“I will not give away my freedom and dignity, I am responsible to myself and I am the judge for everything I say and do, and I am the one responsible for it.” Harutyunyan says it is those very rules that may have hindered, rather than helped, her to achieve a level of political influence. Harutyunyan says the teachers in her life have been men. “My first teacher was my father. He taught me Voltaire and Rousseau, and his oppositional speeches were my first universities. My second teacher was my mathematics instructor who once said thank you for solving a difficult problem. It was the first ‘thank you’ said to me in my life and I realized that I will deserve gratitude if I do something difficult,” she says. In 1974 Harutyunyan spent a year at the Sorbonne University, an opportunity that seemed a miracle for a 34 year old professor of political economy in the Soviet times. “I felt I knew more than I had the right to speak about, but the state needed the knowledge I had,” says Harutyunyan.

She got the chance to speak out in 1976, when Karen Demirchyan had just come to power and was meeting various specialists to learn new ideas.

“I met his aide. He was smiling with distrust from afar and seemed to say: ‘What can this girl tell me?’ I spoke about all the reform programs that I thought the country needed. That was a special challenge on my side, because I seemed to him just a woman, but I wanted him to see I understood the situation as good as he did. He gradually turned serious, took a pen and began taking notes. So he realized I was not simply a woman in front of him, but an individual versed in the business,” says Harutyunyan.

The professor inspired by the reforms later realized the programs she suggested were not that easy a task.

“My youthful naivety ended as I realized the wishes couldn’t change the country on their own, and one needed to fight to achieve changes.”

She launched her struggle both in the Supreme Soviet and the international instances, where she would courageously voice out the question of the Karabakh independence.

“The participation in the Gorbachev-Bush Summit in 1990 gave me an opportunity to have a press conference with the US media. So instead of talking about the advances and the reforms within the Soviet Union I harped in the same string of the Karabakh problem,” recalls Harutyunyan with a smile.

Her boldness turned to be an obstacle on her way to taking high positions. Harutyunyan has been a candidate in all five parliamentary elections since independence but she has never been elected.

“Those who overtly say the truth and fight against the mistakes, have no place in power. I have always won the struggles de facto, but they have always excluded me by all means, well aware that they can’t order me to vote for this or that bill, or not to speak against someone in exchange for a position, because I am not controllable,” says Harutyunyan. “The authorities don’t want knowledgeable and straightforward people, especially a woman, which, as the traditional understanding goes, should be an obedient creature.”

Harutyunyan is confident there will be 15 percent of women elected in the parliament, but she says their entrance will be just an imitation.

“There were 33 percent (representation) of women in Soviet times, but that changed nothing, because there were just four to speak out and the rest would do whatever they were told to do from above. Today it is the same thing,” says Harutyunyan.

She says reasoning, uncontrollable female politicians are not acceptable now; men are the leaders and women have to appear in the role of listeners alone.

“An internationally held survey has shown women leaders can be divided into three categories: those who are under the heel of men, included in men’s groupings and promoted by men; the second category includes women who are rule-breakers, who change the flow of life, who do revolutions and who are not loved by the society as a rule; and the third category are the women who are reconcilers, that is those who solve problems, reconcile and make the society develop by means of reforms,” says the sociologist.

She says the few women in Armenian politics mostly fall into the first category and that there are no rule-breakers among them. She classifies herself are a reconciler as she is confident the step by step reforms also lead to a success.

She says freedom is the highest position and she will never change it for any other.

“I have founded the school of sociology in the university. I have created two departments for conflictology and social work and I have opened centers and a party. I have educated numerous students who are publishing books now and call me their teacher. So, I have realized myself outside politics,” says Harutyunyan with pride.

But she is confident if women chose a role for themselves in the politics and had an opportunity to make decisions “our country would not be this dirty”.

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