The Guardian Observer In a daring challenge to the Islamic system, female medical students in Iran are refusing to attend classes and are staging sit-ins in protest at their segregation from men in universities. The students believe they receive an inferior medical education to their male peers. One medical school in the holy Shi'ite city of Qom is for women only, and in Tehran's universities men and women must attend classes in separate rooms or sit on opposite sides of the classroom. We suffer because we have little interaction with our male classmates. We rarely have an exchange of ideas.
Many classes are for women only, and the best professors and facilities go to the men.
This week a group of female medical students called upon President Mohammad Khatami and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to reverse what they believe is sex discrimination. They have also complained to the health ministry. Such action may not guarantee immediate change. But their public dissent adds a significant voice to a growing demand for sexual equality. Even some reformist theologians now say that the clerical establishment has misinterpreted the Islamic texts taken as the basis for Iranian laws.