On June 21 and 23, 1919, the first direct parliamentary elections were held in Armenia under universal suffrage - every person over the age of 20 had the right to vote regardless of gender, ethnicity or religious beliefs.

The 80-seat legislature, charged with setting the foundation for an Armenian state, contained three women deputies: Katarine Zalyan-Manukyan, Perchuhi Partizpanyan-Barseghyan and Varvara Sahakyan.

[9] According to the 2018 Grant Thornton International business survey, the proportion of senior roles held by women in Armenia went slightly up from 31% to 32%.

[11] 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.

[12] Some Armenian intellectuals, like Sibil, viewed ancient Armenian society and laws as woman-centric in line with the common trend of 19th century reformers who saw women as guardians of ancient, national culture, "many reformers idealised the civilization of a distant past, speaking of the need to regain the lost freedom that women were once said to have possessed in their societies”.

[citation needed] Armenian families were traditionally patrilocal, labor in the house was divided based on gender and generation.

[25] In addition, Armenian women's place in politics was often located in the private sphere - their entry in the public sphere only valued when they reflected the image of the feminine ideal based on social expectations, which continue to put a barrier on the political, social, and economic accessibility for women.

[30] Female representation in the Parliament has been growing steadily in Armenia in the last decade[31] and currently represents the highest percentage in the South Caucasus (35.51%)[2] compared to neighbouring Georgia(18.44%)[32] and Azerbaijan(18.64%).

[34] Sex-selective abortion is reported as being a problem in the country, due to patriarchal social norms which consider having a son preferable to having a daughter.

Zabel Yesayan, also born in Constantinople, bridged the gap with Eastern Armenian literature by settling in Soviet Armenia in 1933.

The literary renaissance and its accompanying voice of protest also had its representatives in the East with poet Shushanik Kurghinian(1876–1927) of Aleksandrapol (today, Gyumri).

Sylvia Kaputikyan and Maro Markarian are probably the best-known women poets from the Republic of Armenia of the 20th century, and continued the tradition of political speech through poetry.

Upon the formation of the Soviet Union, the new government wished to radically reconstruct society by tackling economic, social, and political questions.

Thus, Soviet legislation was adopted during the early 1920s that established civil marriage, easy divorce, abortion services, maternity pay, and childcare facilities.

Women were given equal rights to hold land, act as heads of households, be members in rural communes, and perform paid labor.

Women, on the other hand, populated spheres like textiles, electronics, food-processing, service, health, education, and culture industries.

Additionally, one of the many responsibilities of the Commission for the Improvement of the Way of Life of Women in Armenia, which was created in 1923, was to “see that Soviet legislation regarding the family and traditional offenses was put into effect.”[43] Even though Party leaders placed tremendous importance on dismantling the traditional family institution in Armenia, Armenian — and all Soviet — women were highly encouraged to have children.

During this time of national distress, women marched out onto the streets alongside men to demonstrate in support of political change, in a display of a “genderless festival of goodwill and optimism.”[44] One of the most prominent women deputies during the Perestroika and later the post-soviet Russia, Galina Starovoitova, was first elected as a representative from Armenia in the Supreme Soviet and pursued several initiatives to help solve the problem of Nagorno Karabakh.