© Impact Journals WOMEN'S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY IRAN:

Women ' rights and political participation of women, especially women of western Iran are partly new issues in the history of Iran; it was only about one century ago that the first debates about women's rights arose in Iran. About one century since beginning the first debates about women's rights in Iran, Iranian women still suffer from discrimination and inequality. Among Iranian women, women of western Iran are the most handicapped and unseen and suffer from duplex discrimination in comparison to women of other parts of Iran. There are two levels of limitations on women's rights in Iran; national level limitations and local level limitations. The national level limitations such as Sharia law and patriarchy apply to every Iranian woman and the local level limitations such as discriminating between Shiite and Sunnite and Persian and non-Persian women are mostly applied to women of western Iran and women who come from non-Persian and non-Shiite ethnics of Iran. It can be said, although Iranian women still suffer from discrimination and inequality between men and women, but since one century strive they have partly succeeded to fill the social and economic gaps that exist between Iranian women and men, although the political status of Iranian women has not enhanced considerably