Women in twenty-first century Iran can vote, run for public office, drive cars, own and sell property, earn college degrees, and have a career just as they could in secular Iran before the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Yet since the revolution, Iranian women have found their freedoms eroding under the Islamic religious laws of sharia. They are not free to dress as they might please, ride in the front of buses, or get passports to leave the country without written permission from their husbands. In June 2005, just before national elections for a new president, thousands of women gathered in the square in front of Teheran University to protest limits on their freedom, hoping to influence the next president to consider women's issues. The election of a fundamentalist president ended their hopes for the present, but their ability to organize and to speak out keeps their cause alive.