Everyday Life and Gender: General and Special Aspects in Assessments of Social Justice by Contemporary Students

Abstract

The article is based on the results of an empirical sociological survey conducted among university students in Russia. The research was initiated by the Russian Society of Sociologists (RSS) and was independent. In other words, it had no ordering customer. The creative team was joined by those regional researchers, RSS members, who found this problem interesting and important. The study focused on the attitudes of present-day students to issues of social inequality and social injustice in the country. The independent research task was to fi gure out to what extent the assessments regarding the problems of social justice made by boys and girls – match / mismatch. To answer this question, one was to first define such concepts as “gender” and “justice”. The paper provides corresponding defi nitions of the author. Gender can be described in terms of both statics and dynamics. Within a static picture of the world, it implies a conscious value of gender characteristics, socio- cultural manifestation of the fact of being a man or a woman. But in terms of the dynamics of the process, gender is continually produced, reproduced and changes as a result of certain activities of individuals that declare their identity. Modern society has its certain requirements for role performances by men and women, insists that gender units be reconsidered. Women have to “try on” men's social roles while men, at times, have to demonstrate features of femininity to succeed in society. The results of the applied research revealed no signifi cant differences in gender assessments regarding the problems of social justice made by boys and girls. The results of the study showed that in the opinion of the youth, a fair society is the one where citizens observe laws even if those are incorrect. Within this society the most required personal features are vitality, proactivity, high qualification and readiness to accept responsibility. Such people are stimulated by society for further activities with decent wages. The order of priorities and ranked assessments of almost all the respondents coincide which could indicate both the proximity of social positions of both the groups within the community (in this case the boys and girls are primarily students) and the reduction of differences in gender attitudes of modern society. However, minor differences revealed in the opinions of both the boys and girls once again confi rm the fact that gender as a social phenomenon is formed under the conditions of everyday life of the society.

Keywords

• everyday life
• gender
• gender attitudes
• students
• social justice.