Primary Research
For part of my primary research, I chose to create a survey using google forms to share on social media asking female participants to answer a few questions on how they feel about how women in society are treated based from their experiences and views. Doing this survey will give me insight on how others feel about this topic which I will incorporate into my photography.
Here I asked how old the participants are and their sexuality. This information puts into perspective how no matter your age and your sexuality, people will still harass you no matter your preference and age, even if it is morally wrong.
Although this is a basic question, I find it is a very important one. Here there is a slight divide in answers which is interesting as it shows progress in the attitudes towards women from men. It is interesting to add that a recent study found that 98% of women will encounter harassment from a man at least once in their life.
This question follows on from the last and actually has a pretty equal response. I feel this response only shows that there is no excuse to act this way towards anyone not matter if you know them or not. I find it is just completely unwarranted to approach someone this and puts people off from approaching others generally.
I thought this question would be interesting to add as I thought there would be a mixed bag of answers however I was slightly wrong. A majority of people responded as maybe, I would vote this too as I believe it depends on the friend and the circumstances I am in, I believe others agree.
This question is very important as it is commonly known that it is very hard for women to walk alone at night due to the lack of light which created many places isolated. I expected this kind of result as many people cannot confidently defend themselves if they were to get into a situation in which they need to do so. Therefore, many would rather avoid this than fight, including me. This should not be a fear for women to be consumed by but we can not tell if we will come back home or not.
Clothes should not be subjected to how you act or the allowance of people to take advantage of you but we unfortunately suffer with these issues today. Most voted no and one even gave an example of why they do feel comfortable but they do find they receive sexual or insulting comments. I think the responses was a mix of personally they are not confident enough and they feel uncomfortable due to comments and harassment.
This question’s purpose was to show that no matter if you are in a relationship or not, being harassed by a man can happen at anytime.
This question reflects on our society and following beliefs because a religion told us it was right to do so. Although some cases maybe more minor than others, it is wrong to expect someone will act or like something just because of their gender. Everyone still falls into this but we can't expect change if we are still expecting someone to do something because of their gender as this will just allow this issue to carry on and in some cases, get worse.
This question was interesting to receive results from as I was not expecting as many 'no's as I would. We have an issue of letting people do this kind of abuse and being unaware of it a majority of the time. This abuse is usually triggered by stereotypes and not listening to each other which can only spiral out of control.
The response from this was expected as I know many people as well as myself which does this. I think this scenario, again, depends on what would be going on at the time.
Usually women will be examined by a woman when it is about a not so urgent check up, however sometimes a man will be chosen to examine the patient. Many women do experience assaults and harassment in examinations as you are in a vulnerable state in which you are trying to find out an answer to a problem. Holding this faith and trust is supposed to be important.
Although women are valued much higher than before, we are still not equal to men. We still have a lot of progress to gain equality between one another like we all deserve.
I chose to include this question as I found that some people believe we do have gender roles we should stick to as we have been taught this throughout our whole lives. I believe sticking to the thing we have always known makes instances more lenient to happen like harassment, assault, etc, purely due to the lack of respect for one another.
Getting marries can be a very beautiful thing to do for both the bride and the groom as they are celebrating their love for one another with friends and families around them, witnessing a very special moment between the couple. Although the ceremony is beautiful, there is actually many sexist remarks when following the traditional way to get married. First of all, the bride is ‘passed on’ by her father to her groom, which looking into this signifies women ‘need’ a man to look over them although women are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and carrying their own independence. Although some may say that it is ‘honouring their father for bringing them up into who they are now’, I believe this just further reinforces the ideology that women are overlooked in their achievements and efforts. I see the mother and father play an equal role in their child’s life and both their efforts should be celebrated unless otherwise. Another thing apart of traditional weddings which is sexiest, is how women have to wear a white, silk dress. White connotes innocence and silk is a delicate fabric, this obviously indicates that the bride is only seen as an object for reproducing and keeping their ‘innocence’ for their beloved. This signification of innocence refers to the bible which preaches that a women does not do the act of reproducing if that is not her purpose in that moment in time.
After receiving the responses from my survey, I found a lot of differences and similarities within answers however, everyone follows the same idea that women are treated differently just because of their gender. This comes down to how religion and traditions reinforced this idea on gender ideologies which we still follow today. To incorporate this response into my work, I will do further research into the responses and why people think this way, following on I will create shoots based on these events, sharing what it is like to be in these situations. I have the idea to even maybe contact a few people to further investigate why they feel this way about this topic if they are comfortable with that.
