It's true that, in Iran, women have half of the rights men do. And yet 66 per cent of students are women.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Girls' education is no silver bullet. Iran and Saudi Arabia have both educated girls but refused to empower them, so both remain mired in the past. But when a country educates and unleashes women, those educated women often become force multipliers for good.
As is the case with many Middle Eastern nations, women are nowhere near equal to men when it comes to basic freedoms and rights that we take for granted every day.
Thus the regime has deprived Iranian women not just of their present rights, but also of their history and their past.
If women's rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Quran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite.
Educational equality doesn't guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and 'leaky pipelines' that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century.
Wealthy women have rights in every country. And poor women don't.
The way women today are treated in Saudi Arabia is a direct result of the education our children, boys and girls, receive at school.
As to women, the Islamic faith has given women rights that are equal to or more than the rights given them in the Old Testament and the Bible.