KARAJ -- The first woman bus driver took the wheel in this city, about 60km west of capital Tehran, in another challenge to Iranian men who have already been outnumbered by their female rivals in universities.

Ma'soumeh Bolaghi, a university graduate in nursing, started his new career as an employee of this one-million-plus city's public commuting company, its head Davoud Sha'bani told IRNA.

She would also give a rare advantage to women to sit in front of her vehicle, with men taking the back seats, which follows the same traditional rule of adult sex segregation in the Islamic Republic, but in an opposite order.

Men have traditionally been taking front seats in Iranian buses because of related officials' belief that drivers could better concentrate on driving and avoid accidents in this order.

"It is expected this move would mark a turning point for the presence of the city's women in various social arenas," Bolaghi, apparently elated, told IRNA.

She said she had started her career by driving a bus outside Karaj. "This was rendering a positive effect on women's morale," she said.

Iran started its first women taxi drivers recently in the religious city of Qom, to give female-only services to the citizens.

There has been mixed reaction as Iranian women have continued to take over from their male rivals in several fields, including in universities.

Some have said this trend could lead to a social crisis because of education gap among highly-educated wives and their uneducated or poorly-educated husbands who are said to have been relinquishing academic arenas to women under employment concerns.

Some other people have called for equal rights for women, including top official posts.

"If meritocracy and rule of law are to be held up, men and women must be provided with equal opportunities in all fields," an MP from Tehran, Jamileh Kadivar, said last June.

A debate was raised recently in the press to include equal blood money for women, who are subject to half of the amount for men.