Women in Higher Education and Academia in Iran

Abstract

This article addresses women's contemporary position in academia in Iran. By systematically reviewing available academic and official databases on women's positions in academia published online or in print, the question is raised if women's current position and role in academia is the result of personal choice making or an existent systematic discriminatory social structure. To address this issue, available Iranian research and data on female recruitment in universities are analyzed. The results show that there is a general accordance on two findings in the research addressing women's position in academia. First, gender discrimination is restricting women's choices by systematically excluding them from educational, managerial and administrative positions. Second, in spite of the substantial increase in women's enrolment in tertiary education, significant development in women's position and role in scientific and educational institutions has not taken place. After discussing the data, I will try to compare two sets of sociological theoretical approaches that offer explanations for women's lower levels of participation in the academia; namely, theories of exclusion and theories of participation. I suggest that the former is more effective in analyzing women's position in Iranian academia, because of being based on recognition of the existing structural discriminations. Although women's participation in higher education is gradually growing and gender boundaries are being stretched on a daily basis, there is need for fundamental structural changes in social and educational spheres, and widespread implementation of positive discrimination.

Adverse perinatal outcomes of intimate partner violence during pregnancy

“…Based on the available evidence, IPV prevalence in Iran is high due to some cultural and socioeconomic conditions (Jamshidimanesh et al, 2013;Lawson, 2012;Schrier et al, 2017) and this increment can be attributed to higher rate of violence reporting among more educated women in Iran. It is worth mentioning that the number of educated women has dramatically and the activity of women's rights activists in Iran have also increased (Rahbari, 2016;Tohidi, 2016).…”

“…Neonatal outcomes include intra uterine growth restriction (IUGR), failure to thrive, miscarriage, perinatal mortality, pre-term birth (PTB), low birth weight (LBW), premature rupture of membranes (PROM), failure in breastfeeding and child behavioral problems (Ahmed et al, 2006;Bianchi et al, 2016;Boy and Salihu, 2004;Hill et al, 2016;Kaye et al, 2006;Lau and Chan, 2007;Silverman et al, 2006). The six outcomes of LBW, PTB, IUGR, PROM, prenatal mortality and placental abruption were selected according to previous studies that had shown the high prevalence of these outcomes in the Iranian society (Hassan et al, 2014;Lukasse et al, 2014;Rahbari, 2016).…”

Women’s Ijtihad and Lady Amin’s Islamic Ethics on Womanhood and Motherhood

“…Despite Lady Amin's essentialist viewpoints on women's nature and consequent gender roles, she was a strong advocate for women's education. She was blessed with an early education and was later self-taught during a time of low female literacy (Rahbari 2016(Rahbari , p. 1005. She strove to educate other girls and women by initially teaching them at home and later at two educational institutions she founded in the 1960s (Rutner 2015, p. 25).…”

Persepolis po česku: Neslyšené hlasy íránských žen žijících u nás

“…Univerzitním vzděláním v Íránu v současnosti disponuje stále více žen, avšak dle některých autorů je třeba více strukturálních změn ve společnosti a systému vzdělávání. Stále je totiž dodržována genderová hierarchie, a u moci tak zůstávají výhradně muži (Rahbari 2016(Rahbari : 1008. Vysokoškolské vzdělání, jak potvrzuje například informátorka M., rozšířilo obzory jen těm, které chtěly nebo měly možnost studovat bez rodičovské kontroly (Informátorka M. 2020a).…”