Women and STEM education is a perpetual topic of debate. How do we get girls more involved in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM)? How can we bring gender equality in this field? Do women want to get involved in STEM at all?
It is often said that there aren’t enough women interested in STEM which is not really true.
In Iran, around 70% of science and engineering students are women. They are encouraged by smaller start-ups thus playing an even larger role. And many people might be surprised to discover that women have been managing and owning businesses in male-dominated fields for years in Iran, reports stemresourcecenter.com.
Startup Weekend for Women in Tehran and 500 Startups at iBridges, a conference supporting Iran’s tech community, provides young women the opportunity to network and pitch their ideas to venture capital firms. Though still nascent, women are emerging at the forefront and considered trailblazers in the tech sector.
Journalist Shahram Sharif who founded ITiran.com, the first portal about tech in Farsi says, “Before, there were a few women tech journalists, but now there are many. Four of my colleagues are female. It’s an honor to work with them.”
Although the industry is growing and there is still a long way to go for women in order to emerge as fully empowered members of the STEM industry, change is certainly in evidence as the education, intelligence, and ingenuity of Iranian women is increasingly being utilized in the field.
As of 2006, women have accounted for over half of university students in Iran and 70% of science and engineering students. In 2012, according to UNESCO data, over 2 million out of 4 million students in tertiary education in Iran were females, thus marking the fifth largest female enrollment after China, India, US and Brazil. In engineering fields, Iranian female enrollment ranked as first in the world and in science fields second, after the US.
