Paper short abstract:

The primary purpose of this paper is to develop the cultural model approach of Naomi Quinn, by employing a historical perspective, in order to examine how the current cultural model of motherhood among middle-class women in Iran has been constructed and distributed.

Paper long abstract:

Base on semi-structured interviews with 50 women living in Tehran, I posit that motherhood as a cultural model, borrowing Quinn's term, has become problematic, being structured by the schemas of individuality and gender equality. To illustrate, these women do not consider motherhood a taken-for-granted and essential role for all women, but regarding that as an individual choice. Besides, these women do not think of childrearing just as a female job, believing that fathers must be involved in all childcare practices.

Although these women's expectations are not usually actualized in reality due to social and cultural barriers or men's reluctance, these assumptions indicate a remarkable transformation in Iranian women's subjectivity. I assert that this cultural understanding finds its roots in the process of Iranian modernity.

To demonstrate how this individualistic and equalitarian perspective of motherhood has been emerged and distributed amongst middle-class Iranian women, I incorporate Quinn's theoretical approach with the theory of Epidemiology of Representations by Dan Sperber (1996) and Olivier Morin (2016). I argue that since one and a half-century ago, as a result of political, social, and structural changes, a modern conceptualization of family has been constructed and circulated in Iranian society giving rise to the schemas of democratic family, gender equality, and individualism. I suppose that the current perception of motherhood is widely accepted mainly because it is "relevant" to other modern and late modern distributed notions such as leisurism, consumerism, feminism, women's right, and children's rights, and thus "locally attractive".

Paper short abstract:

In this article, based on cultural models theory, we have attempted to show how we can gain a better understanding of the concept HUSBAND/Man between two groups of women. We assume that the conception of women about HUSBAND is the bedrock of gender inequalities esp. at home.

Paper long abstract:

Cultural models as the "representation" of cultural knowledge and "shared anticipated and naturally accepted models of reality" play a significant role in understanding people's worldview and their actual behavior. They are inter subjective and interpretive forms through which individuals regulate their knowledge of the world. According to Cultural model theory, this article through examining the conceptual metaphors and cultural schemas of the concept HUSBAND/Man between two groups of middle-class married women without income aims to show how we can gain a better understanding of the given concept. These two groups consist of women with children, believe in child as a basic component of family formation (group A) and women deliberately not having children, and do not believe as such (group B). Then, by examining the schemas and metaphors, we found that women in-group A, in contrast to group B; have mental images of superiority for males over females. They believe that women need men to have a successful life, and therefore married women are more successful than single women are. These findings help us to show how some factors of gender inequalities could stem in part from cultural models of HUSBAND. These cultural models motivates women in-group A to maintain the married status by various strategies such as bearing child. It seems that one of the reasons for gender inequalities is the conception of women about husband/man, and this conception become the bedrock of gender inequalities esp. at home and in their personal lives.

Paper short abstract:

The colloquial usage of the term "witch" often conjures up ideas of the historical witch trials, folkloric archetypes, radical feminists, or individuals who practice Neopagan "nature" religions like Wicca. In my paper, I apply a cultural model framework to add complexity to this understanding.

Paper long abstract:

Historically, being accused of witchcraft meant death (Baker, 2015; Demos, 2008; Ehrenreich & English, 2010). More recently, identifying as a witch means living with an often concealed and stigmatized identity, which can lead to increased subjective anxiety (Reece, 2016). Despite the persistence of and the potential deleterious effects that accompany stigmatization, individuals are increasingly self-identifying as witches (Fearnow, 2018). Motivations for this remain unclear due to the narrower inquiry of extant research in which witches are often styled as white, suburbanite, middle-class, college-educated, “nature worshipping” individuals who are predominately female (Adler, 1986; Berger, 2003; Cyr, 2019; Lewis and Tollefsen, 2013; Magliocco, 2004.). This description stems from concentrated foci on either the sociopolitical underpinnings and psychosocial benefits of witchcraft as a “feminist spirituality” or on more bounded, European-rooted “Neopagan” sects, such as Gardnerian Wicca, that do not represent the majority and, in turn, the diversity of currently practicing witches. While partially accurate, this omnipresent understanding of identity, beliefs, and practices largely excludes the perspectives of witches of color, as well as those from male and gender fluid witches. In the summer of 2020, I conducted exploratory, ethnographic interviews among a diverse group of witches in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this paper, I apply a cultural model framework to my data and incorporate intersectional, practice, and globalization theory in order to both introduce a more temporally appropriate, finer grained understanding of witches as well as a means to explore possible motivations driving the sustained, enigmatic appeal of identifying as such.

Paper short abstract:

Cultural narratives deeply influence how each generation understands gender and sexual diversity. Using interviews and virtual social media tours with LGBTQ+ youth, we interrogate how narrative engagement in digital spaces impacts both individual identity development and broader cultural change.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary LGBTQ+ adolescents are approaching adulthood amidst rapidly changing norms surrounding gender, sexuality, and intimacy. The rise of digital communication technologies is integral in these cultural shifts, facilitating connection across traditional geographic and cultural boundaries and the formation of new communities for gender and sexual minorities. The cultural narratives used to support and oppose these changing norms can be understood as one aspect of cultural schemas, supporting both continuity and change in understandings of gender and sexual diversity across generations. To examine how LGBTQ+ adolescents are engaging with these shifting understandings, our project combines a master narrative framework with a virtual tour interview of participants’ posts and interactions across multiple social media sites. Our deductive analysis revealed engagement with multiple cultural narratives, including gender as biological, gender as binary/non-binary, and same-gender desire as sinful or abnormal. Our inductive analysis yielded three key navigational strategies used by LGBTQ+ youth: seeking and sharing information, creating queer community, and choices about visibility and permanence. However, the meaning and power of these strategies, particularly in relation to each participant’s intersections of privilege and oppression, could only be understood within the frame of three key navigational contexts: the traditional gender narrative, whiteness and liberalism, and digital platform affordances. Along with a broad overview of results, we illustrate these connections through participant portraits, highlighting key moments in their navigation of gender and sexuality narratives over time, along with the interplay between individual and cultural understandings of gender and sexuality in online spaces.