As college students in the United States head back to school, their female classmates in Iran are discovering that some women won't be able to register for classes in their desired fields or even attend certain universities.
If you are like me and believe in the power of education, the thought of women being denied the right to learn is frightening.
However, having often gone back and forth between Iran and the United States, I also know this move is not representative of Iran's higher education system. My own female cousins in Iran have studied advanced sciences and mathematics at the country's top institutions.
In a nation that stands out in the region as committed to women's education, it is understandable why this announcement that "Iran Bans Women From Universities" seems odd.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has one of the highest female to male education ratios in the world.
Indeed, 36 Iranian institutions of higher learning are limiting the fields to which female students may enroll. But it is important to note that the decision to ban women from certain fields is an individual, university-level decision, not being imposed upon women by the government.
While I agree banning women from any field of study sets a dangerous precedent, in 2011 President Ahmadinejad actually halted plans by the Ministry of Science and Health to segregate university classes based on gender.
The 1979 Islamic revolution allowed previously sheltered religious women to challenge oppressive systems by developing and relying upon an interpretation of Islam that facilitated women's participation in public spaces, which today is often called Islamic feminism.
As Alex Shams notes, if the university and the workplace are officially "Islamic" then it's much harder for conservative parents, university administrators or government officials to tell a woman she can't study or work.
The bonds of patriarchy are hard to break free. Iran's Nobel Peace laureate, Shirin Ebadi, is right when she says that the women's movement for improved rights is under threat but misleading and sensationalized headlines don't help the cause either.
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But, now, a serious question: how is it possible that female students are perceived as a "threat" in mathematics, various engineering studies etc., which are typically male fields ? I thought, earlier, that male students had been put off from liberal arts fields due to aversion to PC indoctrinated studies in most Western countries. Now, I'd say I was wrong. This is a universal phenomenon, but I'm clueless about the origins: more female than male students, from US to Iran, from Japan to Italy ? Why ?
It's girls to boys ratio in colleges/universities across the world. If 50/50, it would be 1. If it's bigger than 1- say 1.21, 1.3... then, more girls than boys in universities. If less- 0.8, 0.73...- more boys than girls. In the case of Japan I stand corrected- more male students. There is a simple algorithm to calculate ratio in percentages: if N is the number in the table, than percentage divided by 100 is for girls G = 100 N/ (N+1).
Be as it may, seems it's, with some extreme exceptions, a global trend. Still, I'm not sure about the answer.
If western feminism has ever proven itself capable of brandishing double standards, here is an example.
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By your lights, Iran after the 1979 revolution is a better place for women than it was before the revolution?
This is because secular educational space was Islamized?
Do I read you right?
Hasbara at its finest.
The Mullahphiles run think around here.
Nice appologetics. It isn't the government. The educational institutions, all 36 of them, just happened to ban women all at the same time. A total coincidence.
Iran is currently a police state run entirely by senior Revolutionary Guard.
They control the oil and the nuclear program.
It is time for regime change.
Shameful to try to whitewash this horrid regime.
Now it is. Adjust your worldview.
Engineering, nuclear physics, archaeology, business management, computer science, English literature, English translation, hotel management etc.
All-in-all 70 university majors banned.
What are these Islamist rightwingers afraid of?