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Iran Universities To Ban Women From 77 Fields of Study
New submitter jasper160 writes "An August 20th, 2012 announcement from Iran places restrictions on female university students. Iran will be cutting 77 fields of study from the female curriculum, making them male-only fields. Science and engineering are among those affected by the decree. 'The Oil Industry University, which has several campuses across the country, says it will no longer accept female students at all, citing a lack of employer demand. Isfahan University provided a similar rationale for excluding women from its mining engineering degree, claiming 98% of female graduates ended up jobless.' The announcement came soon after the release of statistics showing that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the sciences. Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women."
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi wrote to the UN that this effort is "part of the recent policy of the Islamic Republic, which tries to return women to the private domain inside the home as it cannot tolerate their passionate presence in the public arena,"
I'm sure if the world scorns them strongly enough on this they'll come around on human rights issues.
/is sarcasm dead? ok I'll turn out the lights.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Apparently lowering women to the level men want them to be is easier than raising men to the level of the women.
This is what you get when you base your life on what you imagine your invisble friend in the sky wants you to do.
The Iranian people are historically a fairly progressive bunch. Cutting off women who have become wage earners, those on their way, and the modernization of that country is going to seriously piss of the population. I see another revolution in their very near future.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
My opinion might come from living in a "western" country, but I just don't get why some countries seem to want to stay in the dark ages.
Are they oblivious to the fact that their region as once the "mecca" of science and math?...and maybe could be again if they tried?
I have worked in both a female dominated field (child psychology) and a male dominated field (software engineering). Teams are always better with a touch of gender balance. Every single time.
I find it interesting that the primary reason cited is that women can't jet jobs in the industry, so there is no point sending them through school.
Contrast this to India, where many/most women have been going to school for years, but for traditional/cultural reasons, end up as home makers, and very seldom take long-term careers.
I'm not defending either culture, but at least Iran is being honest about it's sexist traditions. India - not so much.
I have 2 daughters. While the USA still has a long way to go towards full gender equality, I'm grateful that fate has me raising them here in the USA rather than in Iran.
Ultimately this will backfire on the insecure men who rule Iran. They are afraid of empowering women but countries that do will run circles around them.
When I went to university we didn't even have 77 fields of study.
Now, you kids get off my lawn.
I say that for one decade, you place the same restrictions on men that you have on women, and allow women to have the rights of men.
That'll learn 'em.
Well then, the US government better hurry up then with its plans to invade Iran, because, god forbid, it may become a democracy. Again. The US and UK can't stand that.
You can't handle the truth.
That trick only works when women have the right to say no.
I didn't recognize Todd Akin as being an Iranian name, but the nature of the thinking seems about the same.
Sounds like something a bunch of stoners might say... oh wait, what?
But the flip side is that if women stay more "private" and at home, kids and families benefit. American physical and mental health has been getting worse and worse as both parents usually work and start eating crap. Now everybody is obese. Everybody is busy and stressed so they spend less quality time with the rest of the family. Kids start hanging out with bad kids. Divorce is still 50% last time I checked. Stress disorders abound.
Yes, but why do women have to be the ones to stay home? Aside from the first 6 months or so of nurturing, any household task that can be handled by a woman could be handled by a man. Having some kind of work/life balance is good. Dumping all those responsibilities on an individual just because of their gender or some historical notion of roles is unjust.
Iran had a secular democracy back in 1953. The west, especially England and the US, and overthrew it with a dictatorship, much more ruthless than the present government.
As the left was the great fear, the dictatorship jailed, (effectively) exiled and killed the left. When the people overthrew the foreign-backed government, the only power left in the country were the mullahs, and bazaar shop keepers, and that is who is in control now.
Harvard only began admitting women in 1999, although the first openings of that were in the 1960s. It's amusing to see westerners, who were just invading Iraq and torturing and forcing Abu Ghraib detainees to masturbate on camera, are now all sanctimonious about how Iranian universities are preparing classes. Iran is a paradise of academic freedom for women compared to US ally Saudi Arabia, why don't we hear about that? And why all the concern about women's studies in Iran, something Americans can do nothing about because the US doesn't even have diplomatic relations with Iran, at the same time the US is stepping up pressure on Iran on other fronts? The US is who overthrew Iran's secular democracy in 1953, then the CIA worked with the Savak to wipe out the left. Now they complain the mullahs have too much control over the universities. No Slashdot headlines about women's education in Saudi Arabia. Women can't even drive in Saudi Arabia, where's the noise about that? As there is none, it's clear this is just more propaganda as the war drums are being beaten. As smug, hypocritical, imperialist westerners stick their fingers into the Middle East, torture their people in prisons like Abu Ghraib, kill off and take over new land in the West Bank with US funds - you can be sure the inevitable 9/11s will come in response, as some people will always resist imperialism and foreign tyranny.
There is nothing in what you said that should prevent women from getting an education.
Just because they get an education, that doesn't mean that they are required to get a job. An education is good even for people who do jobs that don't require one. Education introduces us to different ways of solving problems and different ways of thinking creating a more well rounded person.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It's interesting that the text was written by a person who is now the ruler of a totalitarian theocracy.
The Christian community then does not include the Convservative/Fundamentalist sects that do the exact opposite?
In the USA all candidates for office need to be pre-approved by corporate masters or you don't get on the ballot. Or if you do get on the ballot, they won't let you in the debates. And if you have your own events, even if they draw over 10,000 attendees they won't even mention you in the news.
So yeah, it's about as accurate to say that Iran has a democracy as it is to say that the USA has a democracy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I hear there's a shortage of engineers in the US. Maybe we should grant asylum to women seeking engineering degrees over here and kill two birds with one stone.
I've been really worried lately, what with all the tech and engineering outsourcing to so many other "third world" countries that have improved their education systems so much that they've surpassed the US, that I'm soon going to be lucky to make the same amount as a programmer in India or China. Every country that sets themselves back 50 or 100 years in this global economic race by eliminating half of their available productive technical workforce only improves my chances and makes it that much more likely that diesel-sucking semitrucks will still be delivering tons of beef grown in South America to my local Safeway in my old age. Thanks, Iran!
As long as it is legitimate oppression. Because the woman's body has a way to just shut the whole thing down and deal with the oppression.
So they'll be fine. Everything will work out fine.
Beware of the Leopard.
What of course is lying through statistics.
Women who exhibit the same patterns as men tend to earn as much as and often more than men. The trick is finding female oranges to compare to male oranges and not female apples to male oranges.
If a woman has the same educational attainment, works the same job for the same number of hours and years in position their pay is typically the same or better. But that almost never happens.
Women have babies, men don't. All of the differences trace back to that inescapable fact of biology and everything else flows from that. If you don't make it clear you aren't planning on having a baby you won't get picked for any position that can't easily cope with a sudden unplanned absence of up to a year. That right there will explain a fair amount of any measured difference. And of course many women DO actually have babies, which interrupts their career track, especially since many choose to take more time away than the purely medically required absence. Women tend to select careers which provide the work flexibility to permit their family obligations, another significant contributer to measured differences. And while we might argue endlessly whether it is good, correct, etc. there are still more cases of the male partner in a marriage getting a job offer that requires relocation disrupting the female's career track. Add all that up and you have most of the difference.
Now add in the fact, again we can argue endlessly about the rightness of it, whether it can or should be changed by social policy, etc., that men and women have different ideas of what a 'good job' is. Whether they can do it or not, women don't tend to seek jobs in a lot of industries that pay rather well but have difficult working conditions, require erratic schedules with a lot of overtime, etc. This preference is fairly uniform whether the female has children or not, plan on having children, is or is not married, etc. There is also a fairly pronounced difference in the selection of majors and all majors do not pay equally.
Democrat delenda est
Correlation is not causation and all, but its basically been shown that societies which discriminate based on things like race, gender, and religion, enjoy less economic success than those which don't.
I would speculate this is because it create a barrier that results in something other than the allocation of the people with the most talent and or desire to do $job to that particular job.
The Islamic world wonders why it does not have the influence and power on the world stage the West does and idiocy like this is a big reason why.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"Blowback" is real and US politicians don't seem to learn from history and keep tinkering where they shouldn't be tinkering.
Table-ized A.I.
Stopping women from working/learning is a specific example. All of the religions mentioned have faith based rules that are generally not as harmul, but do exist. Not eating pork, no contraception, can't use modern medicine, etc. Simply put, they have rules in place that are based on what their invisible friend in the sky is imagined to have said. ... and yes, I do ealize that some of these once had a historical purpose (not eating pork for example), but I'm sure at one point women were less safe in public as well.
I often see this statistic thrown around, but I rarely see anything more than the percentage. As an engineer, I have found that women earn the same amount that I do, if not more when they get to the same level of experience.
But then I wonder: are they comparing every job equally, and the averaging the pay? Clearly, there are more men in engineering, so I wonder how this is balanced in these averages, if it is at all? And then, do they equally not balance based on other female-dominated fields such as education.
I say this as a male that is ready to eat his own words, but I am tired of being accused of having it easy simply because I am a male. I have literally never seen a woman being shorted in their paycheck because of anything except experience or talent, and even in those situations it seems that many women have been given more leeway out of fear.
I don't like discrimination for anything beyond experience and talent, and maybe it's because I do not accept it for any other reason that I don't let the people around me commit it.
Willow Wilson is an American writer who converted to Islam, married an Egyptian and now lives partly in her husband's country. I'm not a big fan (I have issues with her understanding of events and her selective condemnation of bigotry) but her memoir Butterfly Mosque is must reading if you pretend to have any understanding of the way people live and think in Islamic countries.
Her account of her trip to Iran is illuminating. She had assumed that Iranian, living as they do in a theocracy, would be even more conservative in lifestyle and dress than the old-fashioned Egyptian Muslims she lives among, and had dressed for the trip accordingly. She was surprised to find that Iranian women actually dress less conservatively than Egyptian women. Iranians, according to her, are not so much cowed by the Islamist rulers as unwilling to take violent action to overthrow them. This she blames on many years of revolution and war.
If her picture is right, neither the Islamists or the more liberal Iranians are in a position to really force their views on the other. People go through the motions of obeying all the religious restrictions on their lives, but push back — hard — when the mullahs go too far. I think this is going to be a moderately unstable situation with no real resolution for a long time
"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's"
Separation of Church and state was preached by Jesus, and it is no coincidence that it emerged in Christian Europe, even if Europe took centuries to start following that teaching.
People who complain of the medieval European theocracies are guilty of anachronism. The whole world was theocratic then, and it took centuries for someone to think "outside the box".
See http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
Exactly. When it's 'my' religion, anyone who does anything bad is not really part of 'my' religion. When it's 'their' religion, anyone who does anything bad is indicative of 'their' religion.
Don't you know? The only true Christians are the ones who believe exactly the same things as I do. We're not all stupid and take all of the Bible literally except for the parts that we don't. Some of us don't take all of the Bible literally, except for the parts we do.
Now, if you excuse me, there's a slut in the market square and I need to stone her for adultery.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I don't recall anything like that. In fact, I recall quite a few people concerned that if the US got involved, it would actually turn public support in favor of the existing regime.
Surprising as it may sound, the people of most countries do not, usually, want a foreign power meddling in their affairs. And the US (and UK) is extremely unpopular in Iran, because of prior meddling.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That particular kind of misogyny happens, but is not universal, on Slashdot.
And SO WHAT some basement nerds think like that? In the real world, women dominate HR departments, so it is hard to believe the feminist claims that they are systematically, unfairly and gravely discriminated against by employers.
Second, there is a difference between acknowledging the reality that women and men are different, and actually discriminating against women based on real or perceived differences.
Women and men have equal _dignity_, but it doesn't mean that their talents and dreams are the same.
Of course, women should be _allowed_ to study and choose their careers, and be judged fairly by their employers, but it just happens that they usually prefer being a psychologist or a nurse or a teacher than being a combat soldier. This is, in fact, (partially) natural. Even if unfair misogyny is completely eliminated, there will still be more male than female soldiers, due to natural differences.
In short:
If you see a woman being unfairly discriminated against when she wants to pursue her chosen career, and you complain, then you are a common-sense person.
If you complain and scream bloody murder because the gender distribution is not 50%/50% in all professions, then you are a crackpot feminist.
You know, if this mad any sense at all, I'd be running a bunch of businesses and undercutting everybody else by that 'gender gap' percentage.
So if women can really be hired for the same jobs with the same experience, with the same work ethic and ability as men, and they do not require anything extra in terms of any type of insurance, health care, then I would be running female only companies making a killing because of my lower prices.
--
Here is what this statistic does not take into account: the higher cost of having women as employees. Women cost more as employees, and they will cost even more with all this new legislation, from the 'condoms for pay' to the 'equal pay', it's all going to push prices higher.
Do you know why women cost more than men to have as employees? I am not even going to talk about maternity leave, etc., I am going to address the much higher liability cost.
The liability cost alone is enough to make one's hair stand on its ends. Having women as employees is very dangerous because of the possible lawsuits. All this sexual discrimination and all the sexual harassment lawsuits that can result from women working for a company, men just don't cost as much.
What do you think happens when government says: you, the employer, have to give your employees something, say minimum wage or 3 weeks of paid vacation or whatever? What do you think it means? It just means one thing: the government is buying votes by making it look as if the employees are getting something for nothing, but in reality the employees are paying for this.
Minimum wage means that fewer people are hired, fewer jobs exist. There are jobs that are viable at half the minimum wage, but not at minimum wage, those are now illegal, nobody can get hired for those, nobody can start their employment experience in those jobs.
With vacation or whatever else that you think you are getting for 'free', it's simple - you are not getting it for free, it's part of your pay. You are just not getting paid in money.
With medical insurance it's the same thing, the difference being that you don't have to pay income taxes on that insurance package, so it's a huge incentive to get as big a health insurance package as possible, because if you had to buy it out of your earnings, you'd be buying it with your POST-income tax salary.
There is nothing free.
The so called 'gender gap' is nonsense created by the government regulations.
You can't handle the truth.
The burden of proof lies with the party making the more bizarre assertion.
and I am very happily married man. But I can definitely see an advantage for men having women in college. In fact, not having women is, well, kind of odd.
Particularly with there being no homosexuals in Iran...
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Read How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too) by David P. Goldman for the reason behind this.
In all societies, fertility rates have a very strong inverse proportional relationship to women's educational level. The fertility rate in Iran is crashing - which I wasn't aware of until reading Goldman. It has fallen below replacement level; the population is aging and will be heavy with old people and the cost of supporting them in the coming decades. Ahmadinejad has been exhorting families to have more children to no avail. The next logical step is to enforce a lesser level of education for women.
Bottom line: keep the women dumb and they'll have more babies. History prove this to be true.
But nice try there.
If only we were not on the internet.
Where one could check and see that while the Christianity arrived in the Middle East at about the same time as Islam, it is the later which spread across North Africa and further East in the following 100 years.
AFTER WHICH the golden age and the scientific revolution started in the Islamic world, lasting for 500 years.
You know what is that period referred to as in the Christian world? 6th to 13th century?
The Dark Ages.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens