Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that in Islam, the way to involve in any kind of social activity is open for women as well as for men, provided that two important things are observed, one the issue of family and the other, exploitation and pleasure-seeking.
At the meeting held on the threshold of Lady Fatima's (AS) birth anniversary, Ayatollah Khamenei highlighted the identity of women, her values, rights, tasks, freedoms, and restrictions as a vital issue in a society and said:
"Today in the world there are two approaches in all these fields; One approach is the common western approach that has become popular in non-western countries in all the areas I mentioned. One approach is the Islamic approach, these two are opposite to each other."
As the Leader of the Islamic Revolution referred to the physical differences between woman and man and legal differences they bring for the two, as the issue which has created doubts about the freedom and rights of women in the society.
In this regard the Islamic view in positioned against the humanistic views such as feminism; As the West's feminism claims, the legal difference represents oppression and sexual discrimination against women, because in the feminist view, justice means full equality between men and women, and any kind of difference is considered as a violation of justice.
Yet, in the Islamic view, the absolute equality between men and women just paves the way for practicing oppression on women because ignoring the physical differences between the two, is a type of sexual oppression and double oppression on women because it causes self-alienation in them.
Important also is the results of the feminist movement's approach in the West; the advocates of the view consider it as an approach to remove inferiority, oppression, inequality and injustices against women so they calling for the transformation of all social structures, but the realities in the West say different things.
In the West, the women are still suffering from injustice, inequalities, and violence; The Western capitalist system is structured based on the existing patriarchal culture that has influence in all society and perpetuates this inferiority of women through the existing political powers, and therefore gains a lot of profit.
The Western capitalism promotes special cultural beliefs through its media and advertise met, where woman's sexual attractions serve a sources for gaining more profit.
Therefor, focusing on a single aspect of woman, feminism disregards other aspects of her and as the critics say, although the women in the West have reached some freedoms, they have become alienated by their own nature which in turn has caused deidentification and ultimately anxiety for the Western woman.
Tony Grant says today it seems that women have only become independent, but emotionally they are often more needy, insecure, unstable, lonely and helpless than their mothers and grandmothers.
To put it in nutshell, feminism and its promotion in the West under the pretext of man-woman equality has deprived the women from their identity, security, and physical and mental tranquility; in other words, what is referred to as gender either sexual or equality is indeed ignorance of justice in the women's rights for it imposes more costs and pressures on them.
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution also notes that men and women have different tasks according to their mental and physical capacities:
"Based on this, the slogan 'gender equality' which some state in absolute form is wrong, and that which is correct is actually 'gender justice'." 204
