to focus on that stuff isn't really fair, say people like former vice president masoumeh 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 was