Addressing women, Imam Khomeini (r.a.) would say, "You accepted that Women's Day should be the birthday anniversary of Fatima Zahra (s.a.) and this creates a responsibility for you." It was decided that Women's Day should fall on Fatima Zahra's (a.s.) birthday anniversary. What was the significance? It was a symbolic act. The meaning of the symbolic act is that women should move ahead on this straight path. And this path brings about greatness and the highest positions for women. It is the path of piety, modesty and knowledge. It is the path of resistance in different arenas. It is the path of raising children, the path of family life. It is the path of all spiritual virtues and values. Women should move ahead in this direction.
Fortunately pious women have been pioneers in different arenas and in different events in our society, not just after the Revolution, but since a long time before the Revolution. Women were present in the arena before the intense political activities of the Constitutional movement had started. At a certain stage, these political activities were not very intense, but later on the activities intensified and everybody entered the arena. Iranian women rose up at a time when only a few religious scholars and outstanding personalities were involved in the issue. They arranged a gathering and blocked the path of the ruler of the time. The ruler ran away from them and went into hiding in his palace. Later on the agents of the government beat them up. They had entered the arena wearing a chador. They had entered the arena wearing Islamic-Iranian hijab. There were some people who thought that as long as women wore hijab and observed morality, they would not be able to enter different social and political arenas. In the case of the resistance that led to the Islamic Revolution, I know for a fact that in certain parts of the country our women entered the arena earlier than our men. They arranged street protests earlier than men. The same is true of different other events which took place after the victory of the Islamic Revolution and during the Sacred Defense Era.
I have pointed out on many occasions that in my meetings with the families of our martyrs I have often found mothers more courageous and more resistant than fathers. Motherly love cannot be compared with fatherly love. A mother with her delicate soul raises a child in the best way she can and then she decides to send him to the battlefield. And when her son is martyred and the body is returned to her, she does not even cry in order avoid making the enemies of the Islamic Republic happy. I have repeatedly asked the families of our martyrs to cry. I have told them that nothing is wrong with crying. But they would not cry, saying that they were afraid the enemies of the Islamic Republic might become happy. This is how our women are. They passed the test.
