One of the regime’s so-called “experts” on women’s affairs declared the western model of women’s economic empowerment will distance Iranian women from the country’s value system. She suggested focus instead on cultural and social empowerment of women.
Maryam Varzdar told Fars news agency: “When we focus on the economy and on women’s economic participation, we wouldn’t know where we will end up… It is very important to know what kind of plan we have for women’s empowerment so that we would not distance them from values.”
She added, “I think women’s economic empowerment has been wrongly prioritized while the main problems in our society are social and cultural…”
Varzdar went on to say, “We must be concerned about all areas, not only the area of economy because the main problem in our society is culture. As the supreme leader has mentioned time and again, the virtue and vice in a society depends on the virtue and vice of women in that society.”
(State-run Fars news agency, September 21, 2015)
