ebtekar. >> status of woman has improved immensely after the revolution. >> reporter: 30 years ago, ebtekar was the spokeswoman for the students who took american diplomats hostage. at that time, just being literate made her a minority. >> those who have had access to education after the islamic revolution, they are practically 100% literate. >> reporter: the problem for iran's conservative political and religious leaders is that places like tehran university have now produced a generation of educated women who are focused on how things are now, not how bad they used to be. those women are a demographic time bomb. they are educated enough to be aware of the rights women have elsewhere. they can read the koran for themselves and find in it a vision of an islamic society that truly treats them as equals. this is bigan saliani for "worldfocus" in tehran. >> for more on the status of women in the muslim world, we are joined by haleh esfandiari from the woodrow wilson international center for scholars in washington, d.c. thank you very much for being with us. let me start by asking you,