Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has instructed an immediate termination of all Iranian college gender segregation.
The Iranian president sent a letter to the ministers of science and health, in which he wrote: “We have discovered that a number of colleges have gender segregation, without accounting for the implications of such a decision. These steps must end immediately.”
The religious conservative Iranian stream has launched a campaign in recent months aimed at the prohibition of co-ed college classes. This has caused harsh dispute within the state.
The Minister of Science said that the ministry did not intend to separate the genders, and clarified that he is decisively against the segregation.
He mentioned that the students are requested to sit in separate rows. “We oppose the Western practice of completely mixed seating, but we do not object to the education of female students.”
The number of female Iranian students has significantly risen since the Islamic revolution of 1979, although the revolution involved barring women from becoming judges, sex-segregation of beaches and sports activities, the lowering of the marriage age for girls to 13 and the barring of married women from attending regular schools.
Iran and its President are not usually associated with gender equality. In 2006, Spengler wrote in the Asia Times that "the fate of Iranian women sheds light on the eccentricity of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad".
By law, women in Iran must be veiled and wear long coats when in public. Following the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, under whose reign mini-skirts were not uncommon, Islamists began beating women who were not veiled. Stoning of women and the murder and torture of women protestors, such as Neda Soltan, were publicized worldwide.
In June 2010, for example, the Iranian Morality Court fined a woman $224 for the immoral act of wearing nail polish in public on “four and a half” of her fingers. She also was ordered to pay an additional $250 each for three other offenses – wearing a short jacket, wearing it in bright red and green colors, and wearing make-up.
A Conference on Gender Discrimination in Iran was held in New York in March 2011 and a shocking video that documents mistreatment of Iranian women, created by the FreeMiddleEast.com organization, was produced at the same time in order to counteract Israel Apartheid Week. The film compared the rights of women in Iran with those in South Africa in the days of Apartheid.