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IRAN has barred women from 77 subject areas at state universities because they have been deemed “unsuitable” for women, prompting international outrage.

Most of the affected subject areas are in engineering, along with chemistry, forestry, nuclear physics, computer science and a host of other subject areas. While tce was unable to get a full listing of all affected subject areas, it is highly likely that chemical engineering is among them.

Iran’s 36 state universities sit alongside over 200 private universities which are unaffected by the decree, but the state universities include the most prestigious destinations, such as the University of Tehran. Women make up a large share of the students and in many of the affected subject areas outnumber men. Overall, women make up 65% of the student population in Iran – more than anywhere else in the world, according to UNESCO.

The Iranian news website Rooz Online quotes the director general for the spread of education at Iran’s science ministry as saying: “Some fields are not very suitable for women’s nature such as agricultural machinery or mining, partly because of the hard work involved in them. Past experience shows that women do not become professionally active in these fields after they are admitted to these subjects and even after they graduate. This results in unemployment of graduates.”

Meanwhile a spokesman from Oil Industry University said that the hard operating conditions in the oil industry were not suitable for women, and that many women who did embark on courses in this area became displeased with the conditions in the field. The university says it will not admit any women at all in future.

There has been a considerable backlash against the decision and how it has been justified.

The Iranian human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi wrote to the United Nation’s general secretary Ban Ki Moon and human rights high commissioner Navi Pillay, saying: “[It] is part of the recent policy of the Islamic Republic, which tries to return women to the private domain inside the home as it cannot tolerate their passionate presence in the public arena. The aim is that women will give up their opposition and demands for their own rights.”