverse social and cultural aspects). If money is an abstract attribute, why special layers of community use it in numerous ways? Regarding the cultural feature of Iranian society that usually keeps financial features as a top secret, a case study for 7 years was implemented. For data gathering, mixed method of field research and a small survey was designed and applied. Based on some theoretical approaches, women understand and use money differently. This research indicated that women in daily life show their own understanding of money. They manage their monetary issues based on this understanding. Social roles and expectations as mothers and wives lead them to manage their financial sources. When their earnings increase, their social expectations change too. They have to spend the money to answer these new internal expectations instead of saving it.