Turkish and Iranian women have been playing an increasingly visible role in informal or “street” politics, such as voting, voter-recruitment, and running political campaigns, including on behalf of pro-religious parties. But continue to be underrepresented in formal decision-making positions. The struggle to assume more high-level leadership positions is leading some women to increasingly engage in strategic interactions with male political elites. Juxtaposing the campaigns of conservative party women for addressing female political underrepresentation in both countries, this paper presents the different discourses used by Iranian and Turkish women’s groups as they demand access to political leadership positions. By analyzing women’s main framing processes in mobilizing support surrounding their demand, this paper highlights women’s initiatives as they utilize discourses that are influenced by opportunities arising out of national and international contexts. Through analyzing women’s campaigning efforts in both countries, I argue that while Turkish women have justified their claims through international documents and human rights discourses of the EU and UN, Iranian women have legitimized their claims in religious terms, in order to find resonance with the political elites. In Turkey, many of the pious Muslim women who have been active with the pro-religious ruling Justice and Development Party are articulating their demands for inclusion in formal politics through international documents and human rights discourses of the UN and EU. Pious Turkish women’s groups are increasingly using the non-discriminatory language of CEDAW to demand headscarved women’s access to the parliament. Turkey, a secular country which has ratified CEDAW, and a candidate country for EU accession, provides its women’s rights groups, both pious and secular, with critical international and transnational political opportunity structures. Conversely, in the context of Iran’s theocratic regime, women’s rights groups across the ideological spectrum, out of necessity and tactical need, frame and justify their demands for women’s increased political representation in religious terms. In large part to avoid being branded as Western, Iranian women use the examples of strong female religious figures, such as Fatima and Zeinab, or refer to Qur’an’s story of the Queen of Sheeba. Such women centered religious reinterpretation enables Iranian women’s rights activists to frame their demands in terms of social justice, gender equality, and women’s rights, all of which are presented as compatible with Islamic doctrine. Such naming and framing processes highlight the significance of political and social opportunities and contexts in shaping women’s discourses and strategies regardless of their level of religiosity.