Tehran, Iran - It's too easy to carve the world into blocks like the American media often does. It contrasts the West, the Muslim world, the former USSR, and "others". It then injects its simplistic religious analyses into complex events to explain the plight of women abroad. Despite what American media claim, it is not religion or culture that affects women most, but education.
Look at the former USSR. There, you find female judges, lawyers, and professional managers in engineering, planning and finance. There are more of these here than in the West or Japan. In contrast, it is difficult to find many women at top management position in the West. In Eastern or Western Europe, there are few women ministers, deputies, or business leaders.
America scores better on this front. But in London, its almost impossible to find a female stockbroker or foreign exchange dealer. European, Japanese and South American parliament members and judges are predominantly male. Yet in China, there are many female judges and prosecutors.
In Iran, we have seen improvements and setbacks for women over the past few decades. Unlike other the Arab states in the region, Iranian women have the right to work. Since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago in Iran, many more Iranian women now serve as doctors, lawyers, family judges and administrators. More than 50% of Iranian university students are female. There are proportionally more female teachers and shop attendants than a generation ago. Women comprise the majority of telemarketers and other representatives in the private sector.
The government of the Islamic Republic has also made progress, albeit slowly. It has transformed its rigid male-dominated system. There are more women in the middle ranking management positions of state organizations such as the municipality offices, telephone companies and tax and customs officers. For the last 12 years or so, a female vice president in the Iranian cabinet has been charged with women's affairs and environmental protection.
A noticeable number of NGOs have been formed over the last 10 years dealing with women, family issues such as post-divorce matters, the elderly, and modern religious studies. Such grassroots organizations, with a wide membership base, did not exist some 20 years ago.
Local and municipal elections will be held on 15th of December and more than 20% of all candidates are women. About half of local election observers and recorders will be women volunteers.
In a region with starkly different social practices from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon, Iran has markedly good social cohesion. Iranian family courts, for example, are more likely to grant custody of a younger child to the divorcing mother than to the father. Both have the right to petition for a divorce decree.
As with every society, gradual changes to social practices reflect contemporary facts. More needs to be done. Iranian women would welcome adjustments to civil laws (especially those regarding inheritance and foreign travel). However, it should be noted that Iranian women as young as 15 years old have the right to vote, on par with their male counterparts. The sum of all parts in Iran, however, makes it a unique, progressive force in the region, if not in the world.
Please e-mail PostGlobal if you'd like to receive an email notification when PostGlobal sends out a new question.
