The True Identity of Women (Part 4)
Luring women towards luxury and consumerism
There are certain kinds of oppression that have been imposed on women and they are recognized as oppression. There are also certain kinds of oppression that are not recognized as oppression, but they are genuine oppression - such as enticing women towards luxurious lifestyles, consumerism and pointless and expensive makeup, and encouraging them to become a product for consumption, which constitute great oppression to women. One may say no kind of oppression is more serious than these latter kinds of oppression because they make women completely ignore and give up the goal and ideal of perfection, keeping them busy with small and trivial things. This was what the oppressive system of monarchy did, something that should have been stopped.
Dragging girls and women out of the family environment and submerging them in corruption
During the time of Shah Regieme, women would travel to different places with different delegations, but their presences have only a ceremonial purpose. The purpose was to show their faces and bodies to this and that person. But today the presence of Muslim women in different international meetings and conferences and in different scientific and academic canters is for scholarly, political or service purposes. These things are valuable. At that time they used to drag certain girls out of the warm and modest arms of the family and call them "Miss Iran" only to submerge them in the cesspit of corruption.
Western clothes and the banning of hijab were the first souvenirs that the thuggish Reza Khan brought to Iran from the West. And he imposed these things on the people of Iran with his trademark use of coercion and bayonets. He forced the people to wear short clothes and a special type of hat, and later on he changed his mind about the hat and ordered that the people must only wear what was known at that time as the Pahlavi hat. If somebody dared wear another type of hat or long clothes, they used to beat him up and banish him. These were the kind of things that they adopted from the West. Women were not allowed to wear hijab. It was not just the chador because it had already been banned. Even if a woman wore a headscarf, they used to beat her up. Why? Because women did not wear headscarves in the West. These were the kind of things that they imported from the West.
Undermining the moral foundation of the country
Do you know what the situation of our country was before the Revolution? Do you know how they undermined the moral foundations of this nation for fifty years in a deliberate and persistent way? Do you know what they did to Iranian women and girls? If you knew these things, you would understand how valuable it is to have a righteous and spiritual young generation, including both girls and boys.
Today the number - both the absolute number and the proportion of woman researchers, woman professors, woman scientists in different fields, woman intellectuals and writers who write and present their ideas in different areas, woman poets, woman artists, woman storytellers and woman painters is far more than the time of Shah Regime, namely the time when they had completely annihilated hijab, modesty and the distance between men and women in the name of supporting women and they were promoting immoral behaviour on a daily basis.
In certain cases their actions were even worse and more radical than European countries.
By Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei
Source: Mahjubah Magezine
Other links:
Veil, is the pure essence of Islam to women (Part 1)
Veil, is the pure essence of Islam to women (Part 2)
