The Impact of Gender Awareness Training on Gender Role Attitudes of Working Women

Abstract

Objectives: This study was conducted in order to assess the impact of Gender Awareness Training on gender role attitudes of women workers. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted with a pre-test - post-test model in a non-randomized single group with a quasi-experimental research design. The participants of the study were 166 female workers who work in a factory. During the research, the workers were given an 8-hour training on gender awareness in 4 sessions. Before the training, a questionnaire form investigating the socio-demographic characteristics of workers and the Gender Roles Attitude Scale (GRAS) were applied to the workers as a pretest. After training, the change in gender role attitudes was identified by means of post-test. Descriptive statistics, independent-t, and chi-square test, Anova, and Paired t-test were used for analyzing the data. Before starting the research, permission from the ethical committee and factory management was taken. Results: The women whose education level was high school, whose economic condition was middle, and who lived in the district have more problems for being female. The total scores of the participants from the Gender Roles Attitude Scale have increased from (155.45±17.48) to (149.72±19.54) as before the training program and after the training program(p=0.006). Conclusion: At the end of the training, it was found out that there has been an increase in women's total gender role attitude scores, in the sub-dimensions such as female gender role attitude and traditional gender role attitude. © 2021 Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University.