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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,"
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
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.
Because stupid people historically have been easier to control. It helps you to maintain your power.
They're just trying to head things off there.
jk
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not sure which western country you're coming from, but we see a lot of that here in the US as well. There is a strong call to turn back 300 years of progress and make religion a guiding force in our government and educational systems.
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.
How the conversation went:
Did you see the latest statistics about how women are better than men?
Yes, I am concerned, because if they are better they will get the better jobs, have more power, and start making us their bitch
I agree, I am scared of women too.
I know, lets make it so they will never succeed!
Brilliant!
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.
See, this would never happen in the US. Women's bodies have mechanisms to shut down legitimate denials of educational opportunities.
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
I find it so fascinating. I've known many Persians. To a man and woman, they were intelligent, passionate, vocal and idealistic. So how did a nation with such cultural depth, such delightful people, so much going for them go so far off the track. Of course, the religious folks in Florida are trying to amend their state constitution to make all abortion illegal. That would include abortion in the cases of rape, incest and where the Mother's life is in imminent danger. The folks lobbying for this law have declared that a complete human being and citizen of the United States exists the instance sperm hits egg. By this definition, when a doctor collects 20 eggs for in vitro fertilization, each and every one of those eggs is now a constitutionally protected human being with inalienable rights. You must now bring every one of those blastocysts to full term or its murder. The ramifications from fertility all the way through medical science are deeply disturbing. When a doctor reverts one of your skin cells back into a pruropotent stem cell, is that a whole person too? It could be used to clone you, why not.
We need to have a little conversation with the world. Your involvement with the big invisible man in the sky is very special and we don't want to get in the way of your Bromance. HOWEVER, here are 350 scrict global rules you need to follow to ensure we all get along. You know simple things. You don't get to enslave anybody in particular the female half of the human race. You don't get to practice holy war, that's a no no. You don't get a free pass on being ignorant, superstitious, and committedly stupid. You can't simply ignore the real world and engage in dangerous or social destructive practices because your book said it was okay. Most of all, you are not the single purveyors of a one and only true anything. You don't get to shove your beliefs down the throats of other, you don't get to legislate your beliefs down the throats of others and you don't get to use force or duress to make others accept your beliefs. This is neither holy nor moral and when you behave this way god is most unhappy. Haven't you notice the hurricane approaching the Republican National Convention?
"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
I think you have a typo. Let me fix it.
Iranian's votes don't actually count, regardless of gender.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I find it so fascinating. I've known many Persians. To a man and woman, they were intelligent, passionate, vocal and idealistic. So how did a nation with such cultural depth, such delightful people, so much going for them go so far off the track.
America happened.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Tip: stop using the words 'men' and 'women'. Use the word 'people'. Problem dissappears. Why? Because it's not a problem to begin with.