A Psychological Study on The Differences in Attitude Toward Oppression Among Different Generations of Adult Women in West Bengal

Abstract

The issues of oppression are very paramount in our societies. However, a lot of research has been done in order to understand oppression. This paper derives an attitude towards oppression among young and older adult women. Attitude is basically a frame of mind of different aspects in our environment. According to Olson and Kendrick (2008) and Petty, Wheeler & Tormala (2003) attitudes refers to people’s evaluation of almost any aspect of the world. Attitude may have either positive or negative outlook or perception or evaluation or reaction towards any issues, things, specific person, groups, etc. Oppression is the social act of placing restrictions on any individual or group of individuals. It is mainly imposed by the authority figure, which creates mental pressure and stress upon an individual or group. Now in this paper the patriarchal form of the society has mostly curbed the rights of women since ages which resulted into oppression but as the times are changing and women are being educated the attitude of women towards oppression seems to differ than earlier. Attitude towards Women Scale (AWS) was used in order to find out the attitude towards oppression (Spence and Helmreich, 1978) in order to record the responses of the adult women. Thus, the aim of the present psychological study is to understand the difference towards attitude of adult women (aged range =50-55) and young adults (aged range= 18-23) towards oppression. A t-test has been used to determine the significant differences adult women (aged range= 50-55) and young adults (aged range 18-23) towards oppression. There is a significant difference of attitude towards oppression along with the sub domains were found between the two generations of women in West Bengal.