Muat muslims need to understand (and apparently do not!) is that is people like Ahmendinanut rule, women will not be doing things like orbiting the earth......what a waste it would be to put a burka over this beautiful woman......
Iranian-born female space tourist inspiring women back in Iran
Persian Journal ^ | 9/18/06 | Persian Journal
An Iranian-American woman who blasted off into space on Monday has become something of an inspiration for women in the Islamic republic, who want greater rights in this country where ruling hard-line clerics restrict their opportunities and roles.
Anousheh Ansari, 40, became the first paying female space tourist when she began her journey Monday to the international space station aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
"She is a symbol for women not only in Iran but all over the world. Her journey into space has revived hopes for us to fight for rights equal to men in our land and to convince hard-line clerics that women are not just to give birth," said Iranian activist Fatemeh Farhangkhah.
Ansari and her family left Iran a few years after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power, in part because the opportunities for a young girl to study science were becoming limited there.
Ansari has said she is eager to see Iran from space ? she hasn't been back since emigrating to the United States ? and hopes to inspire girls in her homeland to study science. Ansari says she's received e-mail messages from many of them.
Student Azadeh Hokmi said Ansari is teaching Iranian women to wake up and demand their rights.
"She is a model for us to follow. I can't conceal my happiness that she is an Iranian," Hokmi said.
The Iranian government, meanwhile, has not expressed enthusiasm for Ansari. Iran's state-run media made a passing mention her on Monday, and the Iranian Space Agency was the only government-run body to congratulate Ansari for the achievement.
Women's rights grew under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, but hard-line President Mamhoud Ahmadinejad has tried to roll them back since taking office last year.
Hard-line clerics in Iran have banned women from running in presidential elections and believe women should be restricted to being in the home and raising children.
Despite being restricted from the nation's highest political posts, Iranian women ? who make up nearly half of the country's 68 million people ? enjoy more political rights than women in some neighboring countries, possessing the right to vote and hold public office.
Ansari ? the fourth private astronaut to pay a reported US$20 million (?16 million) for a space station visit ? joined a Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut in the capsule for a two-day trip to the station. She was due to return to Earth on Sept. 29.
Ansari, a telecommunications entrepreneur, said she plans to write a blog from the space station. Her husband and other U.S. relatives were in Kazakhstan Monday to watch the launch.
"I'm just so happy to be here," Ansari said just before entering the capsule. |
