What is the significance of women in Othello?

Women in Othello are not at all insignificant––after all, the downfall of the titular character in the play is due to his devotion to a woman, Desdemona, even though it is orchestrated by Iago; and Iago himself is motivated in part by his wife, Emilia. 
Both Desdemona and Emilia are strong characters in their own ways. While Desdemona is ultimately smothered by her husband ("put out the light, and then put out the light") her behavior when alive is that of an engaged and active young woman, interested in her community and devoted to her husband. Meanwhile Emilia, wife to a man of a lower position, attends to Desdemona while being an obedient wife to the potentially treacherous Iago. Emilia provides a foil to Desdemona in that she is a woman from an opposing side of the social spectrum: where Desdemona is a wife to a man who remains true to the end, Emilia attaches herself to Iago, who reveals himself to be a disingenuous person at an early stage.