Women's Strategies in Facing Fears and Phobias: A Qualitative Study in Tehran

Women’s fears in public accompany special consequences, which can be classified form personal habits to social and restrictive behaviors. Although, there is no congruence between the women’s fears and the objective status, which opposes them, the relationship between these two factors is still under question. The consequences of fear are serious and restrictive for women. The objective of the present study was evaluating the women’s experience and their strategies in facing fear and phobia. The present study was a qualitative research the data of which were obtained using 46 semi-structured interviews. The women’s fear can be classified into three categories, including case fears, fear of sexual harassment and fear of males’ ruling. The women’s strategies in facing fear can be classified into innovative – active behavior or passive- reactive behavior. For every one of these fears, women use unique strategies. In innovative – active behavior, women try to manage their fears and face the fears logically, in so doing they make use of all their resources. In passive behavior, women make use of strategies like silence, surrender, seclusion, prudence and change in personal habits. Since the participants were selected non-randomly, the results of this study are not generalizable at all.