As many as 20 women likely to win membership of the 290-seat Majlis – including eight from a Tehran reformist list

With reformist-backed candidates securing a sweeping victory in Tehran, and moderates leading in provinces, a record number of women are set to enter the next Iranian parliament.



Estimates based on the latest results show that as many as 20 women are likely to enter the 290-seat legislature known as the Majlis, the most ever. The previous record was set nearly 20 years ago during the fifth parliament after the 1979 revolution, when 14 women held seats. There are nine women in the current Iranian parliament.



Eight of the women elected this time were on a reformist-backed list of 30 candidates standing in the Tehran constituency known as “the list of hope”.

Among them is Parvaneh Salahshori, a 51-year-old sociologist and university professor originally from Masjed Soleyman, in the south of Iran. Her husband, Barat Ghobadian, also a university professor, was disqualified from running. As the results were being counted, an interview surfaced online showing Salahshori speaking out about discrimination against women in Iran, pleasing many women’s rights advocates. She also said women should be able to choose whether or not to wear the hijab, a taboo subject in the Islamic Republic.



When asked by an Italian journalist what it meant to belong to reformists in Iran, she said: “It means that we want change, it means that we want to empower our women, we want to empower our young people and we want to grow our economy.”

Salahshori criticised the nine existing female MPs, who mostly belong to the conservative camp, saying that they did not represent women. “They think completely differently from us [reformists],” she told Corriere della Sera. “They are against women, I think some women are against women and these women are not women, only their gender is female, but their language is pro-men.”

One of the nine current female MPs, Fatemeh Alia, a conservative, came under a great deal of criticism after saying that women should not enter stadiums alongside male fans to watch volleyball matches. “A woman’s duty is to take care of her husband and bring up her kids, not to go watch volleyball,” she has previously said.

Salahshori said she wanted to fight discrimination. “There are some Islamic rules, we have to talk about them, we have to negotiate, we are here to fight against discrimination,” she said in English. Asked about the biggest challenge facing women in Iran, she said: “The rules and the laws … we will try, we have got many problems, divorce, the problem of unemployment of women, violence against women, it’s very bad, the violence is at home and in society, we have to remove all these kinds of violence.”

On the issue of the hijab, Salahshori made comments rarely heard from Iranian officials. “I wear both, sometimes I wear a scarf, sometimes this [a chador, covering head to toe],” she said. “I think it’s our primary right to choose [whether to wear it]. The time will come. The time will come … it is a very hard process, we have to respect some norms of society, but one day [it will be a matter of choice].”

Although women can vote and drive in Iran, discriminatory laws persist. Women are required to wear the hijab and in court their testimony is worth only half that of a man. They also face inequality in inheritance rights. But women have a strong presence in civil society and a number of them have spent time in jail for advocating women’s rights. Women in Iran have held senior government jobs – Iran currently has a number of female vice-presidents and one female ambassador.

