Iranian Deputy President in women’s affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar says the number of female managers in the public sector has reached to 18.8%.
Speaking at a gathering on Saturday, October 5, in the city of Zanjan, Ms. Ebtekar announced that since 2017 the number of female managers has risen from 13.8 to 18.8 percent.
Furthermore, according to Ebtekar, 41% of the people working for the government are currently women.
During his presidential campaign, Hassan Rouhani had promised to allocate 30% of managerial positions to women.
Nevertheless, Masoumeh Ebtekar has admitted that there were some “sensitivities” and “religious ambiguities” against women serving in specific positions.
Iranian women are deprived of serving at top governmental positions at a time that 63% of university students in Iran are women.
In the clergy-dominated Iran, the conservatives are vehemently against employing women outside their homes and insist on limiting their activities to being housewives.
The Islamic Republic Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also proclaimed in 2016 that women’s role as mothers and homemakers should be promoted. Moreover, Khamenei highlighted the role of men as fathers and breadwinners, active in the economic sector.
Women in Iran have been deprived of many fundamental rights since the downfall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Married women cannot even leave the country without their husband’s permission. In fact, in September 2015, the captain of Iran’s female football (soccer) team, Niloufar Ardalan couldn’t play in an international tournament in Malaysia because her husband forbade her from traveling.
