Kader and some of her other siblings, who are primary school age and younger, were noticed by district officials from the Ministry of Education, and with the help of donations they have been placed in school. Although living in the same house under the same conditions, Kader is no longer responsible for taking care of her siblings and has a chance for a brighter future as the most successful of all the children sent at her district school.
"Her father resisted a lot and wanted to keep the girl at home because she was used as a child laborer, but he was convinced by the officials especially after he was given a stable job," said Zeki Yigen, provincial advisor for the "Haydi Kızlar Okula!" (Let's go to school, girls) education campaign.
Kader is only one of the many girls in Turkey who had responsibilities beyond her age and could not go to school; fewer girls than boys attend primary school in this country. Even though primary education is compulsory and free of charge in Turkey, the reasons why so many girls do not finish the full eight years of primary education are mostly due to discriminatory social practices.
UNICEF, which has supported the “Haydi Kızlar Okula!” campaign together with the Turkish Ministry of Education since 2003, notes on its Web site that as many as 40 percent of girls were not attending school at all in certain provinces prior to the campaign and lists a number reasons on the site as to why girls are kept from education.
“Girls are kept at home to care for younger family members and help with domestic work; rural families are especially unwilling to let older girls travel long distances to school by bus; urban families keep girls from schools that are often over-crowded and under-resourced; low income families find it hard to meet the costs of transport, uniforms and stationery; traditional attitudes that prefer early marriage over education for girls,” details the UNICEF Web site.
And the results of these practices are revealed in the 2000 census. Overall in Turkey, 95.7 percent men are literate while only 81.3 percent of women are. Women’s literacy shows sharp regional differences, too. In the Southeast, three-quarters of the illiterate population are women, and half of the women in the same region are illiterate.
“When fathers can still prevent their daughters from attending school with impunity and only 17 percent of women in urban areas are earning a living and degree of independence that comes with it, is it reasonable to believe women stand a fair chance to demonstrate their abilities?” asked Nicole Pope, a journalist based in Turkey.
Also an independent researcher on women’s issues, Pope said dozens of countries had experienced significant progress toward gender equality with the introduction of quotas, and therefore achieved an increased female participation in politics and in the labor force.
Quota controversy
When women’s rights activist Hülya Gülbahar approached Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a parliamentary reception in Ankara on Oct. 1 to receive his support for quotas, she was rebuked.
To Erdoğan, Gülbahar said: “There is a quota for women even in Rwanda. We also need a quota.” In response the prime minister said, “Do you want to be Rwanda? You can be Rwanda, go ahead.”
Gülbahar continued, “We do not want to be Rwanda, we want to be equal and we demand necessary temporary measures or regulations for a time to provide de facto equal opportunities for women in every field.”
The heated conversation between Gülbahar and Erdoğan generated much discussion. Activists from Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) -- New Ways had a demonstration in Beyoğlu on Oct. 6 to remind the public that they want gender equality.
WWHR founder Pınar İlkkaracan said: “What really matters is for Turkey to turn equality from theory into reality. Despite the guarantee of the equality of the sexes under the Turkish Constitution, many women do not have access to the means for asserting their rights as free individuals and equal citizens.”
Opponents of the quotas often argue that it’s hypocritical to ask for quotas while at the same time demanding equality. However, women’s groups say that there is no controversy because there is a gender gap that needs to be closed, and it’s a proven fact that it can be achieved only by de facto equality, which will go beyond the existing liberal understanding of “equality before the law” and lead to an equality of results. One way to do this is by the introduction of special measures including quotas.
“The concept of equality by itself is very problematic, and if not defined by concrete terms which will be responsive also to groups that have been deprived of their rights historically, it can be the very starting point for producing more inequalities. We need de facto equality, which will set the basis for implementing support policies including quotas, for the underrepresented, underprivileged and disadvantaged groups. It’s been demonstrated in the world that if the ‘critique threshold’ of 33 percent is achieved in a country’s parliament -- meaning at least 33 percent representation of women -- positive changes not only in women’s lives but also in society begin taking place since such improvements also opens up democratic space for all,” said Selma Acuner, a board member at the European Women’s Lobby, a nongovernmental umbrella organization at the European level that brings together more than 4,000 women’s organizations across Europe.
Equality not well understood
Acuner pointed to the recent debate on the constitution, and quotas proved clearly that there is no “common language” for the concept of equality in Turkey.
“If we try to build up an abstract understanding of equality without considering pre-existing inequalities that discount differences, we may end up with no solutions. The pre-condition, specifically when the draft constitution is now high on the political agenda, is that it has to be discussed widely in a participatory manner if we want to keep our hopes for an emancipated society and future.”
She said the principles such as re-distributive policies, equal representation and equal recognition that are innate to the equality concept should be dwelled upon explicitly. An insufficient understanding of equality is apt to exclude some, for example the poor, and no doubt women.
“Take a very widely known statistic. Is it possible at all to say that the 20 percent of the population who receive 80 percent of the income is equal to the group of 80 percent who receive the remaining 20 percent of the resources in the country? Certainly not! But the concept of ‘equality before the law,’ existing in our constitution assumes ‘all’ as equals without taking into consideration such severe gaps and pre-existing inequalities and disregards the consequences for women and men,” Acuner said.
“Are we then not confirming inequality which will also lead to magnified unequal distribution of power, state policies and opportunities? If nothing else just consider that close to 70 percent of the poor in Turkey are women and children, or women are represented only by approximately 1 percent in the local administrations and by 9.1 percent in Parliament -- the lowest in Europe and one of the lowest in the world -- is it possible to name this equality? If women cannot even shape the policies that directly affect their daily lives because of unequal distribution of power and accordingly if state policies disregard these differences, whose equality are we talking about in the Constitution?”
UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report for 2007 argues that women’s empowerment in the household, the workplace and the political sphere will have a direct and positive effect on the reduction of poverty. “Perhaps the most fundamental change that Turkey could effect for the elimination of child poverty would be to meet the third Millennium Development Goal to empower women and achieve gender equality. As catalysts for change and advocates of children’s rights, the full and equal participation of women in the household, the workplace and the political sphere has proven to be the most lasting solution to child poverty the world over.”
Women’s rights activists say that when quotas are in question they are not talking about “quantity” but equality supported by concrete policies and programs, not only quotas in politics. Temporary measures include areas where women lack equal opportunity from education to labor force participation.
Economist and women’s rights advocate from WWHR İpek İlkkaracan gives an example to demonstrate this. A pre-condition to participating in the Turkish employment agency İŞ-KUR’s vocational training programs, which guarantee employment, is to have unemployment insurance.
“In Turkey where only 19 percent of urban women participate in the labor force, mostly men have unemployment insurance. So in these training programs which use public funds, the state gives indirect priority to men. Nevertheless, as a temporary measure, the pre-condition of unemployment insurance shouldn’t be a sought-after requirement for women to receive training,” she said.
Quality and quantity debate
About the quality versus quantity argument in women’s participation in politics, Gülbahar, president of the Association for Education and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER), said: “When it comes to men in politics, nobody cares if they do not have high school education, do not know any foreign languages, have multiple wives, even have a number of investigation files against them and even use violence against women even if it’s known by the public. But if there is a women candidate considered, first of all she has to prove that she is a good mother, wife and a successful career woman. Which man is questioned before becoming a candidate about his fatherhood and spousal qualities?”
Zeynep Dağı, one of the 30 female deputies from the AK Party (Justice and Development Party), supports merit-based criteria for both women and men and said that women are active in politics but that this is not reflected in representation, “I know the power of women and their efforts to exist in my party, but 10 percent representation is not good enough.”
Out of 81 countries which have quotas to increase women’s presence in politics, 27 included the policy quotas in their election laws and 16 in their constitutions, as seen in Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Portugal.
One of eight female deputies of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), Pervin Buldan, said her party has a 40 percent quota system for women in the party administration which is not reflected in Parliament. She believes women are interested and would participate more in politics when they are given a chance. Therefore, she supports a 40 percent quota system guaranteed by the Constitution.
“Women have contributed a lot in the area of democracy and human rights. They can work on these issues in Parliament better than men,” Buldan said.
Güldal Okutucu, women’s branches president and member of the Central Executive Board (MYK) of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), also supports the quota system guaranteed in the Constitution. The CHP has a 25 percent quota for women in the party administrative branches, again not reflected in Parliament.
“It’s a big lie that women are not interested in politics. There is a serious group of women who are interested in politics, and they make great sacrifices to be able to do it,” she said.
In the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), quotas are a non-starter. Hediye Akdere, the party’s women’s branches president and one of the two female members of the 70-member MYK, said she believes affirmative action degrades women even though she believes women do not stand a fair chance and that women’s participation is usually delayed because of maternal responsibilities.
That very patriarchal culture has become a topic of research. Boğaziçi University Professor Yeşim Arat, who studied the issue in her doctoral studies at Princeton in 1983, said traditional division of labor and prevailing patriarchal values are a handicap for women seeking political positions.
“Political parties and political campaigns are run by men and reflect their working hours, working habits and their ways of campaigning. It is not easy for women to reconcile maternal roles with party work that requires meeting during evening hours rather than during the day. Women are expected to be at home rather than at work during the evenings, whereas it is easier for them to work outside the home during the day. Women cannot wine and dine and stay in their constituents’ homes, the way male candidates are expected to do in their political campaigns. Many believe this is not appropriate behavior for women. Even when women overcome these difficulties, men who are the gatekeepers prefer working with other men rather than women. They talk the same language, play the same game and share the same experiences,” stated Arat.
An embarrassing record
Although gender equality is difficult to measure, some international organizations have quantified it. Published in November 2006, the World Economic Forum assessed 115 countries, covering 90 percent of the world’s population. Turkey is ranked 105th, behind Bahrain, Algeria and Ethiopia.
The ranking covers economic participation, educational attainment, health and political empowerment. At the municipal level, only 18 of Turkey’s 3,225 elected mayors (0.56 percent) are women, compared to an EU average of 20 percent.
“How to close the gender gap has become central to Turkey’s project of European integration,” wrote Pope in her article on Oct. 9 in Today’s Zaman. “The EU has set itself a target of 60 percent employment rate for women by 2010, up from its 2005 average of 55.7 percent. How will Turkey catch up, given that only 24 percent of women are currently employed, including unpaid workers toiling in the family fields?” asked Pope.
Male domination was prevalent in the European culture, too. Spain, for example, had a transformation from the time of the arch-conservative dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, when a man had a legal right to “discipline” his wife by beating her. Holding hands in public was prohibited. Women were obliged to seek the permission of their husbands in order to seek gainful employment, to purchase property and even to travel until 1975.
Spanish women’s rights activist Mayte Gallego said in 1987 that a 25 percent quota for women was established in the Socialist Party, later increased to 35 percent, and in their electoral program of 2004 was the compromise for equality and parity. Then came Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who filled eight of his 16 cabinet positions with women.
In March 2007 the Equality Law modified the electoral law and introduced the “principle of balanced presence.” Party electoral lists are required to have a minimum of 40 percent and a maximum of 60 percent of either sex among their candidates in all elections including general, regional, European and local.
“There are many changes that give more security to working mothers, for instance, more possibilities to combine work life with work. The law looks at the whole system -- education, politics, enterprise and companies, and specially paid work following the EU Directive of 2002,” Gallego said.
“It’s all about political leadership,” Acuner said. “Zapatero did it because he really believed in it. He listened to the demands and committed himself a hundred percent.”
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