Three years ago, when Aghunik Hazryan became the head of Aregnadem village, Amasia region of Shirak province she could never imagine as a woman she would have to prove she deserved the position, every signle day.

“It is part of Armenian mentality – a woman should not be a manager, she should raise children and stay in the kitchen. But I think it is not right: if the woman has the potential it needs to be used and I prove today I have the vigor,” says Hazryan, 44, who was re-elected village head this autumn. (Of Armenia’s 866 village heads only 23 are women, 2.5 percent.)