All-woman fire department in Iran

[eridani]

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/101905WA.shtml

The rewards are great - and the disappointments as powerful as any felt by firefighters around the world.

But at Station No. 9 in Karaj, west of Tehran, a small unit prides itself on being like few others: the only squad of women firefighters in the Middle East.

Not every rescue requires a feminine touch. But in the Islamic Republic, which tolerates little public mixing of the genders, the 11 women here are breaking new ground and creating a model for cities across the country. They also represent a strain of pragmatic progressivism in Iran that is rarely matched elsewhere in the region.

Women are still subject to a strict Islamic dress code here, though at the moment it is loosely enforced. But there is a women's police division. Women parliamentarians and even vice presidents and a Nobel Peace Prize winner voice their opinions loudly. And in Iran's roiling political atmosphere, women can be criticized as harshly as men.

Wearing polished silver helmets - with only a head scarf underneath to distinguish their garb from the men's - this squad slides down the fire pole when the alarm sounds, just like their male peers.