Rasha Gabr
June 9, 2015
Middle Eastern Girls , a Practical Demonstration of Psychological
Resilience
I decided to write my assignment about psychological resilience as a
mean of survival of girls in the Middle East ” because this issue had
always nagged at my mind long before I even started my readings in
psychology as I always wondered how girls in this troubled region ,
myself included , manage to pursuit their aims in such a stressful, male
centered environment.
Many recent studies have focused on Middle Eastern women , their
problems, rights , achievements , and their fight for identity . Despite this
progress , most studies lacked the psychological analysis of how these
vulnerable defenseless subjects got to be so powerful in facing the impact
of environmental stress , persecution , discrimination and abuse all
through their developmental stages. Psychologically speaking , such
stress should lead to either their isolation and submission , if they have
such passive and submissive personality ; or to their leaping into major
achievements when their misery and stress turn out to be their motive to
develop resilient personalities and so become able to bounce back from
adversity and go on to live a healthy, fulfilling life.
Women in the Middle East have been generally excluded from having
the power to initiate or contribute to processes since major decisions are
generally made by men. This seclusion and subordination to men root
from the concept that females are worthless and countless so their role is
heavily stereotyped, and this is even reflected in the education students
receive and in everyday life where the system tends to make very strong
statements even in school books to children, such as “my father is
working and my mother is cooking”. And you expect to hear the words
“it’s wrong, it’s irreligious, it’s improper” a lot when addressing females.
Typically, these girls develop a sense of inferiority or incompetence due
to sexism, and all forms of discrimination : If a child believes that success
is related to whom you are rather than to how hard you try , then why
try? (1)
According to Bronfenbrenner’s theory one should look at a child’s
development within the context of a system of relationships that form his
or her environment. Here a female’s own biology is a primary
environment fueling her development. The interaction between factors in
the female’s maturing biology, her immediate family/community
environment, and the societal landscape fuels and steers her development.
Changes or conflict in any one layer will ripple throughout other layers.(2)
3–
Exosystem
2–
Mesosystem
1-
Microsystem
