Women's Education in Iran

The history of women's education in Iran is relatively new. Girls have been allowed into schools for only a little over a century, and admitted to colleges and universities for only 75 years. Women's education is rooted in religious and political debates concerning the role of education for Iranian women and began as a hodgepodge of predominantly Western influences. “Modern schooling” for women as prescribed by the United States of America, England, France, and even Russia appeared in Iran as early as 1835.¹⁵

The first school for girls was opened that year by American missionaries in the predominantly Christian town of Rezaiyeh; it was attended by Armenian and Assyrian girls. By 1875, missionaries had opened a school for girls in Tehran that enrolled Christian, Zoroastrian, and Jewish girls. During this period, although some elite Muslim families provided their daughters with private tutors, in general, Muslim daughters were denied an education. The social and political resistance to girls' schooling came from the Muslim clergy who were concerned that education would threaten the fabric of Islamic society.¹⁶ For faithful Muslims, girls' education was only desirable when it was in harmony with Islamic strictures. It was not until 1899 that the first school for Muslim girls opened in Tehran.

By the 1920s there were approximately 58 schools in Tehran that provided education for approximately 3,000 girls.¹⁷

Gaining the support of traditional Muslim families so that they would enroll their daughters continued to be very difficult, and efforts to increase the number of Muslim girls in schools were met with indignant opposition.

It took more than a century from the opening of the first school for girls in 1895, and the forceful rule of Reza Khan of the Pahlavi dynasty (r. 1925–41), for girls and women to substantially participate in schooling in Iran. In 1932, supported by liberal intellectuals, Tehran University opened its doors to Iranian women. Admitting women to Iran's system of higher education symbolized Reza Khan's modernizing agenda that included reforms to the status of women through their participation in the educational system.¹⁸

Mohammad Reza Shah (r. 1941–79), son of Reza Khan, espoused a similar political agenda in that he looked toward Western development models for Iran's modernization and advancement. His policies regarding women's education accelerated the expansion of the secular education of girls and women in the 1960s and 1970s.¹⁹ Before the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, female enrollment in universities had reached a peak of 30.9 percent.²⁰

Although many lauded the increase in women's higher education enrollment as evidence of women's advancement under the Shah, the statistics concealed vast numbers of Iranian women who were not represented in the educational system—women who were illiterate, poor, tribal, and/or rural. For instance, rural and poor women, most often more traditional and more religious than their urban counterparts, elected not to go to Pahlavi's “secular” schools. This urban–rural and socioeconomic discrepancy illustrates how the Pahlavi's educational agenda affected only a small portion of Iranian women (and men)—those from urban upper class families with access to education.²¹

Context for Research and Role of Researcher

Conducting research in Iran is a difficult task. In a milieu of pulsing Islamic fervor, collecting data on Iran's system of higher education, which inevitably reflected young Iranians' questioning of strict religious and cultural norms, is treacherous. The data presented here were collected during fieldwork in Iran in the summer of 2002 and the winter of 2003. This was a time of heightened sensitivity, as the U.S. presence in two neighboring countries—Afghanistan and Iraq—threatened IRI's legitimacy. The Iranian college students in this study—all born after 1979—are part of a cohort known to Iranians as children of the revolution, or the “fruit of Iran's 1979 revolution.” This generation of approximately 21 million in 2001³⁰

entered school during the early 1980s and have been educated in a system that has been reformed to transmit the Islamic ideology to Iran's future generations.³¹ Ironically, it is precisely these students who are challenging the ideology under which they were raised. Exposed to other social norms, political systems, and ideologies through the media and the Internet, these college students reveal their frustrations around gender roles and expectations, challenging and questioning some of the strict religious and social norms of behavior dictated by revolutionary tenets that restrict women's advancement in Iran. The students' robust responses to the questionnaire that I administered reflect this eagerness to share their aspirations and frustrations with an outsider—one who happens to be an Iranian-American.

As both an Iranian woman and a U.S.-trained researcher, I am able to use a dual perspective, both inside and outside of the Iranian women whom I study, to design, collect, and analyze my data. Anya P. Royce would identify me as a “cultural broker”—someone who is able to communicate with two distinctly separate worlds.³²

On the one hand, the “insider's perspective” of being an Iranian woman enables me to effectively communicate with, and to a great extent understand, my participants; it is a source of knowledge and insight. On the other hand, as a Western-trained researcher I am able to follow research protocol that disconnects my own personal experiences from those of my subjects.

Data Collection

I translated a self-designed questionnaire into Farsi and subsequently edited it several times for clarity and political sensitivity. It included one page of demographic information and twenty-nine questions (nine multiple choice, twenty open ended) designed to illuminate participants' college experience.³³

The questions touched on family life as well as perceptions and experiences of college. For example, respondents were asked about dormitory living, classroom and curriculum issues, and the students' hopes and aspirations.

The questionnaires were officially sanctioned and supervised by the Ministry of Education and each college's administration. Securing permission from governmental authorities was mandatory before I approached any colleges or universities. For this research, they provided a letter granting me permission to conduct research, providing that each school would distribute, collect, and review the questionnaires before handing them back to me. Despite previous approval of the questionnaire and its distribution, one institution (Shariati University) alerted authorities that students' responses could be politically sensitive and thus 160 of the 300 completed questionnaires were confiscated.

In reaction to this official action, I used personal contacts to distribute another 100 questionnaires at Sharif and Tehran Universities, two of Iran's most prestigious institutions; ten students distributed ten surveys each. Altogether, I collected a total of 417 completed questionnaires.³⁴

Sample

Respondents in this study attended five Iranian universities: Shariati University,³⁵

one of two women's universities established after the revolution, which has a student body of approximately 4,000 and an all-female faculty and administration; Tehran Polytechnic,³⁶ a coed institution that has traditionally been male dominated, although in recent years it has seen a dramatic shift in the composition of the student body; Bu Ali Sina University, a coed institution in the city of Hamedan;³⁷ Sharif University; and Tehran University (see Table 1).³⁸ This sample can be described as “purposive” or “theoretical sampling” as are those of researchers who use the grounded theory approach.³⁹

It should be noted that access to higher education has been expanded to include Iran's minorities, and, as such, this sample captures Iran's unique linguistic⁴⁰

and ethnic diversity.⁴¹ Among the respondents are Iranian Fars (69%), Turks (15%), Kurds (8%), Lurs (6%), and Gilak (2%). It should also be noted that some of the respondents were older than the typical Western undergraduate. One explanation is that some students who fail the kunkūr take it until they pass—a practice commonly referred to as “staying behind the test” (pusht-i kunkūr hast).

Data Analysis

Data analysis in this study is based on grounded theory, an inductive approach that required each questionnaire response to be considered independently. The open-ended responses generated a myriad of issues that were coded and organized along themes. In sum, four themes emerged through the analysis as factors that paradoxically both facilitated and inhibited women's college experience: sense of self, real-world experiences, influence of family, and financial empowerment. For each of these themes, I assigned women's “voices” that were reflective. Once these “voices” were selected, they were translated from their original Farsi text. Despite my efforts to translate their statements as accurately as possible, translation inevitably loses some of the original connotation. Words that have no direct translation have been directly introduced with the closest English definition parenthesized and/or footnoted. My aim was to preserve the integrity of women's voices that were open and revealing about the realities of their lives. I purposefully have avoided quantifying responses; to do so, I believe, would have weakened my emphasis on women's words.⁴²

Finally, it should also be noted that themes were examined along ethnic, socioeconomic dimensions, as well as respondents' rural/urban background; findings later note where there were variations along these factors.

A Sense of Self: Intellectual Development but Little Academic Growth

Iranian women's college experience fosters nonacademic intellectual growth. The experience is one of self-growth, self-actualization, and self-respect. What college seems to shed from young Iranian women are their sheltered upbringings. Before college, their daily lives are literally confined to their homes; there is very little young, unmarried women can do outside the home. Freed from the dictates of family life, they begin to understand themselves. It is the first, and sometimes the only space, where Iranian women have a public presence. Within this public space, they begin to understand themselves in relationship to Iranian society. A twenty-two-year-old Iranian Lur from Malayer, a town on the outskirts of Hamedan, “sighs” that, other than studying, there are very few options for young Iranian women.

She comes from a family of nine siblings whose parents never earned their high school diploma. Her brothers have followed their father's footsteps of becoming tradesmen in the local bazaar, but all supported her to go to college. Now studying Arabic literature at Bu Ali Sina University, she alludes that entering college was a goal because there was nothing else for her to do. Similarly, another twenty-four-year-old from Sharif University, majoring in electrical engineering confirms that, in Iranian society, there is not much to do but study for young Iranian women. She states, Socializing is limited to family events where they get together with female cousins and, on rare occasions, with high school friends who come over for “mehmūnī” (a social gathering). A twenty-year-old fashion design student at Shariati briefly describes one such gathering. She states, She is originally from Isfehan, a large and touristic city where there is high exposure to foreigners. Neither of her parents holds a high school diploma, and although they are not highly educated, they afford their daughter the ability to socialize with her female friends. Her reference to music and dancing reflects her family's willingness to accept a less-stringent facet of religion. She goes on to explain, Her reference to being “lucky” is made in comparison to her college roommates who come from families where such female gatherings are shunned. For most women, entering college has meant breaking out from their tightly sheltered family upbringing. In this next quote, a twenty-two-year-old Iranian Turk studying sociology at Bu Ali Sina University explains how her personal world has expanded and how college has helped lift the “blinds” that limited her view. One of the ways in which these young women's understanding of their lives expands is by the mere virtue of moving to another city to go to college. When asked about how much traveling they had done, the majority of these women indicated that they had not traveled before college. None had traveled outside of the country; those who had “traveled” had visited relatives in a nearby city. It was also interesting to find that “travel” for many of the respondents who came from religious families meant ziyārat raftan (visiting of a holy shrine).

For most of these women, college is their first chance to leave their homes and travel beyond the boundaries of their small towns and villages. This experience alone is a leap toward personal growth that helps these women to see possibilities and shape their expectations. For these young women, entering college is an awakening—an understanding of their own self—one that stems from being on their own. Until now, their sense of self was entangled with that of their families and even their small communities. Their notion of self rested on the collective family identity and not their individual selves. Understandably, being on their own and being separated from family can also create feelings of loneliness. A twenty-year-old Iranian Geelak studying graphics at Sharif University in Tehran whose family is from Ramsar, a small town near the Caspian Sea, explains that going to college in Tehran is marked by a duality: a sometimes lonely but largely a growing experience. She states,

This loneliness seems to be more a sense of independence than being lonely per se. They are not talking about a lack of friends, isolation, desolation, and/or depression. The tanhā

ī (loneliness) is their interpretation of being and living on their own. Unraveled from controlled home environments, young college women understand their sense of self in society and the complications that this Muslim society poses for them in terms of their gender. This discovery of self for them is associated with loneliness. A twenty-two-year-old dental student at Bu Ali Sina University puts it quite succinctly:

Women's acquired sense of self manifests in their appearances on college campuses. Black pencils heavily line their eyes, rouge is painted across their cheeks, and a rainbow of colors gloss their lips. A far less-restrictive environment for women's hijāb than years before has enabled young women to reveal more hair under their rūsarī, to wear above-knee mānto,⁴⁴

and colorful shades of eye and lip makeup. IRI authorities would consider these transgressions of the traditional dress code for a devout or proper Muslim woman. A nineteen-year-old student at Shariati University told me that, “makeup is our political resistance.”⁴⁵

It is a form of self-assertion that is frustrating college administrators. At Shariati University, one administrator told me during an interview that “they [students] think that college is a fashion show.” She then posed this question; “Do women care so much about makeup in the States/West?”

These college women seem to become socially savvy, although not necessarily academically astute. Nearly all respondents expressed strong disappointment in how little they learn in college. Two general issues seem to pose as obstacles for women to gain academic knowledge: a lack of qualified professors, which is common with most developing nations; and not being taken seriously as female college students.

The scarcity of good professors is a recurring reason behind their inability to develop academically. One twenty-one-year-old dental student at Bu Ali Sina University says that,

Another student, a twenty-four-year-old textile engineering student at Tehran Polytechnic, ascribes the lack of access to knowledgeable professors: Their limited access to qualified and as they repeatedly refer to as “knowledgeable” professors is exacerbated by their gender. As most often is the case, professors are male and these “knowledgeable” professors are often out of reach to female students. Another engineering student studying biomedicine at Tehran Polytechnic describes the general situation for female students: Not being taken seriously in class is the second obstacle that disables these women's advancement academically. Their gender not only makes it difficult for them to discuss academic issues with their professors but it also seems to act as an obstacle in classroom participation. Most women complain about the way that they are treated in the classroom by their male counterparts and/or their professors. A twenty-three-year-old biology student at Bu Ali Sina University puts it this way: These young women resent that they are looked down upon in classroom environments. For some of them, the environment makes it difficult to speak up and be heard. Yet for others, the atmosphere of ridicule angers them enough that they do speak out, albeit resulting in being marked as troublemakers. A twenty-one-year-old electrical engineering student at Tehran Polytechnic University says, Indeed, these respondents expressed a strong disappointment in how little academic knowledge they acquire in college. Their words describe their college experiences as having more to do with self-realization than with academics per se. Although higher education provides little in terms of academic fodder, it nonetheless has tremendous value to these women as it widens their personal scope. In the words of one twenty-year-old respondent from Tehran, “my fahm (intellect) has gone up, not necessarily my sawād (academic knowledge).”

Real-World Experiences: Increased Hope and Opportunity for Second-Class Citizens

In Iranian society, entering college, and by extension, acquiring higher education credentials, offers the promise of social and financial mobility for young adolescents. The competition that surrounds the college entrance examination is one testament of how highly coveted college credentials are in Iran. One can imagine that, for women living in a restrictive Muslim society, college embodies hopes and dreams to transcend their realities. One respondent who had not included any demographic information anonymously said the following:

The “respect” her quote makes reference to was repeatedly mentioned by other students. The respect a woman gains by being accepted into college transforms her presence within and outside her family. This in itself is a strong motivator for young Iranian women. What this reveals about their pursuit of education is that in a society where their rights and choices are curtailed, higher education—extolled as an equal right for all in this society—has come to hold the promise of respect and recognition for women. A twenty-two-year-old literature student at Tehran University writes, They hope that college would enable them to free themselves from the limitations of their society. To many it is the road to freedom, the only equal right given to them in Iranian society. It is this “right” that characterizes the nature of determination behind today's young Iranian women's stride toward college. A twenty-year-old biomedical engineering student at Tehran Polytechnic University who comes from a relatively well-educated family—a father with an associate degree and a mother with a high school diploma—believes that in Iranian society college is women's only “right.” She states, Despite fierce academic competition that has enabled them to access higher education, young college women learn that in college their “intelligence” is not valued, much less respected. They learn that there are on dual tracks in college, separated by gender, that offer and treat them differently. What is expected of them in college is entirely different than their male counterparts—expectations that are markedly inferior. Although women state that college is their only “open door,” one can also hear such an opening leads them to an institution that treats them no differently than the broader Iranian society. They pursue college with aspirations to free themselves from societal pressures, only to find that college is just another context where gender roles play themselves out. Respondents explained their frustrations of not being respected, not having rights, not being able to do what they dream about, and not marrying who they desire. Their expected societal role is to become wives and mothers, the revered position for women in Islam. Ironically, even though Islamic tradition exalts motherhood and the institution of marriage, these women seem to believe sanctioning them to these two roles works against them in their daily realities.

Other than their expected roles as mothers and wives, women are generally isolated from participating in society. There is a connection between these women's statements of feeling marginal and their naiveté about social life. Because they have been isolated and have not experienced life in the public sphere, they feel and know they are treated lesser to men. Young women described this position, repeatedly, as marginal—as “second class citizens.”

A substandard social position is created for these women when they lack knowledge about life beyond that of their families. Their most salient feature of this seclusion is that they have not learned about diversity and/or the opposite sex. Prior to college, not only were they not allowed to socialize with the opposite sex, but also they did not come into contact with the diversity of Iranian ethnic cultures. For instance, in the Hamedan region where Bu Ali Sina University is situated, there are Kurds and Turks among the “mainstream” Fars. Yet, these ethnic communities dramatically curtail contact with one another. Amazingly, these young women grow up in towns, villages, communities without ever coming into contact with “other types of Iranians,” as was put in one questionnaire. They know these “other” ethnic groups exist, but it is a coexistence that is solidly void of contact. Thus, when young women enter college, their understanding of the variety of cultures that exist in Iran is quite limited. A twenty-one-year-old electronic engineering student at Shariati who grew up in Tehran admits that she was not aware of diversity among Iranians. She explains,

What is striking about her comment is that she grew up in the capital city, one of the only places in Iran that is demographically diverse. Yet, she has never encountered “different languages and religions.” This finding shows how little young women are exposed to and have experienced about their “world” before entering college.

More profound than learning about diversity in and about their society is their social experience with the opposite sex. College is the first public context in which young Iranian women and men come into social contact with one another. This twenty-two-year-old dental student at Bu Ali Sina University states,

This young woman's statement is not hyperbole—her perception of the opposite sex has “completely changed” in very powerful ways. Segregated from the opposite sex at an early age, it seems that she has just begun to awaken to the realization that there is indeed a male “gender,” one that she can come into contact with—as though she now realizes that the two genders can coexist beyond segregated spheres.

Although contact between the sexes is monitored and tightly controlled, young men and women surreptitiously find ways to communicate and to meet. Comments about how telephone numbers are exchanged under the watchful gaze of authorities abound among these college women. For many, the exchange of telephone numbers with the opposite sex is a “game.” Rendezvous' are orchestrated outside the college campus to avert the watchful eyes of the school administrators, even though it is known that there are just as many monitors beyond the college campus walls. One of the most notorious forms of off-campus scrutiny is conducted by a government body called the kumīta (morality squad) whose patrol cars roam city streets night and day looking for social violations. A twenty-year-old graphic design major at Shariati University describes the punishment for coming into contact with the opposite sex:

Not wearing the proper hijāb, or being in the company of an unrelated male, are two common violations for college women in this Muslim society. Depending on the severity of the misdemeanor, women and/or the person whom they are with are either reprimanded on site or taken into custody where they are served with a penalty. A twenty-year-old physics major at Tehran Polytechnic University explains that they never know exactly what their punishment may be: It appears that women take these risks of being arrested and/or humiliated to simply learn about the opposite sex. This may be viewed as physiological curiosity between the genders, but there seem to be more complicated reasons behind these stealthy encounters. It could be construed that these young women are trying to gain leverage in the social role that is expected of them in the broader Iranian society—that is, to find a suitable husband. It is their way of figuring out the game of courtship.

In one scenario, a respondent's anecdote illustrates how such a “game” between young men and women comes with a “high price tag.” She recounts a story of how authorities caught her and her boyfriend during their school holidays; a memory revealing that these women endure physical and emotional scars in their quest to find a male friend, partner, or even husband. As a twenty-four-year-old physical education major at Tehran University, she recalls her bitter memory:

Contact between men and women is risky, and the punishment can be severe. Yet, risk and cost aside, college women manage to socialize with their male college counterparts in and outside the college campuses.

Finding a suitable husband is a powerful subthread in these women's words. For many, finding a man who has an equal, if not a better, college education seems a difficult task. There is a social stigma connected to marrying men who are less educated, and in today's Iran, this is an increasingly challenging agenda. A twenty-four-year-old Iranian Kurd majoring in music at Tehran University explains,

Another twenty-three-year-old electronic engineering major at Tehran Polytechnic looks at the situation quite pragmatically. She says, Thus, their college degrees eventually make it more difficult for them to find a suitable husband. Their “education” tilts the balance against them, because Iranian men with lower credentials might consider college-educated women as more demanding, less subservient, and more independent—all qualities that could threaten the institution of marriage in this Muslim nation. “Independence,” after all, is construed as characteristic of Westernized lives where a sense of self supersedes cohesion of the family unit. Independent, or not, Iranian society perceives educated women as such. In a Muslim society where women are purportedly treated as second-class citizens, independence creates a strong tension that makes the lives of these college-going women difficult.

College elevates hopes and increases opportunities, because only with a college degree can these women have a better chance of becoming participating members of society, understanding themselves and feeling independent for the very first time, coming into contact with the opposite sex, and increasing their value in marriage. In reality, however, this promise fails. Out of college, these women will most likely not find employment, will not gain independence, and will have difficulty finding a suitable marriage partner. They do not get integrated into society, and, educated, they are relegated to the confines of their homes. Isolation from the public sphere continues after college. In the words of one twenty-one-year-old woman from Hamedan, “college is a four-year detour from our father's house to our husband's.”

Family Influence: A Force That Both Enables and Disables

Another relevant factor in the college experience of Iranian women is the role of family, defined as both immediate and extended. I found families to play a crucial role in enabling women to succeed in gaining access to college but, at the same time, limiting their life before and after college. I also found that women either described their families as mazhabī (religious) and/or referenced them as sunnatī (traditional). There is a fine line between these two descriptors. Although some families are both religious and traditional, not all religious families are traditional.

In the above quote, a twenty-two-year-old Iranian-Turk at Shariati University describes her family as mazhabī but not sunnatī. Her family lives in the city of Qom, known for its theological schools, holy shrines, and the Islamic governing body. Her family is observant: for example, they pray five times a day, fast during the holy month of Ramadan, and attend rawdha.⁴⁷ She distinguishes her family from a sunnatī family, one that would follow traditions that are either rooted in the Persian heritage and/or Islam. For instance, a sunnatī father would decide his daughter's marriage partner, despite her judgment. Sunnatī families are generally strict and patriarchal.

Surprisingly, both religious and/or traditional families are described as supporters and facilitators of women gaining access to college. For instance, women discuss how their entire families helped them study for the college entrance examination. A twenty-two-year-old physics major at Tehran Polytechnic who comes from a village, Harseen, and a mazhabī family of six children whose parents are both illiterate, explains:

The above quote illustrates how an illiterate mother whose life was devoted to household chores proffered whatever help she could to help her daughter to succeed—that being nutritious foods.

Another twenty-year-old graphic design major at Shariati University states that her brother and sister cleared out of their shared bedroom in their Hamedan apartment so that she could have ample space to study. Similar stories of “family sacrifice” and dedication to women's education abound in these women's responses. Most women seem to attribute their success in gaining access to college to their families. However, their comments are also balanced with a sense of needing to escape a “confining” family environment. In this next quote, a woman from the village of Marvdasht studying biology at Bu Ali University describes her family environment as “suffocating”:

One would suspect that smaller towns might be more inhibiting of girls' freedom. Yet, comments that addressed women's need to escape the family environment are equally prevalent among small communities, such as Iranian ethnic minorities (e.g., Kurd, Lur, Turk) as they are among those who are Fars and from major cities such as Tehran, Shiraz, or Mashad. Ostensibly, families who live in small towns have to abide by stricter local religious and traditional customs as there is a tendency to monitor neighbors' lives. Indeed, among those who come from smaller villages and towns, there is more mention of their families' concern about “what other people say.” However, a need to break free from the family environment is mentioned across the spectrum, regardless of the size of community, ethnic background, and/or parents' level of education. Whether they come from a small town or a city, or whether their parents were educated, these women seem to covet being on their own, having independence, and breaking away from their families' control. A twenty-year-old Iranian Kurd from the small town of Sanandaj explains, Ironically, “shelter” is used to refer to being away from family life, as though college becomes the refuge that “protects” them and offers them independence. In the eyes of these women, family control is disguised as family support. Even though this support has helped them to get to college, they would just as much like to break away from it. A woman from an entirely different background, a twenty-four-year-old student studying atomic engineering at Sharif University, believes that entering college has meant gaining independence. She comes from an urban, educated family and was raised in one of Iran's major cities—Mashad. Both her college-educated parents work: her father is an aeronautical specialist and her mother a nurse. She also identifies with the sense of independence that college life affords young Iranian women and explains that, Despite the fact that these young women express their desire to gain independence and to seek shelter away from home, the question that remains is why do religious and traditional families extend them leeway to gain an education? One would surmise that Islamic tenets urge women to become educated so that they would be better mothers. However, I found that the primary and often only reason for families' support is to increase the potential marriage possibilities of their daughters. A twenty-three-year-old Iranian Lur from Nahavand attending Bu Ali Sina University and majoring in Social Work believes that Iranian families see college as the vehicle that can help women gain better social positions, particularly through marriage. Both her parents—her father a government employee and her mother a housewife—neither of whom completed their high school, strongly promote college. She states, “The better place in society” and the “financial possibilities” this woman alludes to are both ordained through marriage. Thus, the promotion of college by families—both religious and traditional—stems from an understanding that education will help improve their daughters' future chances of marrying into a higher or at least equal to their own social stratum. In this economically deprived nation, obtaining an education is the only hope for a better life. These families do not feel that allowing their daughters to become educated contradicts their Islamic beliefs. In fact, both the Qur

an and the Traditions of the Prophet (Hadith or Sunnah) state that education is the duty of every Muslim (male and female). In addition, because institutions of higher education are “Islamicized” under the IRI, families accept and encourage their daughters to pursue education. As such, they are willing to modify their religious and/or traditional beliefs to align with contemporary pressures facing their daughters' future. Families as enablers make accommodations for their daughters' future; as disablers, they set restrictions before and after college.

Financial Empowerment: Preparing for Jobs That May Not Materialize

Financial empowerment was a fourth theme that emerged. Regardless of their socioeconomic background, women indicated that they would not like to be dependent on their families or husbands and that they would like to be able to work. Finding a job is closely equated to freedom, independence, respect, and social status—all qualities, in their opinion, of which Iranian women are deprived. They hope college would enable them to find employment, allowing them to perhaps parlay the financial gains and economic independence into other less tangible but vitally important rewards that are shortchanged them in Iranian society. In the following quote, a nineteen-year-old computer science major at Bu Ali University elaborates on the importance of working after earning her college degree. She considers working not only as an essential financial component of her future goals but also one that is associated with social and intellectual status.

She voices an undeniably strong-willed desire by college women to have a public role, specifically one that is participating in the labor market. She is talking about feelings of being empowered and of having self-respect gained through financial independence. Voices like hers reveal that these women's ideal is that a college degree will allow them not to be financial burdens on their future husbands. In other words, they hope their education leads them to financial independence. A twenty-year-old mechanical engineering student at Tehran Polytechnic reveals chinks in the powerful social model that dictates women's roles as mothers and wives. Statements such as this reveal that women certainly do want to get jobs, whether for financial reasons or for the sake of what she refers to as their “psychosocial condition.” It is important for them to feel they are contributing members of society, one that is not necessarily achieved through their prescribed Islamic duty as mothers and wives.

However, inasmuch as these women would like to “push” their way into the workforce, the Iranian labor market fails to facilitate these college-educated women. In commenting about finding jobs after college, women list a host of obstacles they foresee as barring them from the labor market. One twenty-three-year-old engineering major at Tehran Polytechnic places the issue as women's broader societal confrontation, conjuring an image she calls a “battle”:

The step by step visual encapsulates women's sense of being subjugated in this society and resonates in other women's responses. Many ascribe this to the Iranian farhang (culture), mard sālārī (patriarchy), or farhang e Islami (a merging of religion and tradition), which relegate female roles firmly to the domestic sphere, or in general, to an inferior position.⁴⁸ Interacting with other societal forces, such as politics or the economy, this male-favoring culture is further intensified. A twenty-four-year-old chemical engineering student at Tehran Polytechnic University states, Her quote summons an inhospitable working environment, a by-product of a farhang that favors men in the labor market. These women indicate that, if there is a job to be found, it goes to men who are seen as the primary bread earners, albeit that the job could be performed better by a female. Such an assertion has also been cited by studies on the Iranian labor market⁴⁹ and are further confirmed by those who do the “hiring.” At Tehran Polytechnic University, an administrator stated that, even though they prefer female employees, the jobs are ultimately given to men. When asked to elaborate, he states, The administrator's explanation reveals that farhang goes beyond religion and tradition; it also includes economic and social factors that shape culture. His reasons for why a job would go to a man over a woman have more to do with economy and social biases than religion or tradition. One should also note that religious law also configures into notions of culture. In this Islamic society, religious law dictates that a woman needs her husband's or father's permission to work outside the home. Without their consent, women—educated or not—may not hold employment. Farhang is multifarious: socially, if a married woman was to hold employment that would reflect poorly on her husband as a capable provider for the family; legally, the man is afforded the right to refuse his wife from employment and, thus, to block her economic independence. Independence threatens the core Islamic unit—the family structure. Withholding economic freedom from women ensures that women remain obediently within the confines of family, thus preserving a pure Islamic society. A twenty-one-year-old Iranian Turk majoring in graphic design at Tehran University discusses the complicated nature of her desire to work in the Iranian context: This woman references incomprehensible cultural and religious traditions as “superstitious.” She is frustrated that she cannot make decisions for herself and that she has to live out her life according to predestined dogmas.

Despite college women's expressed desire to work, Iranian women continue to remain largely outside the workforce. In fact, only 15.1 percent of Iranian women work for wages outside the home.⁵⁰

This figure is not only significantly lower than for Iranian men, it is among the lowest in the world.⁵¹ The prospect of finding a job after obtaining a college degree seems formidable, considering the boundaries that are set for women in Iranian society. Instead, those women who financially need to work end up taking traditionally female jobs. For example, a twenty-one-year-old female electrical engineering student at Sharif University, where one's kunkūr scores have to be among the highest in the nation to be admitted, feels frustrated that she worked so hard to get to college and compete with men in her classes, only to find that her best alternative after graduation is teaching, an acceptable female profession. What good is their higher education, then, if society cannot utilize women's education? What are these women supposed to do with that education that has been training them, supposedly, for a job that will never materialize? The answers to these questions are the paradox of women's higher education in Iranian society.