Women Lead the Charge in Iran: Not Unexpected

Image by .faramarz via Flickr

I am noticing an image emerging from these protests, women marching in the streets of Tehran hand in hand (well that may be too brazen), side by side with their “superior” counterparts, men. Of course I have put “superior” in quotes because, a quick lesson on Iran, women have fewer rights in Iran than men.  Some facts:

• A woman’s life is worth half that of a man’s life-meaning if a man and a woman were to die in a car accident  the compensation for the woman’s life is half
• A woman stands to inherit half that of a man
• A boy is held criminally responsible at age 15, a girl, 9
• Women need permission from their husbands to apply for passports

And, many, many, more. Which you can find here.

But, these rights, or lack thereof, have hardly kept women from achieving an education and some professional success.

Although they are barred from the presidency and religious posts, many Iranian women are in parliament and other political offices. About 65 percent of university students are women.

via Women in Iran’s protests: head scarves and rocks – Yahoo! News.

Almost 2/3rd’s, that’s insane!  Today, more women than ever are marching in the streets, standing up to the basij, fighting for their rights as Iranians and as women, and many of them support Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a man who has promised amongst other things a more relaxed society, where women could quite possibly walk without headscarves.

I am not saying that because 65% of university students are women, they have equal rights.  What I am saying is that despite the many restrictions placed on women in Iran, they have managed to rise to the top of the education ladder, so I am not surprised that they are emerging as leaders today.  I remember interviewing some young girls at a medical school in Mashad, Iran.  First off I was stunned by the fact that here were these young 19-year old women driven to succeed as doctors, give back to their country, and in fact were not at all concerned with required headscarves, but instead they wanted an equal run at the medical jobs available (unlikely, especially when you have out of work male doctors driving taxi cabs in Iran).  But, even knowing they may never work as doctors or even work at all, they were still hungry for that education and knowledge to be better and smarter (I was feeling some major private school education guilt to say the least)

It is likely that if the tides do turn in Iran, and a reformist government emerges women will hopefully gain tremendously but what’s more, they will emerge as the leaders they have worked so hard to become.