Two months ago I went to a journey called the 'Mongol Rally' which is basically a race when you need to drive from the Czech Republic to Mongolia in a shitty car<p>Because I'm from Israel my team couldn't get into Iran but other teams got into Iran and all of them were extremely surprised.<p>Iranians know how to welcome tourists, they were extremely friendly, the food is delicious, the country is beautiful, and many people are open-minded.<p>The problem in Iran is their politicians and the image created around the radical Iranian regime
The Gender-Equality Paradox in STEM<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719?journalCode=pssa" rel="nofollow">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761774171...</a><p>"...life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects."<p>The above paper didn't include Iran (I think?) but Tunisia, UAE, Algeria and Turkey all had the most proportion of women in STEM and the lowest gender equality out of all the countries.<p>They are probably entering university not because Iran is friendly towards women and girls but because their society is unfriendly towards them. Iran certainly has a very low Global Gender Gap index. In the bottom 5 countries in the world. <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf</a>
Actually, most of Western opinion about Iran is misguided and plain wrong. Iran is really not as terrible as all the propaganda about it. In fact its quite much like Turkey, except the politicians are better and its not as corrupt.
I was in Iran last year so let's give some perspective why this metric alone is useless:<p>1. Before university boys and girls learn in separate schools.<p>2. After university women have almost zero chances for career. It is more probably that they will end up being house wives.<p>I doubt that this has changed in a year. I have not checked my facts - that's impression from speaking with open minded Iranian families (and we have met various families).<p>Basically, university is one of the rare chances for women in Iran not to marry their cousin.
Working link:<a href="https://en.mehrnews.com/news/150023/Women-make-up-54-of-new-students-entering-Iranian-universities" rel="nofollow">https://en.mehrnews.com/news/150023/Women-make-up-54-of-new-...</a><p>For comparison, the University of California system is 52% female [1] and the California State University is 56% female [2].<p>[1]<a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance" rel="nofollow">https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrol...</a><p>[2]<a href="http://www.calstate.edu/as/stat_reports/2018-2019/fage01.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.calstate.edu/as/stat_reports/2018-2019/fage01.htm</a>
I suppose this is being upvoted as it goes against western preconceptions of irani society and women rights over there. When reading it, I remembered I visited Doha earlier this year and I was told that many more women than men go to university there, because for men it is vastly more likely to be socially acceptable to study abroad than for women. So that may also be playing a role here (or not; qatar is quite smaller, richer and more open than Iran)<p>On the other hand in Europe also more women than men are entering university.
I have this vivid pictures in my mind of Iranian women attending universities, becoming doctors, lawyers, etc. from before the 80's. I wasn't born yet but I always have that contrast in the back of my mind when hearing news from Iran.
Not all Islamic societies are against educating women. Another thing that sometimes happens in deeply patriarchal societies is that women are freer to engage in non-earning pursuits. So they study because they don't have to worry about supporting families but they wouldn't be allowed to work later on. It is also seen in India, e.g., where lots of women study but gender participation in the workforce has actually dropped in recent years because it isn't acceptable for them to work.
It used to be 70% in STEM, now it's 49% (edited to clarify): <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-take-over-tech-70-of-irans-science-and-engineering-students-are-women/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-ta...</a>
I've heard the theory that in countries where women are more dependent, like Muslim countries, they have much higher levels of enrolment exactly to be able to escape their dependency on male family members. Similarly in poorer countries, like India and ex-Soviet republics, the enrolment for the sciences versus arts is larger than the rest of the world.
I wish it was the same in my African country. Among the things that can make our population slow down a little (5.70 births per woman in 2016), higher education for women is the efficient one. In high school, girls where the majority but in after that ... they are in a drastic minority.