TEHRAN – The Municipality of Tehran, in appreciation of the inspirational women of the past century, has introduced their biographies in the “Famous Women of the Century” project.

In March, Tehran Municipality with the cooperation of the parks and green space organization of Tehran symbolically planted 100 saplings, on National Tree Planting Day; each tree named after famous women of the century such as Khadijeh Saghafi, Marzieh Hadidchi, Tahereh Saffarzadeh, Turan Mirhadi, Simin Daneshvar, and Iran Darroudi.

National Tree Planting Day, is annually celebrated on the fifteenth day of Esfand, the last month on the Iranian calendar, which usually corresponds with March 6. The day marks the beginning of the National Week of Natural Resources (March 6-13).

Many women in the history of Iran and especially in the last century have been influential in various social, cultural, political, and economic fields of the country and have worked for the progress of the country, Zahra Behrooz, head of Women's Affairs Department of Tehran Municipality, stated.

Our criteria for selecting these women are their being pioneers in various scientific, artistic, cultural, social, and political fields, she added.

She went on to say that our research with the help of a group of women researchers in the history of Iran showed that the number of influential women is much more than what we have discussed in this project, ISNA reported.

Women’s role in Iran’s development

The proportion of female inventors to male inventors in Iran is significantly higher than the global average and even higher than the leading countries in the field of patents, according to the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology’s report.

Former Science Minister Mansour Gholami has said that the participation of Iranian women in higher education research and development projects has increased from 27 percent in 2000 to 39.6 percent in 2017.

In all levels of education, the share of women has risen from 5.3 percent in 1978 to over 50 percent or even 60 percent during the past seven years, he noted.

The participation of Iranian women in research and development fields is higher than the global average, according to the UNESCO 2020 report on Women in Science.

Iranian women's participation in research and development has increased from 27.7 percent in 2019 to 31.2 percent in 2020, which is above the global average of 30 percent.

The increase in the share of women in research and development is mostly due to their increasing share in knowledge-based companies, Masoumeh Ebtekar, the former vice president for women’s and family affairs, said in August 2020.

FB/MG