The Relationship of Culture and Women's Psychology - Essay Example

The Impact of Cultural Background on Women Psychology by In order to make the interview more interesting I have decided to choose a woman with extraordinary cultural background. Maria, a woman of 54, is a Polish immigrant who has spent her last twenty five years in the United States of America working as a teacher of Biology. Despite her leaving Poland, her cultural background made a great impact on her further life. 1. Maria, you are the person who was lucky to be involved into different cultures. Which one influenced you the most? Despite the fact that I feel American now for I have assimilated the culture and have accepted this style of living, in the most important questions I am still guided by my native cultural views –Polish. Probably it is because I have absorbed everything as granted being a child and a teenager as all of us do. So my basic views about world around were formed at that time. That is why I can say for sure that the understanding of gender roles, family life, and attitude to the world were formed before my moving to America. Frankly speaking, it was a cultural shock for me when I realized that everything is a little bit different here in the USA. 2. What specific differences that impressed you can you name? Well, Poland is a religious country with most people being Catholic and going to church regularly. The relationships in a family are influenced by religious views and sometimes resemble parables from Old Testament . A woman is regarded mostly as a helper, a part of a man who is the head in a family. For example, in my family mother used to quit all her business when father came back from work in order to talk to him and prepare food for him. Actually, a woman had a second role in a family and it was important for her to know her place. For many American women it would sound offensive and humiliating but Polish women view it from different perspective – being a helper to a man means having someone stronger and wiser than you in a difficult situation. Women are supposed to care for men, serve them, and be supportive. Moreover, marriage is regarded as an essential part of woman`s life. A girl from early age knows that she is supposed to get married and become a wife. Polish girls anticipate this moment and get prepared for it. Sex is also was viewed from religious side, and it was impossible to have sex before marriage for a decent woman. Girls learn how to cook good food, knit clothes, and be good housewives. For example, I got married at nineteen and I could not imagine that my life had to be different that I was able to be single, to earn my living myself. It was so natural to me! 3. Don`t you think that those views are outdated and archaic because women now are struggling for equality while you are saying that being a dependent on a man is natural? I think that what is good for one culture is not necessarily acceptable for another. In Poland such situation was explained by financial conditions of the country, it was much easier to build a family when one of the members was a leader, and the other followed him. Obviously, women also had to raise children that is why this role was reasonable. However, I think that this influenced me as a woman. I can let myself feel weak, less competent or wrong. It makes my husband feel more confident and strong. I have stable conceptions about what a man should do and what a woman should do. It makes my life less stressful and painful. I do not feel depressed because of it I know that my husband does not violate his power over me. But I observe how gender roles mix in the world nowadays, and it seems strange to me when women make careers up to thirty or forty or remain single. 4. Did you have any career plans beside the desire of having a family? I have a daughter, and for her it is absolutely normal. She knew that she wanted to be a journalist from school and she did not even think about placing marriage, relationships, and children on the first place. I think it is not very good because when smart women make career they cannot dedicate so much time to their children upbringing. I did not wish any career for me. For me being around my children was so essential that I was unable to leave them to nannies or kindergartens. I think that the early choice becoming a mother was also influenced by my cultural background. I could imagine myself only in a family. For me being a woman is taking care of close people around me, my own interests were put aside. Now women see themselves as equal and independent. I suppose they acquire more masculine attributes such as rational thinking, decisiveness. While I have become more obedient and quiet by being so feminine with age. 5. Do you think this tendency is positive or negative? I think it is normal development of women and men roles in society. Women are not the only who change, they rather adjust to the changes of the world. When there appeared possibility for women to receive higher education, to earn as much as men, the have become more self-confident and independent. They do not need men to support or protect them as they can do everything themselves. 6. You describe those changes as negative, are there any positive aspects? I think that my cultural background also had some wrong and bad influence on me. For example, women when they are submissive always fell themselves victims, they justify any men`s behavior, even inappropriate and aggressive. The often blame themselves for everything that goes wrong within a family, however, it is here where it is necessary to recall that the responsibility is equal. Read More