Politics and Paid Work For Men Only
Although there have been encouraging projects in Turkey to curb violence against women and to increase the number of girls enrolled in school, the country still has much to do to increase the rate of female employment and participation in politics, European Parliament Rapporteur on Women’s Rights in Turkey Emine Bozkurt has said… Bozkurt said, “Only 24.6 of women in Turkey participate in the workforce compared to 57.2 percent, the EU average…”
Political representation of women in Turkey also remains low at 9 percent in Parliament, compared with 38 percent in the Netherlands, Bozkurt’s home country. But the EP parliamentarian points to problems with Turkey’s current legislation on political parties, which encourages a strong leadership in political parties…
“There’s a problem with Turkey’s Law on Political Parties, which affects not only women but everyone,” Bozkurt added, stating that unless necessary changes are made in the law to allow a more democratic party structure, it wouldn’t be realistic to expect an increase in the number of women in Parliament.
Recalling discussions last year on lowering the age of eligibility for parliamentary office from 30 to 25, Bozkurt said she also sensed a problem of mentality. “Some people were against it. It was interesting to hear their arguments. I quote some who said: ‘At 25 they won’t have any experience. Most of them haven’t even completed their military service at that age.’ To which I would ask, ‘Military service?’ This implies [politics] is thought of as only for men.”
So is it then Turkey’s patriarchal culture that makes women’s role in politics more difficult? Bozkurt says no. “It’s too easy to blame everything on culture,” she says, adding that social policies to transform the national outlook are necessary… (click here for the full article]
Political representation of women in Turkey also remains low at 9 percent in Parliament, compared with 38 percent in the Netherlands, Bozkurt’s home country.
It is worse than that. Let me name a few of those women: Mrs. Dagi (AKP), Mrs. Turkone (AKP), Mrs. Memecan (AKP), Mrs. Mumcu (CHP).
I wouldn’t have included Mrs. Mumcu, but Baykal did make an explicit reference to honoring her late husband through her presence in a speech. The rest are married to columnists and a cartoonist who’d been and are in service of the AKP (sometimes to the point of ridiculousness). There probably are at least half a dozen feminist theories and quite a few about represantative democracy that would have things to say about rewarding husbands though the appointment of wives to high positions, and, indeed, about party bosses appointing parliamenterians.
Oh and these are just the ones I know about.