Iran's female students have for the fourth year running widened their academic superiority over their male counterparts, scooping up university places and leading some hardliners to cry foul.
After this year's university entrance exams, female students secured 122,000 out of 195,000 places - or 63 percent.
Of the 1.5 million students sitting the exams, nearly 60 percent were women, bringing the nationwide male-female student balance to near parity.
"And at this rate," enthused reformist female MP Elaheh Koulai said "female students will outnumber male students."
But some hardliners are far from happy.
One ultra-conservative newspaper demanded a gender-based quota system to tackle "this dangerous imbalance".
Ya Lessarat newspaper, linked to the hardline Ansar Hezbollah militia, argued that the large number of women in the classrooms encouraged "corruption" - in other words they distract their male counterparts from the serious task of studying.
Women had traditionally outnumbered men in the social sciences, but are now getting close to doing the same in the sciences.
More seriously, Koulai said several officials had - without success so far - demanded male-female quotas for courses such as medicine given the disproportionate number of female doctors, who hardliners say should not be allowed to treat male patients.
Another female MP, Jamileh Kadivar, suggested the conservatives instead take a look at the deeper issues involved in the gender row.
"It's because girls have no other way to express themselves in society than to throw themselves into study," she said.
But the gender shift does not necessarily mean more jobs in Iran, where women account for just 12 percent of the active workforce.
Kadivar explained that university studies had lost their "sacred character", with more and more young men throwing themselves successfully into the business world without a higher education.
A university degree "does not mean a suitable job will be found," Kadivar said.
Furthermore, experts have also pointed to the annual exodus abroad of some 200,000 youth, mostly men who are frustrated by the Islamic republic's massive youth unemployment.
And as analyst Said Leylaz explained, "the Islamic regime has for the past 20 years been encouraging education for women. They are now reaching the university age."
But aside from worrying hardliners, the phenomenon is also shaking up Iran's traditionally male-dominated social makeup.
"A lot of girls are refusing to marry less-cultivated men," Koulai said, adding that this risked pushing up the average marrying age - currently 30 years old for men and 26 for women.
"Women who have studied at university are more conscious of their rights and have developed greater demands, especially when it comes to jobs, placing a new pressure on the powers-that-be," she said.
Iranian women have already been progressing in the business world - notably in the automobile industry and in administrative jobs.
There are 13 women in parliament, a woman is serving as a deputy interior minister and another as a deputy president, and a woman was recently voted in as mayor for a district of Tehran.
And as Leylaz put it, "in two to three years we will face a wave of qualified women who will be holding mid-management posts."
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