Gender Differences in Religious Belief Essay Example for Free

Gender Differences in Religious Belief Essay Critically examine the relationship between gender, religious participation and religious organisation Studies of religious belief verify consistently that the female gender shows greater participation to religion than that of males. This greater commitment to religion described by sociologists such as Bensen applies throughout the course of the woman’s life, and as noted by Glock and Stark, their greater pledge to religion is consistent regardless of the religious organization, whether it be New Religious movements, New Age spirituality, or traditional faiths. Beit-hallahmy and Argyle state that whether it is a matter of private churchgoing or private prayer and regardless of religious belief women appear more religious than men. Religions universally have been found to be deeply oppressive to women, born from ancient teachings indicating their inferiority to men. Writers like de Beauvoir and Sadwai see religion and religious ideology as playing a part in maintaining male domination that is found in many aspects of contemporary social life. In religious scriptures women take the lesser position; De Beauvoir highlights how scriptures in most religions suggest that â€Å"man is master by divine right† and Aldridge explains how in the Qu’ran women are legally inferior to men. Why, then, do women pursue a faith which encourages their oppression, more so than the gender with the power to dominate it? Biological factors begin with Miller and Hoffman’s explanation that women take fewer risks than men and as a result seek to conform to a groups religious identity rather than undertake the challenge of authority and autonomy. Men more often reject the religious beliefs of the mainstream and engage in risk-taking behaviors. According to Stark this risk taking inclination in a man to not â€Å"think ahead† means that men are less religious because they are willing to take a gamble on there not being an afterlife. However sociologists like Freese and Montgomery debate this argument works on an assumption that everyone makes the same risk assessment when in fact men are just more prepared to take that risk. Roth produced a study which showed there to be a smaller gap between genders in the percentage who believe in an afterlife but a large gap in those who give attendance and prayer to religion, suggesting women just participate actively more than men. Armstrong states that biological differences between men and women gave way to male domination; patriarchal montheism has replaced polysthetic beliefs which promoted the role of the female in society, for which evidence was found by archeologists in the form of old statues of goddesses. He argues that natural male aggression was the tool used to manipulate religion into a patriarchal institution. The socializations built upon this biology, are of men to be strong and domineering, and of women to be passive, obedient, and nurturing, which according to Mol, are the qualities associated with religiosity. Miller and Hoffman establish that gender socialisation makes women more cooperative and caring, and this can leads to many explanations for their greater participation in religion. One is their role of guardians in family life. Bruce states that women’s child bearing and rearing experiences for instance develop their traits as nurturers as opposed to confrontational and goal seeking. Luckmann further explains that women have a greater responsibility for rearing children and participate to a lesser degree in the labor force, leaving them with more time for church-related activities and a greater need for a source of personal identity and commitment. Women are more likely to take on the task of the moral development of their child along with the rest of their duties in socializing a child. There is an expectation for women to be defenders of tradition and Halman and Draulans note that these roles give women a greater focus on the family. Luckmann also highlights how women’s role as a housewife gives them lesser participation in the labor force, leaving them with more time for church-related activities and a greater need for a source of personal identity and commitment. They are more likely to experience status frustration, born from the constraints of housework and childcare or the unsatisfying lower middle class jobs which are mainly done by women. Religious participation can reinstate identity and give women focus, because where men gain individuality through work, women revive their low sense of worth through religion. Religious faith and practice can enhance psychological well-being by being a source of comfort to women in times of distress and by enhancing their social interaction with others in places of worship. More responsive and sensitive personality traits in a woman mean they are more likely to contemplate emotional wellbeing and not only seek solace in religion bit find meaning and purpose in life. Personality was be attested as a key factor by Thompson, who found that men who possess those qualities more commonly found in women, such as sensitivity , were similarly more likely to be religious. Reasons other than oppression that lead a higher percentage of women to respond to their environment and pursue happiness through religion are the increased levels of poverty they experience. Official figures show women are 14% more likely than men to live in households with incomes that are 60% below the national average. More frequently diagnosed mental illness and depression in women can explain their higher contribution to religion, as cults, sects as a social network and comfort for women outside the isolation of the home or of their minds. Women’s tend to be more open about sharing personal problems and are more relational than men which is encouraged in the close knit community of a sect. The intimacy of the private sphere can also replicate women’s â€Å"sphere of the home† whilst theodicies explaining their feelings and offering solutions justify their role as a woman. New Religious Movements such as cults are also generally more popular with women because of cult focus on self-discovery and fulfilment, which correlates with the female inclination towards self-criticism and self-improvement, due to their suffering higher levels of marginalisation and lack of self-confidence. Some evidence contradicts the male role as non-spiritual however, as Davie found there is an equal spiritual confidence in the existence of ghosts between genders. A key to understanding modern women’s higher participation in religion is the shifts in demographic trends. Brierly’s study found that in 1979 the proportion of male church goers were 45% but in 1989 it had dropped to 42%. The ratio of live females to live males rises steadily and correspondingly a disproportionate number of elderly women seek refuge in the church in response to loneliness or consoling philosophy nearing the end of their lives. Davie explains how women are more actively responsive to religion because males and females have differing visions of God; males associate him with power and status whereas women associate with his traits of love, comfort and forgiveness which explains their greater involvement in community religions. They are more concerned with people orientation than control. Female differences in nature also explains the particular appeal of New Age ideas revolved around well-being and stress relief. Concepts such as herbalism, yoga and meditation, homeopathy, aromatherapy and massage, horoscopes, astrology, fortune-telling are strongly associated with females, according to Glendinning and Bruce. This recent marketization of religion often promotes earthly concepts which are more linked to femininity and female empowerment than the tradition of male domination. Mother Gaia, the theory of Mother Earth as a living entity, is more appealable to women for instance. Women’s heightened spirituality can be attributed to their greater role in biological life processes. Walter and Davie see women as more emotionally exposed to the â€Å"ups and downs† of life because of childbirth, and their nurturing role as teachers, care assistants, social workers, and so on, and also the expectation that they be unpaid carers for vulnerable family members. This heightens their sensitivity and attunes the spiritual dimension of human existence, because as Davie argues, these factors give women a closer association with birth and death which are generally central concepts of religion. As females live longer than men some studies have shown that many widowed women may turn to religion for the comfort of reassuring philosophies and social networks. It is possible that some women take refuge from some of the theoretical oppressions bore by religion. Swatos talks of the fulfilment that can be had from being a second class citizenship. Feminist writers like Walby and be Beauvoir suggest that the doctrine of many of the world’s religions contain an ideology of the family which emphasises women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers in the family. Some women, however, are happy to take on this role. Barrett and Pryce, for instance, highlight how Rastafarianism assumes the woman’s position as a housewife and mother as a protection from sexual and racial abuse in the outside world. On one hand this gives ultimate power to men by denying female participation to society in the name of protection, but some more introverted Rastafarian women may enjoy this safety within the sphere of the home. A similar contradiction of female subjugation is the veil; whilst Aldridge notes the hijab in Islamic cultures as a symbol of patriarchy, degrading women to a state of invisibility and keeping them devoid of identity, some women find anonymity to be protective from the judgement and sexual degradation of men. A growing number of Western Muslims have taken to wearing the veil to in fact reinstate a female identity separate from their face; writers like Ahmed and Watson argue that the veiling of one’s face can be a way to resist the patriarchy and sexual objectification of Western culture which views women as visual objects. Faiths as a majority oppose the admission of women to leadership in religious organisations. A pun of the â€Å"stained glass ceiling† is used as a pun by sociologists to explain how women are maintained at the bottom of the career ladder to authority within the church, and barred completely from the priesthood in Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, which is seemingly discriminatory, but perhaps female role models within religious doctrines presented as meek and nurturing figures have had such an influence on the identity of a religious women that they feel more comfortable in a non-domineering role. Examples can be taken from any religion proving the sub-ordinance of women taught by most faith systems. The socialisation of women to be obedient and take on the follower role means they are further likely to be a willing follower of religion. Overall social, psychological, and biological factors interlink to form explanations for greater female participation in religion and religious organisation. The gravity of female relation to religion as an explanation, compensator, duty, and social outlet mean that their commitment is likely to persist regardless of the injustices and subjugations it bears upon the gender.

Imagination and Realism in Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Imagination and Realism in Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   Shakespeare’s tragic drama Hamlet is a composite of poetic and realistic elements. Which predominates? This paper analyzes the presence of both realism and imagination.    Richard A. Lanham in â€Å"Superposed Plays† discusses the poetic or imaginative side of Hamlet:    The real doubt comes when we ask, â€Å"What poetic do we bring to the Hamlet play?† As several of its students have pointed out, it is a wordy play. Eloquence haunts it. Horatio starts the wordiness by supplying a footnote from ancient Rome in the first scene, by improving the occasion with informative reflections. Everybody laughs at Polonius for his moralizing glosses but Hamlet is just as bad. Worse. Gertrude asks him, in the second scene, why he grieves to excess and he gives us a disquisition on seeming and reality in grief. The King follows with h is bravura piece on grief. Everybody moralizes the pageant. The Hamlet play abounds with triggers for straight revenge-tragedy response. The whole â€Å"mystery† of Hamlet’s hesitant revenge boils down to wondering why he doesn’t go ahead and play his traditional part, complete with the elegant rants we know he can deliver. (89)    The real battle in the play between imagination and realism is forcefully presented by another literary critic. Harold Goddard’s essay, â€Å"Hamlet: His Own Falstaff,† highlights this battle in the play:    Hamlet, the conclusion is, is a failure because the materials Shakespeare inherited were too tough and intractable. Too tough and intractable for what? That they were too tough and intractable for a credible historical picture may be readily granted. But what of it? And since when was poetry supposed to defer to history? Two world wars in three decades ought to have taught us that our history has not gone deep enough. But poetry has. The greatest poetry has always depicted the world as a little citadel of nobility threatened by an immense barbarism, a flickering candle surrounded by infinite night. The â€Å"historical† impossibility of Hamlet is its poetical truth, and the paradox of its central figure is the universal psychology of man. (14)    The play opens on the ramparts of Elsinore castle – a very realistic setting. But very soon the imaginative element of a ghost, the likeness of dead King Hamlet, makes its appearance before Barnardo, Marcellus and Horatio. Mysteriously, it says nothing, prompting Horatio and Marcellus to leave in search of Hamlet, the prince and their friend, who might be able to interpret this spectral figure. Imagination and Realism in Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework Imagination and Realism in Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   Shakespeare’s tragic drama Hamlet is a composite of poetic and realistic elements. Which predominates? This paper analyzes the presence of both realism and imagination.    Richard A. Lanham in â€Å"Superposed Plays† discusses the poetic or imaginative side of Hamlet:    The real doubt comes when we ask, â€Å"What poetic do we bring to the Hamlet play?† As several of its students have pointed out, it is a wordy play. Eloquence haunts it. Horatio starts the wordiness by supplying a footnote from ancient Rome in the first scene, by improving the occasion with informative reflections. Everybody laughs at Polonius for his moralizing glosses but Hamlet is just as bad. Worse. Gertrude asks him, in the second scene, why he grieves to excess and he gives us a disquisition on seeming and reality in grief. The King follows with h is bravura piece on grief. Everybody moralizes the pageant. The Hamlet play abounds with triggers for straight revenge-tragedy response. The whole â€Å"mystery† of Hamlet’s hesitant revenge boils down to wondering why he doesn’t go ahead and play his traditional part, complete with the elegant rants we know he can deliver. (89)    The real battle in the play between imagination and realism is forcefully presented by another literary critic. Harold Goddard’s essay, â€Å"Hamlet: His Own Falstaff,† highlights this battle in the play:    Hamlet, the conclusion is, is a failure because the materials Shakespeare inherited were too tough and intractable. Too tough and intractable for what? That they were too tough and intractable for a credible historical picture may be readily granted. But what of it? And since when was poetry supposed to defer to history? Two world wars in three decades ought to have taught us that our history has not gone deep enough. But poetry has. The greatest poetry has always depicted the world as a little citadel of nobility threatened by an immense barbarism, a flickering candle surrounded by infinite night. The â€Å"historical† impossibility of Hamlet is its poetical truth, and the paradox of its central figure is the universal psychology of man. (14)    The play opens on the ramparts of Elsinore castle – a very realistic setting. But very soon the imaginative element of a ghost, the likeness of dead King Hamlet, makes its appearance before Barnardo, Marcellus and Horatio. Mysteriously, it says nothing, prompting Horatio and Marcellus to leave in search of Hamlet, the prince and their friend, who might be able to interpret this spectral figure.

Java: United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabian Culture Essay

International business and information technology are two important aspects of globalization. We live in a world that requires culture awareness, which is also the first step in doing international business. In the case The Java Lounge – Adjusting to Saudi Arabian Culture, the business has been successful because its entrepreneurs spent time and money to research their expectation that enough Saudis had become sufficiently westernized and affluent to frequent the restaurant. Its entrepreneurs have maintained strong culture awareness and had put them into actions. The Java Lounge had gone through culture collisions. Foreigners often find Saudi laws and customs at odds with their own value systems. For example, Saudi culture limits male-female interaction. That explains why the city of Jeddah was chosen to locate the Java Lounge – it was a port and it enjoyed more contact with foreigners and was less conservative than much of the rest of the country. The dress codes are more relaxed thus more acceptable to foreigners. If the location was chosen to be in a traditional place, it would not have been this successful. The culture collision would be so huge that it is hard for other cultures to digest and get close to. Thus when a company such as the Java Lounge implements practices, they would be less effective. Also, the employees as well as gusts would encounter difficulties in accepting or adjusting to foreign behaviors, which would cause unnecessary confusions and conflicts. Religion plays a key role in Saudi’s culture and religion is a cultural stabilizer. As the book says, many strong values are the result of a dominant religion. A good religion would make the nation united and its people strong. What is more, religion plays a part in business. In Saudi, religious proscriptions prohibit pork products, alcohol, and live music at the Lava Lounge. In the holy period of Ramadan, when people fast during the day, the restaurant serves customers only in the evening. When doing business in Saudi Arabia, one has to be careful in adjusting to the religious culture of Saudi Arabia because religion could also be a taboo sometimes. For example, when Muslim men are called to prayer, McDonald’s dims its lights, closes its doors, and suspend service during the five times per day. It is very important to respect one culture no matter how odd it looks to you. Behavioral practices are also affecting business. The term ascribed group memberships refer to the case that at the Lava Lounge, the entire staff is male. Even though laws and rules were signed to abolish discrimination against women, women in Saudi Arabia cannot work in some profession. There are rigid rules about what women can and cannot do. A research shows that Saudi women only accounts for 7 percent of the total workforce. It is still a man-dominant world, but women are so important. However, in Saudi, affiliation is determined by birth. One needs to pay attention in the gender-based employment practices in Saudi Arabia. When doing business in other countries such as in the United States, this might not be a problem. To summarize, what we could learn from the case The Java Lounge are that firstly, as an international businessman or businesswoman, one has to develop culture awareness as a starting point. Secondly, culture shock would occur frequently when doing international business. When culture collisions occur, we do not need to be afraid. Learn about the other cultures you are involving in, respect other cultures, ask a native friend for help, and embrace the shocks. Thirdly, pay attention to religions and other special cultural rules, they will help you with your business.

Characteristics Of Learning Individuals With Learning...

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