You probably noticed that the women in the previous scene were dressed like nuns. I knew before I went, of course, that women in Iran are required to wear a full-body covering and a head-scarf (but not a veil). And that's true. But I assumed incorrectly that that requirement indicated something about women's place in society---that they must be very marginalized. In fact, that isn't true at all. At least in urban areas, if you ignored the dress code the place of women seemed like that of many other places...maybe not the U.S. or more enlightened areas of Europe, but perhaps like Greece or Spain. Women drive cars, run shops, and otherwise interact normally with people. The institute where I gave my talks has some female physics grad students (would that have been true in the U.S. in, say, 1955?).
According to my friend's wife, women would not wear the scarf, and certainly not the chador (like a nun's suit), if they weren't required to do so. On the other hand, I posed the same question to some of the (female) secretaries at the institute, and at least a couple of them said that they would wear the scarf---it's unambiguously required in the Koran. They were split on the issue of the chador. In the photo above, I'm standing with two of the secretaries.
By the way, women wear the scarf and chador (or a sort of shapeless drape called a monteau) when out in public, but wear ordinary western clothes in private. It's quite normal to see women wearing jeans under their monteau.