فصلنامه زن در فرهنگ و هنر (پژوهش زنان)
سال چهاردهم شماره 2 (تابستان 1401)

Every writer has different ways to create a logical and, at the same time, attractive personality, yet the most influential factor in characterization is always the writer's daily life. Characters created by authors are often representations of people with whom the author has associated in daily life. Therefore, it is always possible to obtain useful information about the people of that time by recognizing the imaginary characters of writers at different times.This study, while examining characterization and its relationship with personality actions, took two plays “Sleep in an empty cup” and “Home” into consideration and analyzed their female characters. It also examined the influential factors in the characterization of women in Naghmeh Samini's plays, trying to find out how each of them reacted to the home (patriarchal system) according to their backgrounds and values. Finally, it was concluded that the values of women in contemporary society influenced the characterization formed in the plays, including the works of Naghmeh Samini.?

Hate speech can be expressed as a hatred expression toward an individual or a group of people-because of the characteristics they share with a group they belong. The social network proliferation has made it easy to spread hatred. This article has been written with the aim of analyzing the hate speech components through comments and posts of Iranian female users on Instagram. Referring to Glirdon’s views, a theoretical synthesis of hate speech production in cyberspace is presented and critical discourse of twenty female users active in the women filed has been analyzed. In accordance with Van Dayek’s discourse analysis approach, it has prepared a special work form for recording and extracting information from selected news texts. The results identify four components of hate speech that represent structural hatred of women against women. Women stand against each other in different political, cultural, and social contexts through hateful literature.There are similarities and differences among women about their legal demands and fight against hate speech. While all identified components of violence against women and forced marriage are identical, the secular and political users show the greatest opposition to religious modernist and traditional currents. They emphasize the priority of being a women and reject the family as an ideological and patriarchal institution. .

"Archetypes" are important psychological elements. "Archetypal criticism" has always been considered one of the important types of literary criticism. The theory of archetypes is based on the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, a theorist in the field of psychological sciences. In this theory, the structural elements of myth, which are present in the collective subconscious mind, are analyzed. According to Jung, there is a kind of universal experience in these elements that is repeated in different forms and in all generations. Contemporary psychologist and theorist Shinoda Bolen also contributed to a more accurate understanding of archetypes by supplementing Jung's theories and elaborating on their manifestations in daily lives of individuals. In the present study, by means of mythological and psychological criteria in Shinoda Bolen's theories, two famous theatrical "woman" characters have been the subject of comparative studies. They are "Julia" from the play "Miss Julia" by August Strindberg and "Ensie" from the play "Sing in May" by Akbar Radi. Although created in two different geographies and cultures, both characters bear significant similarities from Shinoda Bolen point of view. This study also shows the fact that quoting mythological and psychological elements in the creation of theatrical characters can lead to the production of a similar pattern in the process of this creation. A pattern that transcends temporal and spatial boundaries and relies more on archetypes than any other element.

This study aims at investigating the construction of the subject of female-headed households in post-revolutionary cinema in order to answer the question of how it has been represented and constructed in these works. For so doing, it employs Foucault and Althusser's interpretation of the subject. The research has been done via a semiotic method, using Fisk and Barthes model, combining it with Selby and Cowdory approach. By purposeful sampling, three films (The Blue-Veiled , Border Café (Cafe Transit), and The Corridor (Dehliz) from the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s have been selected for analysis. Results show that the power in these movies addresses family sanctity along with the need for woman management in it, also reproducing the discourse of housekeeping. But on the other hand, we see the construction of a faithful woman in return for a commitment to her husband or family and responsible for male roles. Here the desirable femininity portrayed in the films include: a) construction of a loyal housewife who supports the husband, b) the female-headed household who is committed to the family and is employed, and finally, c) the female-headed household who is chaste and a lover. The cultural meanings of the films are the lower social class of female-headed households, exposure of young female-headed households to judgment, their livelihood and economic problems, people's constructed look at them, the multiple roles they play, their strong sense of motherhood, cultural and value differences of varied ethnic groups, self-sacrifice and devotion, and drawing the old traditions of female widowhood. Also, all female-headed households try to change and start again, yet in the face of society, traditions, gender stereotypes, and the idea that men are superior, they are deprived of the opportunity to empower themselves.

The aim of this article is to apply a social semiotic model to analyze the representation of femininity in Kurdish women paintings. The sample includes female painters of Sanandaj in recent two decades recruited through purposeful sampling. The works of Negin Vakili and Akram Karimi have been analyzed by way of Kress & Leeuwen’s social semiotic model, in terms of representational, interactional, and synthetic meanings. The findings show that these two painters, in spite of similarity in terms of their themes and styles, reach two different points: femininity as represented in Vakili’s work follows a kind of reflective sexism, though in Karimi’s work it follows a passive sexism. In the first one, the form of connection between the elements is narrative, so it can provide a reflection of women’s identity. However, in the second one, the elements are connected through a conceptual pattern as well as a kind of passive sexism is unintendedly reproduced. Vakili represents the subject in a natural space which reminds the women’s status in mythical thinking, but Karimi represents the subject in the context of home and family, something which symbolizes women’s status in traditional society. Vakili’s work invites the audience to think about the effects of external factors in constructing female identity, but Karimi’s paintings call the viewers to have a kind of sympathy and identification with women in traditional family and society.

In Ayyari Persian short stories, women have a prominent, vivid, pivotal, and influential role and presence. It is reflected in various ways and forms in these texts. Ayyari discourse in the history of Iran has always been formed in opposition to the existing dominant order, seeking rights and equality, and eliminating authoritarianism, discrimination, and oppression. Ayyar women in Ayyari's stories represent the same discourse and, in a way, represent Ayyari's subculture in the face of an oppressive and immoral male-dominated system. This research has been done with a qualitative approach. It uses content analysis method. First, the stories of Ayyari women are collected, then the way of thinking of women in the face of all kinds of oppression and tyranny of men, especially in the field of gender discrimination, are counted, analyzed, and explained. According to the research findings, the highest frequency of these tricks is dedicated to humiliation, deception, disguise, use of anesthesia, and secret escape. Most of the tricks used by women are reactionary, that is they are responses from women to male sexual diversity, injustice, inequality, oppression, coercion, authoritarianism, and the exercise of power in a patriarchal society. It is in this context that women find opportunity for "masculinity."

For centuries and millennia, those in power used political marriage as a means to achieve their goals. The most important functions of political marriage were to  end wars and conflicts, seal an agreement or alliance between two political forces, establish succession among dynasties, take advantage of military capabilities of the parties to preserve their interests, etc. The Ardalan Dynasty, in the western regions of Iran, repeatedly used this strategy to pursue its goals, culminating in the thirteenth lunar century. In that century, the rulers of Ardalan entered a marriage contract with the powerful Qajar Dynasty as well as the local Vaziri Dynasty. The present article intends to use a descriptive-analytical method on the effects of political marriages on the development of Ardalan history in the mentioned time period. It seems that the political marriage strategy worked ambiguously for the Ardalan family. Thus, in the short term, it provided the desired interests of this family at various levels, but in the long run became one of the most important factors in the annihilation and eventual collapse of this government in Kurdistan.