Since my last story I have traveled to Iran a second time and I am very much looking forward to my third trip in October 98.
An issue I am often asked about is women. The dress code and „Not without my daughter“ gave Iran quite a bad image. I will not say much about the book/film, only that much: I hated this film before I met the first Iranian person.
The dress code is a fact though. Women have to cover their head with a head scarf. This head scarf is supposed to cover all their hair. Most of the women wear the scarf in a way that a lot of hair is showing in the front. Women also have to wear a coat down to their knees. Underneath you see a lot of blue jeans and fashionable shoes. They DON’T have to wear this black dress that covers everything but the face - the so called Chador (literally: tent).
The dress code is not enforced in private houses so you would expect that as soon as a woman is inside a house she would immediately take off coat and head scarf. Quite many do so but there are also a lot who don’t. This dress code after all - and we Westerners tend to forget that - has a tradition and is not an invention of post-revolutionary Iran. Those who take off scarf and coat reveal clothes that are quite fashionable often self-made.
With some people the dress code sometimes leads to the conclusion that women are not allowed to do anything but stay at home. I would like to remind you that the new president made two women (if I remember correctly) deputy ministers in his cabinet. There were women as members of parliament before and there still are. Women are allowed to drive cars too. Quite generally you can find women in places where you wouldn’t expect them. It was a surprise to me that you don’t find them in positions like waitresses or sales people in shops. You do find them in banks and travel agencies which need a higher qualification especially because there they have to work with computers. There are a lot of women doctors and engineers too. I saw female flight attendants and female immigration and custom officers and I even read about a female bus driver too.

Instead of trying to generalize the life of women in Iran on a pseudo-academic level I’m going to write about some women I met. Unfortunately I only met urban middle class women so please take that into consideration!!!! Since I have not asked permission to write about these people I have changed their names.

Shirin (age 29). Shirin studied English at the University. After getting married to Farsad their son Shaian was born and she gave up work. Now she is in charge of the household and the child. Her mother who is a widow is staying with them a lot and helps with everything. Thus Shirin can go to handicraft classes a few times a week. Farsad doesn’t cook but he helps with all the rest. They recently moved into a new housing complex about 20 minutes outside the city center of Shiraz. They used to live in a big and beautiful apartment in the house of Farsad’s father but they did not want to be under surveillance anymore. This is an interesting fact because there seems to be a shift from the big family to more individualism. Due to this raising individualism and also due to the high rate of population growth there seems to be a change in architecture too. Typical Iranian houses are surrounded by a high wall that protects from curious people outside. They also have a yard too, a so called hayad. The only thing I have seen the hayad used for was as a playground for children and for drying the laundry. Sonya claims that they eat and hang out in the hayad too but I have never seen it. Newer buildings I have seen are either of the typical western multi-story apartment building type or of the one or two story buildings with separate entrances from the street. Said and Shirin are living in the latter type.

I met many women who gave up work after birth so this is probably the kind of life that many people think Iranian women are leading but wait there is more...

Samira (age 36). Samira works as a vice-principal at a high school in Shiraz. From the very beginning schools are separated in boy and girl schools. You would expect to have girl schools to have an all female staff and boy schools to have an all male staff. This isn’t so. At universities men and women are taught together by male and female professors but they have to sit separately.
So Samira is a vice-principal. She told me that she doesn’t want to get married since she is afraid that her husband wouldn’t want her to work and she loves her job and she doesn’t want to give up her career. Naturally I asked her if it isn’t possible to find a man who wouldn’t object to her working but she claimed that this would be impossible. Since it is very uncommon for a woman to live alone Samira is living with her mother who is a widow. I have only met one woman who is living alone so I guess it is legal.
The funny thing with Samira and her mother is that to me they are almost like two sisters. I guess that is the result of their long living together.
Apart from having guests there is not much of a nightlife in Iran. So Samira like Shirin is an expert in handicrafts and - together with her mother - an excellent cook too.

Negar (age 29) has a similar life to Shirin. She lives together with her husband Wahid and is in charge of their son Ioonez. Negar and Wahid tried to live in Dubai recently but they couldn’t establish themselves there and so they returned to Shiraz. They live as much a western life as possible. Cordless telephone, real Coca Cola (instead of the omnipresent „Zam Zam“ which is as good as the real thing), Lasagne instead of Polou, a lot of fancy toys and a personal computer. Negar said that she wasn’t too happy with her „only“ being a housewife anymore. She is thinking about ways to change that.

Although there seem to be women in every position only about 10% of the workforce are women (according to the UN Human Development Report, 1994). This isn’t a contradiction to my perception since I don’t know much about rural areas and I have never been to an industrial company (yet).

Asal (age 28) was married but her husband left her to emigrate to the US so she had to move back to her parents. I have heard of many divorces in Iran as well as of Iranians outside Iran. I guess this is a result of not being able of living together before they get married. Asal decided to go to the university and she has passed the „concours“ recently. We don’t know for which faculty though.

The concours is a brutal selection system: Once a year across the whole country on the very same day a one day exam (with the same questions countrywide) is being held. There are no requirements whatsoever to take this test; basically, everybody who wants to go can go. Based on the results of this one day test everything will be decided: The ones with the best results can go to medical school at one of the best universities, the second best can go to medical school at a less prestigious university and so on. Every science and university is ranked and places distributed according to test results. To see the proportions: Over a million people annually take the test and about 100'000 are accepted. That means 90% can not go to university at all but they can try the next year. By coincidence I was in Iran when this day took place. In a hospital I dropped into a room where the test was held. Poor guys! A friend of mine told me that he took the test three times until he was accepted to the university of his choice. Now he isstudying petro-chemistry in Shiraz.

Well, in order to finally publish this story I stop here rather abruptly.