فصلنامه زن در فرهنگ و هنر (پژوهش زنان)
سال یازدهم شماره 4 (زمستان 1398)

Re-visiting the Expression of Femininity in Timurid Architecture with the Focus on Visual Components (Case Study: Goharshād Mosque of Mashhad) Throughout history, women have exhibited their talents in the cultural, artistic and architectural fields whenever they had the opportunity. Patron women, especially in the Timurid period, have also played a significant role in the creation and development of ornaments and motifs related to feminine concepts. The current study attempts to represent and re-read the Iranian-Islamic architecture based on the visual components of gender focusing on the concept of femininity in architecture. For this purpose, we, first, review the concepts related to gender and then extract and study the indications related to gender and femininity in the case study. It should also be noted that in order to determine the gender identity of visual attributes, we were obliged to discuss the same idea in philosophy, evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis as well as recent research on the gender of objects. The results indicate that visual implications associated with masculine concepts have reduced in favor of feminine ones in Goharshād Mosque of Mashhad. One of the main reasons could be the strong presence of women in politics and architecture whose leading figure was Goharshād Āghā.

The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the effect of cultural categories as an effective factor in the development and determination of grammatical gender in languages having grammatical gender. The category under consideration in this study is the category of tools as a very ancient category in human history. For this purpose, 330 common tools in German and Russian were examined in terms of grammatical gender. In this particular case, the Chi-square test showed a significant difference in the frequency of females in the instruments between the two languages; with a statistic of 9.332 and significance level of 0.002. Therefore, based on the theoretical framework used in this study, namely cultural linguistics, it was found that the cultural identity of the German speakers towards "woman", from the perspective of the above said framework, is more gendered and instrumental than the Russian speakers. This study did not have a diachronic approach and all analyzes were presented synchronically. A closer examination of cultural categories can explain much more complex issues of a linguistic community's culture or their cultural cognition and recognize cultural linguistics as a valid framework for linguistic research. It is obvious that the hypothesis raised in this study needs to be tested on a larger number of languages having grammatical gender to obtain the scientific validity of a theory.

Representing Women's Identity in Iranian Cinema (Discourse Analysis of the Works of Female Cinema Directors at the 35th Fajr Film Festival) One of the most challenging topics in representation studies is the representations made by women and the different aspects of their lives. Accordingly, this study has attempted to analyze the discourse of female identity in the works of female directors at the 35th Fajr Film Festival in 2017. The results of the analysis show that the central concepts in the four selected films generally refer to the representation of common feminine characteristics, traditional female characteristics, and modern female characteristics. Traditional female characteristics include motherhood as the most important role, tendency for patriarchy, tolerance of difficult family circumstances, adherence to the rules of emotional relationships, family orientation, and opposition to new phenomena, and features of modern women include selfishness, courage, belief Equal rights, disobedience to the spouse, displacement of traditional roles, and the lack of importance of housekeeping. Common feminine traits include emotional and sensuality, the importance of maternal role, family the source of security, the need for emotional interactions in the family, maintaining the family with positive relationships, and sacrifice. Keywords: Woman identity representation, discourse analysis, female director, Iranian Fajr Film Festival

Aimed at the evaluation of the kinship, family and marriage system in pre-Islamic Iran, mainly Zoroastrian Sassanid era, and today Iranian Zoroastrian society, this study has been carried out. In this study with diachronic approach, the changes in kinship system, especially the family and marriage systems, in pre-Islamic Iran and modern Zoroastrians in Iran via library research methods, historical and ethnographic methods, had been assessed. Studying the works and resources related to the family and marriage before Islam in Iran, formed the historical information, and doing ethnography in Darb e Mehr e Gohar va Mehraban- a Zoroastrian fire temple in Isfahan- via observation, and interview formed the modern kinship, family and marriage status and laws among the Zoroastrian in Iran. In this research an open ended, structured interview were used. In this study, the changes were assessed according to Claude Rivière and G. P. Murdock viewpoint of the kinship, family and marriage system. These two scholar assumed the least changes in kinship system, and among kinship elements, Rivière believed that, the most impact is related to the marriage. In this research this theory analyzed and its accuracy were confirmed according to the findings. Moreover the assumptions like the passage of cultural component from the simple to the developed and complicacy conflicted according to the findings of this study, and it has been distinguished that the cultural components do not necessarily move from the simple to the complicacy and they do not even necessarily change too.

Simone de Beauvoir in her well-known book of the “Second Sex” proposed several unique concepts of existentialist feminism for the first time. Based upon these specific definitions such as the “sex-gender distinction”, that is, the distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of a gender and related stereotypes, she succeeded in rationalizing the fundamental source of women's oppression in the historical and social construction of a female stereotype as the quintessential “other” gender or sex. Based upon such existentialist feministic definitions, Simon de Beauvoir explored and explained a woman’s different roles in the context of her own society; social roles such as a loyal wife, a lover and/or a Narcissistic woman. Further, she succeeded in picturing how a woman that lives under an unbearable social pressure can unconsciously suppress herself and therefore live a miserable life. In this study, we endeavored to explain a woman’s social role from the Simon de Beauvoir’s viewpoint using three contemporary dramas: “a streetcar named desire” by Tennessee Williams; “they are alive” by Athol Fugard; and “ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen. Here, we argued and presented that how Simon de Beauvoir’s existentialist feministic viewpoint can significantly influence and replace the exiting definition of a woman in a male dominated society as an equally acceptable female part of the civilized society as opposed to the existing reflection of a woman in the masculine society as the “other sex or gender”.

The present research proceeds to the works of three woman artists who are active in the fields of “performance art” and “environmental art”. Ana Mendieta, Karin Van der Molen, and Tara Goudarzi, the artists selected for this study, applied their feminine bodies as the main medium to create their artworks in nature. The general objective of this research is investigating effective factors in appearing similarities and differences in the manner environmental artists use and offer their body in installations and performances comparing to the presence or the role of body in works of performance artists. These are the questions of present research: What similarities and differences are seen between the works of study case artists in respect of presenting the body in nature. How is the element of body used in the work of study case artists? The research is carried out to answer these questions in descriptive-analytic method and the data are also collected in library and field study methods .To respond the research questions, descriptive and analytic research methods are applied and the data are collected through library and field study. Along with research objectives interviews and questionnaires are conducted as well. Interviews and questionnaires are also conducted in consistency with research objectives. Data analysis is done in qualitative and content analysis methods. Findings indicate that body is used in works of all three artists as an object and plays the role of the main medium, but cultural, geographic, and specifically religious beliefs had an essential effect in different symbolic offering ways of their art-works. The results also show that although these three artists emerged in different time, geographic, and religious conditions, common womanish thoughts and the concern of offering their art through body in the nature is clear in their works, but in totally different expression ways.

The present study investigates self-expression through profile image selection among Iranian female users in social networks (case study: Facebook) based on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory. Goffman’s dramaturgical theory regards society as the stage of a theater and actors as players. If social networks can be perceived as a society in which users play their roles, then the selection of profile images can be regarded as the beginning of this process. Cyberspace allows users to have a selective “self” when dealing with others and express it in a variety of ways, including profile image selection. This paper follows visual culture studies that emphasize culture as an element influencing visual experience and vice versa. Such an attitude allows identifying cultural aspects which influence the selection of profile images by female users. The present study was conducted to analyze these images using 200 profile images. We also used qualitative content analysis and quantitative analyses to observe and classify the identified categories. Based on the results of the present study, women seem to tend to create and display an ideal self in their profile images. Such a selection is consistent with gender stereotypes and involves in the reproduction and enforcement of gender norms and performing them.