The World Bank stats doesn't give you a picture that makes you "starry-eyed" about the Iranian government, but the picture is much better and more interesting than what most Westerners imagine when they think about Iranian women. It's important for activists to have a grasp of facts and trends.
Here's another resource accessible to the public: Data Bank of the Center for Women's Studies at the University of Tehran: <http://cws.ut.ac.ir/DataBank/DataBank.aspx>.
On 8/16/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> And why is one of the world's biggest oil producers a lower-middle-
> income country? Its income & social indicators are on a par with Peru.
Surprising as it may seem to you, Iran exhibited a very low level of human development under the Shah, much lower than Peru, before the revolution, but the Iranians have managed to make progress, despite the Iran-Iraq War (about which I'll speak in response to JC).
Iran Human development index (trend), 1975 0.566 Human development index (trend), 1980 0.570 Human development index (trend), 1985 0.610 Human development index (trend), 1990 0.650 Human development index (trend), 1995 0.694 Human development index (trend), 2000 0.721 Human development index (trend), 2003 0.736 <http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_IRN.html>
Peru Human development index (trend), 1975 0.643 Human development index (trend), 1980 0.674 Human development index (trend), 1985 0.698 Human development index (trend), 1990 0.707 Human development index (trend), 1995 0.734 Human development index (trend), 2000 .. Human development index (trend), 2003 0.762 <http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_PER.html>
Venezuela Human development index (trend), 1975 0.718 Human development index (trend), 1980 0.732 Human development index (trend), 1985 0.740 Human development index (trend), 1990 0.759 Human development index (trend), 1995 0.767 Human development index (trend), 2000 0.772 Human development index (trend), 2003 0.772 <http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_VEN.html>
On 8/16/06, Jean-Christophe Helary <fusion at mx6.tiki.ne.jp> wrote:
> On 17 août 06, at 00:43, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > On Aug 16, 2006, at 9:57 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> >> In any case, what Iranian women have achieved ought to be publicized
> >> better, so that Americans and others can see that it is worth
> >> defending from the threat of economic sanctions and worse.
> >
> > I'll be interviewing Val Moghadam in about 2 hrs - any questions
> > you'd like me to ask her.
> >
> > One can be object to sanctions without getting starry-eyed about
> > the Iranian regime. Just like Iraq.
> >
> > And why is one of the world's biggest oil producers a lower-middle-
> > income country? Its income & social indicators are on a par with Peru.
>
> The cost of rebuilding the country after the war with Iraq ? Where
> would be Venezuela today with an 8 year war with anyone of its
> neighbor heavily supported by the US ?
The imact of the Iran-Iraq War can be seen in the following: GDP per capita average annual growth rate (%) (1970-90) -3.5 GDP per capita average annual growth rate (%) (1990-2004) 2.3 "At a Glance: Iran (Islamic Republic of)," <http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/iran_statistics.html>
The Iran-Iraq War was a tragedy for both the Iranians and Iraqis, in terms of lives lost, infrastructure destroyed, and so on: Iraq has never really recovered from it, for it was followed by the Gulf War, international economic sanctions, and the US invasion; Iran has managed to bring economy back up (Iran has been subject to US economic sanctions, but not to international ones . . . yet). The impact of the war on male manpower, however, made Khomeini, et al. reverse his initial emphasis on female domesticity, just as WW2 did for women in the United States and many other countries, so the war had its silver lining, too. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>