Iran's First Female Cabinet Member a Setback for Women

First the good news: On Thursday, the BBC reports that Iran approved its first female cabinet member since the revolution 30 years ago, Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi. The bad news: Dastjerdi is a long-time proponent of sex-segregating medical care, so that Iranian women can only be seen by female doctors -- a move that reduces women's access to medical care, particularly to specialists.

In Iran's hotly contested elections this year, opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard (once a political adviser herself to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami) promised to increase representation of women in Iran's cabinet -- a popular proposal that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have borrowed in an effort to buy him some cache in a country still seething over the election results.

It's a move that may backfire, though, as supporters of the plan to bring more women into politically influential positions will hardly be pleased by a plan that elevates one woman to a ministry position, while potentially curtailing medical access by women throughout the country. Still, Dastjerdi is actually not the most controversial figure to get approval by the Iranian parliament. That title goes to Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, currently wanted by Interpol for questioning about the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994.