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Women and Social Action

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Women And Social Action

SOC-376-OL009

Assignment # 1

By: Sharon E. Smith

Question # 1
C. Wright Mills coined this sociological term, the sociological imagination, in 1959 which describes the process of linking individual experiences with social institutions and one’s place in history. He explains that personal troubles or experiences of a person are private and include the person’s immediate surroundings where as public issues are events that extend beyond a person’s immediate experience and involves the structure of social institutions and their history. The societies that have lacked sociological imagination have experienced ruling regimes as the norm and individuals live within the same confines that have haunted them for centuries. These societies have fallen behind in what we think of as modern cultures. Freedom and equality are all things that these societies lack as can be seen from the article that I read. In reading an article about Afghan women it was shocking to learn of their treatment within their society. Women have been systematically oppressed. Their treatment within their society has been demeaning and has left them scared. The Taliban regime has ordered all women to be covered by wearing a “burka”. The fact that women cannot attend schooling or can only hold certain jobs is somewhat new to us here in the U.S. Just like the fact that windows are blackened out in homes so that women cannot be seen inside by people that pass by. Most of these controversial practices concern the position of the woman in the family and in the society. They are derived not so much from religion as from the traditions of patriarchal. The Afghan women’s issues are definitely not due to their independent actions but are due to more complex social elements. Women here in the United States may find it hard to understand the way these women live.

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