http://www.boston.com/bigpictu…..ction.html

But when it comes to the emergence of women and potential impact on the prevailing culture — whether in Iran or otherwise — I think you are kidding yourself.

Enrollment ratios of U.S. women in college have been climbing above 50% for decades, and yet we still have massive under-representation in corporate board rooms and in elected positions. Women compromise 17% of the Senate, less than 18% of the House, with a total of 266 women ever having served in Congress. Women here held less than 18% of corporate board seats as of 2004, and hold literally handfuls of positions as CEOs or Chairs of publicly-held corporations, in spite of female college graduates in the pipeline over the last 20 years.

By these pathetic measures, the U.S. is the best in class globally in terms of women’s advancement. Germany and the UK come close in double-digits, but some countries like Japan are in the basement. Don’t even get me started on compensation levels and percentage of workforce.

Given the condition of women’s advancement globally, and given Iran’s male-centric theocratic government founded deeply in national culture, your suggestion that the rolling-back of advances for Iranian women is unsustainable is rather naive. Advances for women everywhere are happening at a glacial pace, and it’s no different in Iran.

I’ll grant you, though, that the U.S. and Iran share this in common with regards to women’s advancement: Iran is one of six countries which has not signed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The U.S., while a signatory since 1980, hasn’t ratified it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..inionsbox1

Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups’ May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.

links below
I have to wonder if there is a disinformation campaign going on. This poll has be touted by a lot of blog commenters who are flacking for Ahmadinejad and full of inane propaganda points (”Did you know Rasfanjani is a corrupt billionaire he pulls Moussavi’s strings” Yes thank you very much, I have read several times that Rasfanjani is a billionaire, and that he was opposing the big A. And I am under no illusian that any of the candidates are gems)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..inionsbox1

http://www.terrorfreetomorrow&…..200609.pdf

Now as to this poll. It is weird. Note that the top line results on the support for the presidential candidates adds up to 78%. Where are the other 22%? If you dig down inot the end of the poll, you will find that they did not get information on this quesition from 50% of the respondents (no preference stated: 7.6%, refused: 15% don’t know: 27%) That is actually an inconclusive poll. Seriously, it would be hard to take a survey that level of nonresponse seriously in any kind of serious analysis. I guess the authors need headlines. Apparently half the poll was conducted during the first two weeks of the Moussavi’s campaign.

I called BS on a silly Tehran Bureau analysis that claimed was proof the election was rigged, and Nate Silver had a silly debunking. So, I call BS on this too.

I guess the pollster business is a kind of racket. I expect better from people who pretend to be statisticians.

The issue for me is not that one person or another won, since we cannot know that. What we do know is that Iran has taken a very serious step backwards from a being a legitimate government, regardless of who “really” won, and that is a dangerous situation.

Disagreeing with Du or anyone else is one thing, but you’ve crossed the line.