WOMAN’S FAMILY CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE INDIVIDUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY

Family and family relations are the important spheres of human practice where the interests of the society and a personality intercross intricately. It provides close attention to a family issue and its relevance for the experts of different level.

Globalization of world space leads to serious changes of both social and psychological content of a modern family, and position of a person in it. The appeared tendencies in family relations, such as gender equality of matrimonial relations, equality relations, and leadership in a family are associated, firstly, with the complication of inner world of an individual, the increase in his/her need for an autonomy and self-actualization; and, secondly, with the change of system of values in the sphere of gender role behavior related to the position of a modern woman.

Psychological portrait of a modern woman is multifarious. It is possible to note the similarity and the distinctions of old and new ideas of the role and status of a woman in a family and outside of it. The changes of traditional family representations concerning a woman into egalitarian ones (though they are not linear and ambiguous in different cultures) reflect, on the one hand, the changes towards an active public position and a view of life of a woman, and, on the other hand, the changes of family consciousness, and first of all of women themselves.

Family consciousness as the individual and psychological reality represents a part of personality self-consciousness aimed at the understanding of various family life sides and oneself as a subject of various family relations. Being a property of woman’s personality, family consciousness is presented by the unity of cognitive, emotional and behavioral components mediated by the functional and role system of matrimonial, parenting and kinship relationships.