Armenian women

Women in Armenia

An Armenian young woman (19th century)
Gender Inequality Index
Value	0.340 (2012)
Rank	59th
Maternal mortality (per 100,000)	30 (2010)
Women in parliament	10.7% (2012)
Females over 25 with secondary education	94.1% (2010)
Women in labour force	59% (2014)
Global Gender Gap Index
Value	0.6634 (2013)
Rank	94th out of 144

Women in Armenia have been officially guaranteed gender equality since the establishment of the Republic of Armenia in 1991. This has enabled women to actively participate in all spheres of Armenian life. Armenian women have attained prominence in entertainment, politics and other fields.

According to the 2011 Grant Thornton International business survey, 29% of top-level managerial positions in Armenia were occupied by women in 2010. However, this figure declined to 23% in 2011. Based on a report by the United Nations, there were 24 female mayors and community leaders in Armenia in 2011; a further 50 women held lower-level administrative positions.

Although some nationalist feminists from the early 20th century to the present have concocted a view of ancient Armenian society and law as being woman-friendly, there is virtually no evidence for this assertion. The law code of Mkhitar Gos, dating to the 12th century, sought to raise women's status from its former level, however the code explicitly enshrined male domination and forbade divorce, even in the case of domestic violence or marital rape. Its most progressive elements seem to have never been applied in society at large, and in the 18th and 19th centuries both outsider and insider reports overwhelmingly commented on the low status of women in traditional Armenian society. Married women lived as virtual slaves of their husbands' families, although the situation improved gradually with age. During the first year of marriage, they were not permitted to speak to anyone except their husband, and were forbidden from leaving the house. In some villages, these restrictions continued even after the birth of the first child, and may have lasted more than ten years. Female suicide was more common than male suicide, in striking contrast to the situation in the west.

In spite of the inferior position of women in Armenian society, the Armenian Apostolic Church allowed women greater opportunities for assuming clerical roles than most other Christian traditions. Unlike the Eastern Orthodox, however, they were strongly opposed to divorce, and as a result the divorce rate in traditional Armenia has always been among the lowest in the Christian world.

According to the World Health Organization, between 10% and 60% of Armenian women suffered domestic abuse and violence in 2002; the uncertainty of the data was due to the underreporting of domestic violence in Armenia. Underreporting is said to occur because of the treatment of domestic violence as a private family matter. There are no well-established laws against domestic aggression and gender-based prejudice in Armenia. Furthermore, divorcing a husband – even an abusive one – causes "social disgrace", with the families of women who file for divorce or report domestic violence being considered to be shamed. Other contributing factors include Armenian women's lack of, or lower level of, education regarding their rights and how to protect themselves from abuse.