In a report to the administration of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Iran's
Research Center of the Majles (parliament) recently called the trend of
more girls going to universities "alarming" and urged the government to stop it.
"With the door of opportunity closed to most
young girls, with all the control their families and others exert over them,
young women are mostly going after knowledge and science to gain freedom and
human dignity."
'Worrisome' Trend
The research center documented what it called a
worrisome rise in the number of females to enroll in universities and other
centers of higher education. The report said that over the last two decades
there's been a 23-percent increase in the number of girls taking university
entrance exams, with the number of girls who passed the tests nearly doubling
-- to 65 percent -- over the same period.
The influential research center -- which has
decision-making powers in both parliament as well as in government agencies --
also warned that the rise in female students could eventually lead to "social
disparity and economic and cultural imbalances between men and women."
But others see society as the problem, not
women's desire to seek higher education.
"If such concern [about more women going to
universities] is being expressed, then it's because our society is not ready to
accept that a woman could be more educated than a man," said Elahe Hejazi, a
university professor in Tehran. She told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the report
reflects both traditional gender discrimination as well as despair among young
males about their prospects in life. She calls it a "cultural problem."
"Our culture is preserved in its traditional
form, but the more important problem in our society is that boys have no
motivation for continuing their education," she said.
The Future: the
Iranian Women
By Syma Sayyah, Tehran - June 2005
Detrimental Or Good?
The report says the rise in female students has
created other concerns, such as "securing university dorms and maintaining their
[girls] physical security in confronting possible social perils." Another
problem, according to the report, is economic, "such as the possibility that
expenses will be underused for specialized skills, as well as a change in the
gender of the workforce."
The center's report also warns about a
detrimental affect on families and urges officials to swiftly find a solution to
the "disproportion between the number of men and women" in Iran's universities.
Shahla Shafigh, an Iranian-born women's rights
activist in Paris, told Radio Farda that she believes the opposition to female
students is ideological.
"With the door of opportunity closed to most
young girls, with all the control their families and others exert over them,
young women are mostly going after knowledge and science to gain freedom and
human dignity," Shafigh said. "And this is a good thing to happen in a country."
But what steps the government might take in
regards to the situation is unclear.
Last year, after reports that the government
might limit female enrollment in entrance exams, women's rights activists in
Iran expressed concern. The government later denied that there had ever been any
such plans.
But there are signs the government intends to act
on the gender issue, including recent media reports suggesting there could be a
change in textbooks based on "gender differentiation."
Last week Zohre Tabibzadeh Nouri, who runs the
government's office of Women's Participation, told reporters in Tehran that
"gender discrimination" will be implemented in certain sectors of the workforce.
She added that the government must help women attain the kind of education and
expertise suitable for them.
(Fereidoun Zarnegar of Radio Farda contributed to
this report.)
