Parvaneh Salahshouri, a member of the Islamic Republic parliament says that the parliament is part of the discriminatory macrostructure of Iran and “when the macrostructure is corrupted by gender discrimination, it is natural that no one cares about other voices in the parliament.”

In an interview with Khabar Online, Salahshouri mentioned the bill to establish one-sixth special quota to women in the parliament and said that “men are strongly opposing it” and that “the same resistance has always existed regarding women in leadership roles in the parliament.”

Earlier this year, the bill that allocated a special quota to women in the election was rejected. Only 63 male members of parliament voted for the bill.

With only 17 women in the parliament, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ranked 180 in the world in the number of women representatives. The global average presence of women in the parliament in 2019 has reached 24 percent, while only 6 percent of Iran’s parliament are women.

Parvaneh Salahshouri lists the dominant patriarchal atmosphere of the parliament, power structure, and the patriarchal history of Iranian society as the main obstacles for women. According to her, sometimes the system acts in a way that humiliates women and “the law needs to change” in order to end these discriminations.

She is referring to incidents such as the anti-child marriage bill which was recently rejected by the parliament.

Previously, Shahindokht Molaverdi, former vice president in women’s affairs also stated that “despite many efforts, she and her colleagues were not able to pass a single bill for women in the parliament.”