Iran shows fear of women getting ahead by simply barring them from being educated.

Last week we asked, is Saudi Arabia’s policy of segregating women designed to help or hinder their economic independence? Tricky to answer – but in Iran, things are a little more clear-cut. Its government has just announced that 36 of the country’s universities will be barring women from enrolling on a total of 77 BA and BSc degrees for at least the next year.

Why? Two reasons are offered: firstly, a lack of demand for women employees in the jobs these courses work towards…and secondly, quoting a senior Iranian education official:

Some fields are not very suitable for women’s nature.

– Abolfazl Hasani, as quoted at Rooz.

In other words – women aren’t wanted in these professions, even if they were capable of excelling in them, which allegedly they aren’t.

Time to quote some damning statistics.

• Women account for nearly 60% of University students in Iran. (New York Times).
• In 2011, women outnumbered men 3 to 2 in successfully passing university entrance exams. (Telegraph)
• In 2009, just 15% of the Iranian workforce (3.5 million) were women, as compared to the global average of 45%. (Payvand News Of Iran)
• In the same year, less than 4% of employed women were in senior, executive or managerial positions. (Payvand News Of Iran)
• Iran’s University of Isfahan justified barring women from taking its mining engineering degree by stating that 98% of the course’s female graduates ended up unemployed. (Telegraph)

In a way, it’s a neat argument: the education system is barring women to avoid wasting money teaching them professions they will find it difficult to find employment in. Why would they find it so difficult? Because of endemic sexual discrimination.

It’s also easy to construct an argument for this being a panicked reaction to the development of the women’s rights movement in Iran, as follows: under Iranian law, women need the permission of their husbands to work. This means that a career-minded woman would either be choosier with their choice of husband, or refuse to seek one altogether – just the kind of erosion of a traditionalist way of life that a high-ranking theocrat would be afraid of.

To Iranian Nobel laureate and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi, it stinks of repression – and she’s demanding the United Nations launches an investigation:

The aim [of single-sex degree courses] is that women will give up their opposition and demands for their own rights.

  – Shirin Ebadi, as quoted in the Telegraph.

 A year ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described proposals to segregate students as “shallow and unwise,” and called for their cancellation.

It seems a year is a long time in Iranian politics.

Image: Paul Keller.

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The best of the week at EcoSalon, hand-quoted for your perusing pleasure.

“What to make of news that the Saudis are building a women-only industrial city in the Eastern Province of Hofuf – with similar plans for four more cities elsewhere?”

“It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.”

“With that, I vowed to concoct my own variety (and acquire an ice cream maker to get the consistency just right). So, here we are, nearly 730 days later.”

“The seaside city is still dotted with my French Canadian relatives who must still believe that religious statues bleed and cry when we sin and masturbate.”

“Hummus is grey and tan and dull; it is the color of hopelessness.”

The post The Friday 5: Say What? Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

A fascinating social experiment is about to begin in the Arab state of Saudi Arabia.

Under Saudi Sharia law, women are accorded anything but equal rights – most famously, they must be chaperoned while outdoors and are forbidden to drive (although enforcement of the latter is lax in rural areas). Far more importantly, their economic freedom is severely curtailed: while some 70% of University attendees are female, women make up less than 15% of the workforce. Progressive? Hardly.

So, what to make of news that the Saudis are building a women-only industrial city in the Eastern Province of Hofuf – with similar plans for four more cities elsewhere? As the Guardian reports here, it’s a project developed by the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (MODON), from a proposal by a group of Saudi businesswomen. The stated aim is to provide a place for women to develop their own economic potential, including – to quote businesswoman Hussan al-Aun – “a specialised training centre to help women develop their talents and train them to work at factories. This is essential to cut unemployment among our female graduates.”

It’s very easy to see this as a cold-blooded money-grabbing move by a government keen to find an apparently progressive way to reinforce sexual segregation while boosting the economy – but is it that simple? Last year King Abdullah announced that from 2015, women could vote in local elections and consultative assemblies – and earlier this year a ban on employing women in lingerie and cosmetic shops was overturned. These are not token reforms.

It’s also important to note that the best way to start a revolution is to gather together members of an underdog class in one place and give them the tools to develop a power base – or, put another way by Zoe Williams at the Guardian:

…when you educate people, refuse to let them work and then suddenly unleash them, en masse, into economic productivity, that’s almost an open invitation to them to be better than you.

None of this will be lost to the pro-segregationists – and let’s not forget that this is the country where private companies are violating employment law by openly hiring only single or non-pregnant married women. However this plays out, there will be considerable pressure to undermine any unofficial independence movement for women, or the ascendancy of women’s rights in the Saudi workplace. But for now? In a region housing some of the world’s richest people, money brings respect – and demonstrating a flair for earning money could be exactly the way Saudi women could fight against systemic prejudice.

Image: zbigphotography

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A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

Artisanal. Curated. Tweeps. All words we love to hate. Thankfully, someone curated compiled a whole list of them. [Via The Atlantic]

Are travel guidebooks bending over backwards to excuse the world’s “thuggish regimes?” One writer poses that we should think about what is written within the pages of some of the most well respected travel literature. [Via Foreign Policy]

Why we need to start embracing germs. [Via Slate]

A Saudi Arabian female athlete is called a “prostitute” for competing at the Olympics. And she’s only 16. [Via The Frisky]

Equalizing the gender employment gap? As it turns out, women lost fewer jobs during the recession. Maybe times are changing. [Via Wall Street Journal]

Omelette in bed? This and more for the morning after, including a spoonful of peanut butter. [Via How About We]

The “Daddy State”: a place where male politicians dictate how women care for our infants and decide what birth control is most suitable for us. [Via Huffington Post]

There’s still time to catch up on your summer reading! If you’re interested in food, start with this list. [Via Grist]

Just how would Paul Ryan as Vice President affect women’s health? Here are five reasons the answer is not looking good. [Via Think Progress]

Put the essence of summer in a jar: make your own sun-dried tomatoes. [Via Big Girls Small Kitchen]

Image: jwyg

The post Link Love: Words We Love to Hate, Foods for the Morning After and Reasons to Embrace Germs appeared first on EcoSalon.

It can be more awkward than a pair of Spanx slipping down at a party, yet in Saudi Arabia, male clerks routinely fit women for bras and underwear as the only sales clerks at shops selling intimate apparel. But that could change if a group of Saudi women have their way.

They have launched a bold campaign urging their sisters to only patronize the country’s few women-only lingerie stores. This, until Saudi Arabia puts a law on the books that states only women should work at these stores. I feel for these women, having recently experienced a hands-on male clerk at a store selling apparel from India. There was no fitting room and I was desperate to get an outfit for the Oscars, so I submitted. But it was bizarre to have a strange man zipping up my blouse while other males looked on.

It’s even more bizarre in Saudi Arabia where religious police keep order. As emphasized in a report from BBC, the widespread acceptance of men sizing up lingerie for female customers runs counter to the ultra-conservative customs in a society which doesn’t allow men and women to be alone in a room together if they aren’t married or related.

Reem Asaad (above), an economics professor at Dar al-Hikma Women’s College in Jeddah, is leading the boycott because she argues male strangers employed as clerks aren’t just measuring cup sizes but checking girls out.

“The way that underwear is being sold in Saudi Arabia is simply not acceptable to any population living anywhere in the modern world,” says Asaad. “This is a sensitive part of women’s bodies. You need to have some discussions regarding size, colour and attractive choices and you definitely don’t want to get into such a discussion with a stranger, let alone a male stranger. I mean this is something I wouldn’t even talk to my friends about.”

Apparently, male lingerie clerks aren’t resisting the campaign. The Associated Press reports that a petition to hire women to man these shops would relieve salesmen of the embarrassment they also face when selling bedroom-only attire. Skimpy lacy underthings are popular in the country where strict interpretation of Islamic law requires women to cover themselves in black robes in public. The AP reports that women cannot use fitting rooms to try on garments because the notion of women disrobing in a public place is not acceptable. As a result, women have to eyeball the garments and try them on once they get home.

The boycott, launched last week, urges the kingdom to enforce a 2006 law saying only female staff can be employed in women’s apparel stores. It was never enacted due to protests from hard-liners opposed to women being employed in malls where the sexes interact. The only negative effect is that by hiring women only it will mean fewer jobs for men. Already, 10 percent are currently out of work.

Photos: AP

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