February 2, 2024
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi says the West follows no logic on the issue of women and merely seeks profit and pleasure from them.
Khamenehi made the remarks in a meeting with women in Tehran December 27 in the run-up to the birthday anniversary of Hazrat Fatemeh Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, who is always held up as the epitome of womanhood by the Islamic Republic.
Khamenehi described the issue of women as one of Islam’s strong points, saying, “Islam has a robust and strong logic, and enjoys rational support in all areas pertaining to women.”
He said the issue of women is either the Western approach or an Islamic approach. Khamenehi said the two are complete opposites as the Western approach is summed up in seeking profit and pleasure from women. That recognition of two approaches completely left out the many other views of womanhood around the world, especially those matriarchal societies in which women have the leading role.
“There is one point that I think is significant, and that is that the cultural and civilizational system of the West is not willing to discuss such issues; it avoids entering into discussion and research,” the leader said, ignoring the immense volume of literature on the role of women produced in the West in the last half-century.
“Western culture, the Western system, the West’s civilizational and cultural system cannot debate these areas,” he insisted, underlining that the West resorts to force and fanfare as well as arts, cinema and virtual space to advance its view of women.
“The West is not ready to discuss, is not willing to answer the questions. The reason is that the West has no logic,” Khamenehi asserted.
The Supreme Leader said a Muslim woman could not find a better role model than Hazrat Fatemeh Zahra, advising Iranian women to follow her example in the fields of housekeeping, social and political activities, and wisdom and knowledge. Calling for “gender justice” in society, Khamenehi said, “There are no restrictions on the presence of women in various managerial, political, social and cultural positions” in Iran. There has only been one female cabinet minister in the Islamic Republic, and President Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad faced considerable grief when he tried to name three women to his cabinet in 2009.