In the stereotypical view held by almost all Americans and Europeans, Iranian women are helpless victims of a patriarchal system. The idea of their oppression is reinforced through observations of female dress and outdated stories of how women are treated in Islamic nations.

The truth is that women are making extraordinary social and educational progress throughout the Islamic world. The new Islamic woman emerging in the Middle East and South Asia is intelligent, empowered, and staking out her goals in life -- within the framework of Islam. As one successful female entrepreneur told me: "Islam doesn't prevent me from having a career. In fact, it makes me a better businessperson because it provides a framework of ethical behavior that I can use to persuade my suppliers and customers to deal fairly with me."

No place in the Islamic world has been more stigmatized for its treatment of women than Iran. But on a recent trip there -- my first in many years -- my greatest surprise was the clear evidence that Iranian women are better off today than they were under the Shah.

Women have always had a strong role in Iranian life. Their prominent participation in public political movements has often been decisive. Brave and ruthlessly pragmatic, women are more than willing to take to the streets in a good public cause.

The Islamic Republic has emphasized women's equality in education, employment, and politics as a matter of national pride. Although women have served in the Iranian legislature and as government ministers since the 1950s, more women make up the current parliament than under the Pahlavi regime.

The average marriage age for women has increased from 18 years of age before the Revolution to 21. Education for women is obligatory and universal. More than 75 percent of the population is under the age of 25 -- well over 90 percent of both men and women are literate, even in rural areas. University enrollment is nearly equal for men and women. And as women's education has increased, Iran's birthrate has fallen steadily, and is now estimated at 18.29 births per thousand population.

The number of women employed has dropped since the years immediately preceding the Revolution. Statistics are difficult to assess, since unemployment is so high (30 percent) for both men and women. Under the current Islamic regime, virtually all professions are theoretically open to women. A class of female religious leaders has even emerged. They have attended religious training schools and have the title "mujtahedeh" the female form of the word "mujtahed," or "religious judge."

Women must maintain modest dress or "hejab" in the workplace. Islam requires that both women and men dress in a way that does not inflame carnal desire. For men this means eschewing tight pants, shorts, short-sleeved shirts, and open collars. For women, covering both the hair (which Iranians view as erotic) and the female form are basic requirements. This precludes women from some physically active professions. In earlier years, Revolutionary guards accosted women who violated the dress codes in public, including wearing makeup, but today these attacks are rare.

For many centuries women in Iran have worn the chador, a semi-circular piece of dark cloth wrapped expertly around the body and head, and gathered at the chin. It is both convenient, since it affords a degree of privacy and lets one wear virtually anything underneath, and restricting, since it must be held shut with one hand (some women cleverly use their teeth in awkward moments).

Since the Revolution, an alternate form of acceptable dress has emerged -- a long dress with full-length opaque stockings, a long-sleeved coat, and a head scarf. The dress has gradually evolved into a thin shoulder-to-ankle smock called a "manto" after the French word manteau ("overcoat") and the scarf has been transformed into a hood modeled after a similar garment in North Africa called a "magna'eh."

In adopting this dress, women have been wonderfully inventive. The "manto," though dark in color, is often made of silk or other fine fabric, embroidered, finely tailored, with elegant closures. Women wear it over jeans or other Western fashions. The "magna'eh" may also be of satin and turned out in fashionable colors like eggplant or dark teal. In short, Iranian women have created high fashion from their concealing garments.

Many older, westernized women decry any restrictions on their dress, but younger women who grew up in the Islamic Republic take it in stride. "I view it as a kind of work uniform," claimed one female journalist. "I'm far more concerned about press restrictions than about dress codes."

Indeed, the code may have helped women from conservative families. "Before the revolution, religious parents would not let their girls even go to school for fear they would be dishonored," said Parvaneh Rashidi, a Tehran schoolteacher. "Now they have no trouble letting their daughters go anywhere." Judging from the large number of women on the streets, in retail management, in offices and on university campuses, Ms. Rashidi's assessment appears to be more than correct.

Iranian women may actually be in the vanguard in the Islamic world. As their progress becomes better known, they are sure to inspire others to pursue their dreams. The New Islamic Woman is a reality, and will undoubtedly be a force to reckon with in the future.

Segment 2: WOMEN DIRECTING IRANIAN FILMS: BEYOND CENSORSHIP
By Zara Houshmand

Although the most recent crop of Iran's new films has been seen only at a handful of international festivals and at film centers, they are remarkable for their clear-eyed compassion and sophistication and the creativity with which women directors skirt rules intended to censor the image of women.

More than a dozen women have directed feature films since the Revolution -- on their own terms, after long battles with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Their films, while challenging oppressive practices of the Islamic Republic, are unquestionably rooted in their own culture, and do not for a moment look to Western values for answers.

Much of the struggle for women's rights in Iran has focused on the Islamic dress code, and this is a vital problem in filmmaking, because a woman on screen is considered a woman in public and must be covered, even if the scene depicts her in a private situation. Censorship rules also forbid physical contact between men and women on screen, regardless of the roles played. Women may not play comic roles and they must present "positive" role models.

There are the films of Rakhshan Bani-Etamad that defy the notion of women as virtuous role models. In "Narges," a woman seduces a man young enough to be her son into a life of crime and competes with the innocent young wife who represents his redemption. "Blue Veiled" is a sensitive love story -- not something the government favors -- but also an exploration of bitter class tensions that are exposed when an aging factory owner falls in love with a young woman employee struggling to support her impoverished family and drug addicted mother.

Samira Makhmalbaf was only 17 when she directed one of the most profoundly disturbing films ever made. "The Apple" tells the story of two 12-year-old twin girls who have been locked up their entire lives by their parents, a mother who is blind and pathologically fearful and a father no less blinded by religious tradition.

The girls are suddenly exposed to the public eye and the interventions of a social worker (and the film crew) when neighbors finally complain about their condition. A true story -- with the girls, their parents, and neighbors playing themselves -- it was filmed in just days as it happened. The camera captures the girls at first unable to speak, functionally retarded, almost pathetic in their awkward movements, and their rapid development as they move through neighborhood and begin to make friends.

This cannot be called a documentary. The director intervenes to set up situations and then we watch them unfold. She has the social worker lock the father up as the girls were, and then gives him a hacksaw. He lacks the strength to saw through the lock so, in one of the film's most moving scenes, his daughters themselves release him.

"The Apple" is far more than an allegory of women's condition in Iran. It pushes many of the themes that are the hallmark of new Iranian cinema to the very edge -- an irony that plays with the boundaries between documentary and fiction, the risky immediacy of improvisation and intellectual playfulness.

Mariam Shahriar's first feature, "Daughters of the Sun," moves like a meditation through landscapes of vast solitude and austere lyricism. A young woman, who disguises herself as a boy to work as a carpet-weaver under miserable conditions, becomes a conduit for tragedy when a co-worker falls in love with her -- and finally defies her tyrannical employer with an act of transcendent courage.

The unusual twist here is that her disguise does not spare the woman any of the suffering visited on her female co-workers. In Iran, however, the truly remarkable element is the image of an actress with her head not only uncovered, but shaved bare. It is hard for western audiences to appreciate the radical nature of this image, and its sly defiance of censorship.