From Unrealized Ego to Hegemonic Normality of Self-actualization Contextual Exploration of Artistic Activities of Middle class Women

The daily activities of women in Iranian community are considered as a context for social and cultural conflicts. In fact, after four decades of revolution, women's activities, especially their artistic and social activities, are still in conflict between political and social groups and activists. Meanwhile, apart from these political conflicts, we tried to get women's understanding of doing these daily artistic and social activities through the discovery of their interpenetration. To this end, the artistic and social activities of middle and upper middle class women were studied. Using a qualitative approach and grounded theory, a number of women in Mashhad city were selected through theoretical and purposive sampling and they were called for in-depth interviews. The process of theoretical sampling continued to saturation of data. Collected data was analyzed using open, axial and selective coding. The findings included 13 main categories and one core category entitled "hegemonic normative actualization". The findings were presented in a form of a storyline, a paradigm model, and a small-scale theory. In general, the results of the research indicated that women encounter their unrealized ego when facing with self-actualized person. Therefore, given special property they own, as well as their tendency to show off, in the context of keeping up with the joneses, and under the influence of hegemonic artistic tastes, women deal with artistic activities and produce and reproduce their social and artistic world.