Yasamin Manteghi

Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi ‎announced that more women-only universities will be founded in the country’s provinces. ‎The creation of women-only schools is pursued at a time when gender-separation and ‎gender quotas, including other anti-women legislation is fiercely opposed by Iranian ‎women’s rights activists.‎

New Women-Only Universities‎
The minister of the ninth administration (since the 1979 revolution) made the ‎announcement this week, and added that the request for such institutions originated in the ‎provinces. He told Mehr news agency, “The ministry of science has no specific plans to ‎launch women-only universities, but its measures in this regard were the results of ‎requests originating from provinces.”‎

‎“We founded the Hazrat Massumeh (women-only) University in Qom and Al-Zahra ‎‎(women-only) University had been created in Tehran much earlier. Currently, if the ‎provinces announce their interest to create women-only universities, the ministry is ready ‎to facilitate this using the resources of the provinces,” he added.‎

This is not an absolutely new development and in 2007 the educational deputy at the ‎ministry of science Hassan Khaleghi had announced the existence of plans to create ‎women-only universities by announcing, “The creation of women-only universities in ‎towns such as Qom, Mashhad, and Yazd are among the plans of the ministry.”‎

Plans for Gender Separation in the Ninth Administration
After the first wave of gender separation that was implemented in Iran after the 1979 ‎revolution which was implemented by government agencies, the second wave of this ‎trend was put on the agenda of the ninth administration and other state agencies. During ‎the last three years, in addition to the greater impetus given to the implementation of ‎separating women from men in public places, which includes separate taxi-cabs for ‎women, women-only parks, women-only hospitals, the ninth administration has intensely ‎pursued this goal since it came to office in 2005.‎

In the educational system of Iran, during the past 2 years, the ministry of education, ‎according to its officials, has made the removal of men instructors from women-only ‎schools a top priority as a way to complete the first wave of gender separation policies ‎and measures that were launched in the first year after the 1979 revolution, which ‎included separate schools for men and women, and the removal of women instructors in ‎all-men schools.‎

At the universities too, gender segregation was partly implemented in the classrooms, but ‎gender-separate universities are viewed as step to complete this goal in institutions of ‎higher education, and this is the second time that this is announced by senior government ‎officials.‎

Laleh Eftekhari, a woman representative who supports the administration, told ‎Chelcheragh magazine last year that gender separation was the policy of Mahmud ‎Ahmadinejad’s government, adding, “Gender separation in public places, including ‎offices, parks, cinema theatres, trains, elevators, universities and other public places to ‎protect women is implementable. This type of separation is part of Ahmadinejad’s ‎cultural policy which is viewed as the most important element in public demands.”‎

On how the segregation would be implemented, Eftekhari explained that “in cinema ‎theatres this separation could be created either by creating different theaters for men and ‎women or by designating show times to be strictly for men or women. Separate parks ‎have already been established for women, of which Madaran park is an example, where ‎women can bicycle. ” She added that this cultural policy of separation would yield ‎higher performance in the workplace. ‎

In April/May of 2006, Kamran Bagheri Lankarani publicly spoke of gender separation ‎hospitals and told Fars news agency, “There is a law about observing gender separation ‎in the health sector, and the Supreme Council for Adjustments in Treatment Areas ‎‎(Shoraye Allie Entebagh Fazahaye Darmani) also has been created and seats two Majlis ‎representatives as observers.”‎

On February 2 of 2007, Zohreh Tabibzadeh-Nouri, president Ahmadinejad’s deputy on ‎women’s affairs told Fars news agency, at the inauguration ceremony of the first women-‎only hospital in Tehran, “We have had no women-only hospitals in the Islamic Republic ‎of Iran which is the leader of the organized movement to protect women in society. ‎Women could not talk about many of their illnesses to men doctors. But now they can ‎comfortably go to a women specialist for their needs.”‎

And while defending the segregation policies of the administration, Tabibzadeh-Nouri ‎called on the government to expand this separation policy and said, “In an Islamic state, a ‎sick woman should not be treated by a ‘na-mahram’ (roughly translated as unacceptable ‎or forbidden) person,” adding, “Gender separation must be implemented in specific ‎professions and the state and government have a responsibility to provide the necessary ‎educational means for women in these professions at the post-specialization levels.”‎