Commentary for Megillah 7:15

Women are obligated in reading the Megilla. From it appears that women may fulfill the obligation on behalf of others, from the fact that it does not say "to hear the reading of Megilla." And this is also implicit in Arachin (2b), which states, "All are obligated in the reading of Megilla." And it concludes, "All are obligated, to include what?" And it answers, "To include women," implying that they may even exempt men. But it is difficult, because in the Tosefta it states explicitly that a tumtum cannot fulfill the obligation on behalf of his gender or another species, and an androgynos can fulfill the obligation for his gender and not for another gender. And it is obvious that a woman is no greater than an androgynos. And so ruled the author of Halakhot Gedolot, that a woman may fulfill the obligation for her gender but not for men. And one can respond that we would have thought that their reading is ineffective even to fulfill the obligation for women; it comes to teach that they are obligated - that all are obligated in listening, servants, women and children.

Since they were also part of the same miracle. Rashbam explained, that the primary part of the miracle was done by them; Purim - by Esther, Chanukah - by Judith, Pesach - for they were saved in the merit of the righteous ones of that generation. And this [interpretation] is difficult, for the language "since they were also" implies that they were secondary, and according to his [Rashbam's] interpretation, it should have said "since they were". Therefore, it seems to me, that they were also potentially going to be wiped out and killed, and so too on Pesach, when they were enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt, and in Chanukah, the decrees applied to them too. In the matter of Matzah, there is one who asks why do we need this comparison, that everyone who is included in the prohibition of eating leavened bread is included in the positive commandment of eating Matzah. [Why not] learn it from them having been part of the same miracle? And it should be said, that this reason [part of the same miracle] does not obligate one but Rabbinically, so we need the comparison. And our Rabbi Joseph, of Jerusalem, explained that you might exempt them from it, by means of a comparison, for [Pesach] is on the 15th, and so too Sukkot is on the 15th [and women are exempt from the Sukkah], as I have explained in the chapter of Eilu Ovrin (Tosafot on Pesachim 43b:1).