Hawzah News Agency- At the center of this vision is the belief that empowering women begins with recognizing their dignity, talents, and potential. Martyred leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei had repeatedly emphasized that true respect for women lies in creating opportunities for them to learn, research, lead, and shape society while preserving their role as pillars of the family and community.
He repeatedly emphasized in his speeches that the advancement of women is not measured by statistics but by the emergence of generations of educated, capable, and influential women who contribute across every field.
The most striking area of empowerment under the Islamic Republic has been women’s access to education, especially under Sayyed Khamenei’s leadership. Female adult literacy more than tripled, rising from 24 percent in 1976, near the end of the monarchy, to 81 percent in 2016, while the share of girls completing primary education increased from 36 percent in 1971 to 99 percent by 2017.
Participation in higher education has expanded even more dramatically. The percentage of women in tertiary education increased almost twentyfold, from just 3 percent in 1978 to 59 percent in 2018, making women the clear majority of university students in Iran. Sayyed Khamenei repeatedly highlighted that “the Islamic Republic has managed to reach a peak: it has managed to educate scholarly and intellectual ladies who can offer expert opinions on the subtlest and most sensitive issues of a society."
"Never in its history has Iran possessed even one-hundredth of this number of women who are scholars, intellectuals, and women of insight and independent thought. It was the Islamic Republic that elevated women and enabled their advancement in every significant arena."
He used to explicitly tie respect for women to opportunities for learning and engaging in research. On several occasions in the presence of women scholars and Qur’an researchers, he defined in his speeches true respect as “giving them the opportunity to develop, at different levels, those capabilities and those outstanding and great talents which Allah…has bestowed…for the sake of knowledge, understanding, research, education and construction."
He added, “I see that, by Allah’s favor and grace, this is manifesting in our society in a perfect way.”
Changes in family patterns over this period point to a broader transformation of women’s social position and life choices. The average number of births per woman fell from more than six in 1978 to under two by 2001, with fertility around just over two children per woman as of 2018, reflecting expanded access to education, health services, and family planning.
The average age of marriage for women has also risen, signaling a longer period of education and social participation before marriage. The mean age at marriage increased from 19.7 years in 1977 to 23.5 years in 2006 and remained above 23 years in 2016, giving many women more time to complete their education and acquire skills. In multiple speeches, Sayyed Ali Khamenei described women as “the main element in the nucleus of a family” and “the source of tranquility at home,” insisting that society must create conditions that allow women to build strong families while pursuing “perfection and transcendence” in their own lives.
He argues that the Western capitalist system “subordinates and absorbs the woman’s identity into the man and does not respect women’s dignity, treating women as material tools and objects of desire.”
In a 2023 meeting with women's groups in Tehran, he said the Western view “focuses on exploiting women for profit and pleasure,” while Islam’s approach to women “has a strong and rational foundation” and treats women as honored human beings with spiritual and social roles.
He has described the Western “materialistic civilization” as one that reduces women to “objects of pleasure,” insisting that this is not freedom but “enslavement”.
In Sayyed Khamenei’s view, the empowerment of women is not confined to numbers in classrooms, workplaces, or parliament but is rooted in a broader transformation of their role in building an Islamic society. He portrayed women as “the main element” in shaping future generations, moral culture, and national resilience, emphasizing that a woman who is respected and supported becomes “the lady of the house,” “manager of the family,” and an engine of social progress.
He repeatedly rejected any perception of women as subordinates or merely domestic helpers. Citing Islamic teachings, he always invoked the saying that “women are like flowers. They are not servants," and argued that women must be honored and enabled to deploy their intellectual and spiritual capacities fully, in both private and public spheres, for the benefit of the nation.
Women’s economic participation has grown steadily under the Islamic Republic. The proportion of women in the workforce nearly doubled from 11 percent in 1990 to 19 percent in 2020, indicating that millions more women joined the labor market over three decades.
In politics, women have achieved greater representation and visibility. The number of women in the national parliament has quadrupled compared to the pre‑Revolution era, providing a broader female presence in national legislative debates and policy‑making.
This view on women's participation evolved, and women were consistently endorsed for political participation, including holding formal office.
Sayyed Khamenei explicitly welcomed women’s active presence “in cultural and political areas,” including in writing, research, and public speaking, and has celebrated the emergence of “prominent ladies in different social and scientific arenas” as a sign that the Islamic Republic has “reached a peak” in its ability to cultivate female talent.
At the societal level, women have taken on increasingly visible roles in academia, religious seminaries, and cultural production. In his meetings, Sayyed Khamenei used to frequently point to the rise of women scholars, scientists, seminary students, and the families of martyrs, describing them as “assets for the progress and the future of the country” and examples of how Iranian women “have moved toward perfection and transcendence.”
He contrasts this with the Western capitalist misuse of women as ''cheap labor'' and ''objects of pleasure'', arguing in 2023 that the Western system’s ''alleged freedom… is actually captivity and insult to women''.
For Sayyed Khamenei, the combination of rising literacy, expanded higher education, longer life expectancy, and greater public presence among women is evidence that “by Allah’s favor and grace,” Iranian women have become a focal element in the country’s development and future.
Over the decades of Sayyed Khamenei’s leadership, women’s health indicators have also improved markedly, reflecting the state’s investment in primary healthcare, maternal care, and social services. Female life expectancy increased by almost twenty years, from 58 years in 1979 to 77.7 years in 2018, bringing Iranian women close to life expectancy levels in many developed countries.
Maternal mortality has seen one of the most drastic declines. Maternal deaths fell from 275 per 100,000 women in 1975 to 150 in 1990 and then to just 16 per 100,000 in 2017, indicating a sustained expansion in access to trained medical staff, prenatal care, and hospital delivery services for women across the country.
Sayyed Khamenei often linked such gains to the Islamic Republic’s insistence on preserving women’s dignity and well‑being, emphasizing that women’s “health, security, tranquility and respect” within the family and society are essential for the nation’s progress.
The trajectory of Iranian women since the Islamic Revolution reflects a broad transformation in their social position, with expanded access to education, improved health outcomes, increased public participation, and greater visibility across national institutions.
Under Sayyed Khamenei’s leadership, these developments have been framed not as a departure from women’s traditional roles but as an expansion of their ability to contribute to society while preserving their distinct identity.
Sayyed Khamenei has always emphasized that the strength of a nation is inseparable from the strength of its women, stressing that women are not only contributors to Iran’s present but key builders of its future.
Source: Al Mayadeen
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