diff --git a/selftest/parallel.sh b/selftest/parallel.sh
index 14b6e95..b59ea7c 100755
--- a/selftest/parallel.sh
+++ b/selftest/parallel.sh
@@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ export OPENSSL_CONF=/non-existing-file
 # setuptools 60+ uses its own copy of distutils by default
 # this setting must be overriden with the environment variable for
 # Python tests to use the standard library's distutils
-export SETUPTOOLS_USE_DISTUTILS=stdlib
+# We only do this if stdlib distutils actually exists
+$PYTHON -c 'import distutils' 2>/dev/null && export SETUPTOOLS_USE_DISTUTILS=stdlib || true
 
 $PYTHON -m test.pythoninfo
 $PYTHON -m test -wW -j$JOBS $X