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At a Soccer Match, Women Kick Iran's Ban to the Curb
Soccer fans wave Iranian flags at Azadi Stadium in Tehran during a match against Bahrain. Many fans also brought posters supporting candidates in Iran's June 17 elections.
(By Hasan Sarbakhshian -- Associated Press)
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The men around, especially the young ones, said they didn't mind.
"I wouldn't resist if they filled the whole stadium with women," said Hamid Reza, reclining with three buddies on the upper deck, his face painted the red, white and green of the Iranian flag.
"Ladies are good," said a smiling Atta Mohseni, also in his teens. "They really are."
Access to the opposite sex is a pivotal issue in Iran, where for the first two decades after the 1979 Islamic revolution morality police patrolled the streets, enforcing a rigid dress code for women and arresting couples who dared hold hands.
In recent years, however, changing demographics helped bring about considerable relaxation of enforcement in much of the country, where two-thirds of the population is under age 30 and the legal voting age is 15.
Saeid Safari, who wore a black Pink Floyd T-shirt, said he wanted the next president "to provide freedom for us."
Asked to define freedom, he said: "If we have girlfriends, nobody interferes."
"When we are in the parks, nobody should stop us," added Atta Mohseni.
A somewhat different concern over morality underpinned the ban on women at soccer matches. The largely young male crowds at Iranian stadiums are infamous for the vulgarity of some of their taunting cheers. On Wednesday night, as the crowd of about 80,000 filed into a night lit by celebratory fireworks, one band of fans chanted something very bad about Bahrain's mother.
"National matches have not been known to have chants as bad as club matches," said Maleki, passing by the gate she had helped crash a few hours earlier. "If they let us in, this will be a benefit: We'll clean them up."
