A Baluchi woman wears a traditional red mask to conceal her features from public view. Iranian women are, in fact, among the most educated and accomplished in the Muslim world. Before the 1979 revolution 35 percent of women were literate; now the rate stands at 74 percent. In 1999, one in three Iranian physicians was a woman.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Iran: Testing the Waters of Reform," July 1999, National Geographic magazine)