"At the job interview, they asked me to get a written statement from my husband to prove that I have his permission to work," says Neda, who has a master's degree in oil and gas engineering in Iran.
She felt humiliated.
"I told them that I am an adult and that I make my own decisions."
Neda is not the only one with such an experience.
By law, married women in Iran need their husbands' permission to work - just one of the many legal obstacles women face when seeking employment.
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The report published by the World Bank in 2024 ranks Iran among the worst countries in terms of gender-based legal barriers to the labor market (only Yemen, the West Bank and Gaza rank lower).
This is also reflected in other statistics.
In the recently published annual report The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap, which measures gender equality worldwide, of the 146 countries included in the report, Iran has the lowest rate of participation of women in the labor market.
Although women make up more than 50 percent of graduates in the country, their share in the labor market is only 12 percent, according to data from 2023.
Due to gender-based laws as well as widespread sexual harassment and often sexist attitudes about women and their abilities, the working environment is quite hostile towards them.
Most of the women the BBC spoke to said they felt they were not taken seriously enough at work.
"A series of legal and cultural barriers prevent women in Iran from getting a job," says Nadereh Chamlu, a former senior adviser to the World Bank.
Chamlu says factors such as the lack of a legal framework and existing legal restrictions, as well as a very large gender wage gap and a "very low glass ceiling" contribute to the limited participation of women in the labor market in Iran.
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It's legal... and traditional
Men are aware that the law allows them to prevent their wives from working and some use it.
Iranian entrepreneur Said told the BBC that once "an angry husband burst into our office, brandished a metal rod and shouted: 'Who gave you permission to hire my wife?'"
He says that now when he hires women he asks for written permission from their husbands.
Young Razih, who works in a private company, remembers a similar incident when an angry man burst into their office and told the CEO, "I don't want my wife to work here."
Razih says the CEO had to tell the woman, who was a senior accountant, "to go home and try to work things out with her husband or she would have to resign, which she eventually did."
Because of this law, many companies refuse to hire young women, says adviser Nadereh Çamlu, because employers do not want to "invest in the training of women who will get married later, and their husbands may forbid them to continue working".
Even if they get a job after fighting to get permission to work from their families and spouses, women are exposed to discrimination that is to some extent supported by law.
One of such acts is Article 1105 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic, in which the husband is defined as the head of the family and "the main breadwinner of the family".
This means that when it comes to employment, men have an advantage over women, who are also expected to work, if offered a job, for a fraction of what their male counterparts receive.
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Raz is in her late twenties and has changed jobs several times.
In all the companies where she has worked, she says, women are the first to notice in case of any problems.
"In the last company, when there was a restructuring, almost everyone who was laid off was a woman," she adds.
Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC that after more than a decade she decided to quit her job and stay at home "because I knew I would never get promoted".
“As long as there were men, even if they were less qualified than me, they would never give me a raise or a promotion.
"It was a waste of time," she adds.
The fact that women are not legally considered breadwinners affects whether they are entitled to benefits and financial compensation.
In many cases, if they are eligible, "the benefits they have become entitled to during their years of service may not apply to their families, benefits such as a pension," says Čamlu.
"Therefore, their work benefits and those that women can bring to their families are reduced," adds the former senior adviser of the World Bank.
Sepideh earned a master's degree in art from the University of Tehran, where she taught and led independent art projects, but has not worked for several years.
"After graduating, I thought I could earn a living like many men I knew, but the social, political and economic structure was created so that it was impossible for a woman to build a career," Sepideh told the BBC.
The mandatory hijab law was one of the main reasons for mass protests in Iran two years ago, and is still one of the main topics of dispute and political disagreement in the country.
Because of this law, many jobs, especially in the government and public sector, are unavailable to women who do not want to observe some of the strictest forms of hijab.
There are no women on the labor market
"Middle-aged, middle-educated and middle-class women do not work in Iran," says Nadereh Chamlu.
"Due to the required husband's permission and the lower retirement age for women, which is 55 in Iran, the entire age group, which normally works in other countries, has been pushed out of the labor market."
Iran's economy has been crippled by sanctions and mismanagement.
A report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) indicates that economic growth is correlated with greater participation of women in the labor force, and estimates that if female employment rates in Iran were brought up to male employment levels, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) could increase. by about 40 percent.
However, according to Nadereh Čamlu, there is currently no "active and conscious political will" to introduce changes that would enable women to work.
However, she believes that women in Iran are taking matters into their own hands and establishing small independent businesses to open up the labor market for women.
"Some of the most innovative business ideas, from cooking apps to digital retail platforms, have been started by women," she explains, adding that "the real private sector in Iran" is mostly women-owned businesses.
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