and described a compromise philosophy that recognizes the right of women to work outside the home if they so choose, but says society should give more honor to those who forego that opportunity and tend to their families full time.
He came down firmly and clearly against the conservative clerical establishment by saying that women must have the right to choose a career outside the home. But he did not encourage that—and, in fact, strongly discouraged that choice.
All honor, he said, must go to those women who fulfill the traditional—and preferable—role of women as wives and mothers.
Khamenehi laid out his view in a speech January 4 to a gathering of scholars.
It was unknown why he decided to lay out the philosophy now, after decades of skirting the issue.
There was nothing surprising or precedent shattering in what he said. He has touched on these points before. But he never put them all together in one address devoted to this one topic, which is of major significance in a theocratic state.
Even in this speech, Khamenehi could not avoid taking a slap at the West. In all the Khamenehi speeches the Iran Times has read since he became Supreme Leader in 1989, this publication has seen only two that did not include at least a passing swipe at the West in general or the United States in particular. This is in distinct contrast to his speeches before becoming Supreme Leader when he generally avoided such rhetoric.
In this speech, Khamenehi’s complaint was that the West tries to throttle the Islamic Republic by talking about women’s rights, while it runs away from the core issue of the family. “The West is cunningly trying to ignore the issue of family life,” he said. “Women’s issues are cited in all their discussions—but not family life. Family is the West’s weak point. They do not mention family at all, even though women are not separate from the issue of the family. They just mention women’s issues.”
It is common for Kha-menehi only to be aware of what Westerners say about Iran and to be ignorant of what else goes on in the West. He has thus concluded that if the West doesn’t criticize Iran on family matters, then it doesn’t care about family matters—a major lapse in logic.
He then went on at considerable length to attack Western feminism as harmful to women and to see feminism as stemming from the Protocols of Zion, an infamous 19th Century anti-Semitic forgery that is often treated as fact in Iran. “Besmirching woman’s image and turning women into objects for men’s sexual pleasure lies at the root of those Protocols,” Khamenehi said.
He then went into a detailed critique of how Western dress rules demean women. “A man has to attend a formal event in formal clothes—wearing a bowtie, with his shirt collar buttoned and his sleeves long. He is not allowed to wear shorts and a tee-shirt,” Khamenehi explained. “But a woman has to show some parts of her body naked at the very same event. She will be subject to criticism if she attends fully covered.… If she attends without any makeup, then it would be wrong. This has become the custom. And they are proud of it.… What damage can be worse than this for women?”
He concluded: “There should be no passivity in the face of such a wrong culture. The West is in deep ignorance and lowliness when it comes to the issue of women and family life.”
Having completed his analysis of women in the West, Khamenehi then said that “men and women are not different before God.” But they are different on earth because God has made them different. Men have more prominent roles. “The man is the outer shell of an almond and the woman is the nut inside,” he said—a phraseology in Farsi that does not have the negative connotation it has in English.
Gender, he said, should be viewed as a secondary issue. “It makes sense in life’s duties; it does not have any impact on the main evolution of human existence”—a return to the theme that men and women are equal before God.
But he made clear that the “career” of most women should be as a mother and wife. A woman can work outside the home—“but her main job, which includes home, family, husband and being a housewife, should not be impacted.”
He said, “We are in favor of a career and a job that do not impact or harm this main issue [of woman in the home] because that role cannot be replaced. If you [a mother] do not raise your child at home or do not have any children, or if you do not respond to their soft emotions with delicateness and thus cause complexes in them, then no would will be able to [raise them]—not the father or anyone else. This is the mother’s job. But the job you have outside your home can be done by a dozen other people out there. Therefore, the priority is with what cannot be replaced. This is the determining factor.”
But having said that, he immediately turned to women with careers and ordered the government to support them. “Those women who, for whatever reason, have a part-time or full-time job should be helped to carry out their maternal duties. They should be helped with their leaves, retirement time, and daily working hours. The government should help these women.”
Next, he turned to the responsibility of men in the family. “Woman is the pivotal factor in the family. But this does not mean the man has no responsibility in the family. Thoughtless men, uncaring men, dissolute men, unappreciative men who do not recognize the wife’s efforts in the home harm the atmosphere in the household,” Khamenehi said. He did not say what role men should play in family life beyond that, however.”
Then he concluded, saying: “Special value should definitely be placed on the work of housewives. Some of them could have taken a job. Some of them could have gone to college. Some even have a university education. I have met women like this. They said: We want to raise this child, to train this child well. They have not tried to get a job. And the job has not been left unfilled. Dozens of other people have gone after it. This kind of woman should be appreciated.”
He said, “A woman’s job is very difficult—to put up with men’s expectations, demands, ill-behavior, harsh words and greater height. If a woman can keep the atmosphere in the home warm, intimate, attractive, peaceful and calm, she has done a great job.”
