TEHRAN (Press TV) -- Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called for greater role for women in the society and underscored the need for enlightenment of the world public opinion about Islam's sublime views on women.

At a meeting with hundreds of scholars and academicians here, the Leader underlined the need for women's more active role, saying, “Efforts should thus be made to maintain the capacities for the presence and role of women in society.”

Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Iranian women's role during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the eight-year Iran-Iraq war and the post-war era, and described their capacities as “outstanding and irreplaceable”.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution made reference to the enemies' propaganda about the conditions of women in the Islamic system, saying, “By enlightening the world public opinion, we should not allow the objectives of the Western policymakers and planners in attacking the Islamic principles on women to be materialized.”

The Leader emphasized that in terms of human status in Islam, men and women are both treated as “totally equal”, noting, "Islam considers the issue of gender as a secondary issue."

Ayatollah Khamenei lashed out at the West for evading family matters, and argued, "They excessively pursue the issue of women, but fail to mention that of family since the issue of family is one of their weak points.”

The Leader described the West's treatment of women as a violation of their human dignity, adding that extreme feminist approaches have dealt severe blows to the status of women, turning them into objects of pleasure for men- - a matter which is taken for granted in the West.