From a small town in western Iran, Saeedeh Mahjoubi has come a long way to study chemical engineering at the country's prestigious Tehran University, with the blessing of her religious family.
More than half the seats in her freshman class are taken by women, who have accounted for 60 percent of university entrants over the past four years.
"Deep down in their hearts my parents would have liked me to stay home and get married, but I was a top student and they sent me away to make something of myself," said Mahjoubi, who hopes to work in the petrochemical industry after graduation.
Dressed in the enveloping traditional black chador, this bubbly 19-year-old jokes with a male classmate, challenging him over an upcoming calculus exam.
"Women face many limitations in Iran, but education is seen as an acceptable outlet for self-fulfillment and social participation," said Hamidreza Jalaipour, prominent reformist journalist and professor of sociology.
He believes the Islamic revolution of 1979, which made it obligatory for women to wear the headscarf, has encouraged religious families to send their daughters to college, which is now "Islamized and no longer regarded as an unsafe, corrupted place."
From 150,000 in 1979, the number of university students has risen to some 3 million in state-funded schools and semi-private Islamic Azad University, founded in the early 1980s to contain the ever-increasing hopefuls by setting up local branches in several Iranian cities.
For postgraduate anthropology student Mariam Ansari, studying has been a way to get out of the house and meet men, since "young people are not allowed to mingle freely elsewhere."
"College has boosted my confidence and taught me how to deal with men," she added.
Under Iranian law, a husband can prevent his wife from working outside the home, but this prospect does not faze 23-year-old Ansari.
"I have learned to think for myself and I will not marry a man with such a mindset in the first place," she said.
According to Jalaipour, economic hardships are also responsible for women flocking to college.
"Few families can live on one income so women have to work and get educated to find better-paying jobs," Jalaipour said.
On the other hand, some analysts say a poorly performing economy and high unemployment rate -- officially 15 percent -- have dampened young men's enthusiasm for college.
"In our patriarchal society the man is expected to be the breadwinner and in the past years education has become less relevant to financial success," said single mother Simin Ronaghi, 43, a university lecturer and doctoral student of psychology.
The falling number of men in universities has prompted some conservative members of parliament to debate whether affirmative action needs to be taken for "adjusting" the male/female ratio, especially in medicine and engineering. The argument, lambasted by reformists and women's rights activists, has never been introduced as a draft bill.
Ronaghi deems the growing number of women seeking higher education a natural process in modernization, saying "women are now less willing to sacrifice careers to stay home and care for children."
Despite their qualifications, women only form 15 percent of the work force and "still lots of them face discrimination by prejudiced employers over payment and promotion," Jalaipour said.
"Yet they stick with their jobs to be independent. A woman who [puts] food on the table is less likely to be bullied by a man," he said.
For years Iranian women's rights activists have been challenging "unfair" laws, demanding equal rights in divorce and child custody, and inheritance and blood money, which are half the amount of a man's under the Islamic republic's Shariah law.
Women are banned from being judges and two women's testimony is equal to one male witness in the courts.
Despite attempts by members in the former reformist parliament, Iran has not joined the UN convention on eliminating discrimination against women, finding it contradictory to Islam.
Since the hardline government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in August last year, voices have been urging women to put their traditional roles of wife and mother first.
Jalaipour believes education has made women aware of their rights and emboldened them to question their status and to press for equal rights.
"And they are not alone -- men are becoming more democratic too and supporting better conditions for women," he said.
"Women's traditional roles are changing. They will eventually impose changes on the system," he said.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under