The contrast of social and personal gender identity

This research aims to analyze the lived experience of girls who live and work independently of their family in Tehran city,  In situations where it seems that their personal gender identity and social gender identity are facing each other. Considering this confrontation and more precisely, this dialectical contrast can be understood in different types of differentiation, opposition, conflict, contradiction and symmetry, the main focus of the research is to answer to this important question: “what will be the final outcome of the confrontation of these two sets of definitions, for this group of girls”? In order to answer this question, the grounded theory method was used and 13 in-depth interviews were conducted based on Theoretical sampling and in accordance with the logic of theoretical saturation. The research findings indicate the existence of gender identity conflict as the outcome of the mentioned dialectical contrast. Although such a conflict is not perceived in the same way for all the girls and would be different in quality and quantity depending on the material and cultural identity-building resources that a person has. Furthermore, in facing the situations arising from this conflict, depending on the contextual and intervening conditions, a combination of solutions is used, which includes both solutions in line with the personal gender identity model (more modern identity patterns), and strategies in line with the social gender identity model (more traditional identity patterns).