Status of women in Iran
This post [on X] is for everyone trying to use the mantra of saving Muslim women, the tired bullshit the west has used to actually destroy the lives of Muslim women for decades. Below are some statistics specific to Iran.
Iranian women college graduates. (Credit: Islamic Republic News Agency – English)
Literacy among women
Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the literacy rate for women under the western-backed Shah of Iran was 42%. In less than a decade of the revolution, that number climbed to 98%.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates
In Iran, 70% of STEM graduates are women — far exceeding the U.S. level, which stands at 53%.
Professional doctorate programs
About 58% of students in Iranian professional doctorate programs are women. In contrast, that number in the U.S. is 56%.
Femicide (homicide of females)
In Iran, the rate of intentional murder of women is 0.59 per 100,000. In the U.S., that number is nearly four times higher, at 2.1 per 100,000 women (with stark racial disparities: Black and Native American women combined: 4.3 to 4.8 per 100,000 vs white women: 1.5 per 100,000.)
Participation in government
In Iran, women hold 27% of ministerial-level posts with 1,121 female judges and 25% of managerial roles in government. (These numbers are from the early 2000s and are surely much higher now.)
Maternity leave and benefits
In Iran, the Law on Family and Youth Support mandates nine months PAID maternity leave for public and private sectors — plus an optional four months remote work during pregnancy — job security protections for extended unpaid leave and two weeks paternity leave. In the U.S., the only federal guarantee is 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave.
Furthermore, the following benefits are available to Iranian women, but not U.S. women:
- Free maternity care and subsidized infertility treatments
Nationwide free maternal and delivery services, including for uninsured women. Infertility treatments are heavily subsidized at 90%.
- Labor protections
Pregnant women are reassigned from hazardous jobs without pay loss; nursing breaks are offered until a child is two years old; workplace childcare provisions are required.
- Family support policies under demographic law
This includes housing assistance, loans for married couples, job prioritization for parents, childcare subsidies and retirement benefits for mothers with multiple children.
Gender affirming treatment
Iran legalized gender-affirming surgery (SRS) in the 1980s! The government subsidizes surgeries and hormone therapy for trans individuals who are at least 18 years old and have completed an approval system that requires psychological counseling and hormone therapy for one to three years, and professional filtering panels that evaluate gender dysphoria vs homosexuality, including family interviews, DNA tests and potential coercion. In the U.S., SRS is a for-profit industry with no subsidies.
