For those who wonder what purpose International Women’s Day serves, here is the answer: At least one day a year, most media, including the most conservative, feel the need to examine the situation of women. And they are usually surprised by Turkey’s poor record. One day out of 365 may not be much, but it is an opportunity to air a few issues.This year, the Turkish national assembly had even scheduled a special session to discuss ways of improving Turkish women’s status in society. It sounded like a good idea since Turkey lags so far behind EU and OECD countries on gender equality. I thought it might even be an encouraging sign that the government was finally getting into higher gear on gender equality. That was until I spotted the picture in Hürriyet. It showed the state minister for women’s affairs, Nimet Çubukçu, sitting entirely alone in the area reserved for the government during the discussion, amid the bright red chairs vacated by her male cabinet colleagues. They had better things to do.
Yet there aren’t many ministries or state institutions that do not have a part to play in challenging the status quo. You could perhaps argue that the Ministry of Public Works is not directly concerned, although the wide gender employment gap that exists in all public institutions could perhaps be narrowed there too, but where were the education minister, the health minister, the minister of labor and social security and their colleague from agriculture? In all these fields, there is a long “to do” list if Turkey is to abide by the commitments it made when it signed the Convention for the Elimination of All Discrimination against Women.
“Discrimination against women is worse than racism”, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a couple of days ago. Well spoken, Mr Prime Minister, but what is your government prepared to do about it? Would a well-attended parliamentary session not have been a good opportunity to show that the government meant to take action? Minister Çubukçu is trying her best, but she alone is not going to change society.
The worst offenses -- domestic violence, the honor killings -- are now regularly covered by the media and were even the subject of a parliament report. Still largely unnoticed, however, is the benign neglect that not only blights the lives of many young girls and women today, but also undermines the development of an active and educated population for tomorrow. For instance, an OECD study last year found a high level of inactivity, 44 percent, among Turkish girls aged between 15 and 19. These are teenagers who neither attend school nor have a job. In comparison, this ratio is 8.2 percent among OECD countries.
Surely, even the most conservative of men, who believe that women’s primary role is to look after their children, can see that mothers who have had minimal education, have never held a job and have little experience of life beyond the boundaries of their homes, are not best equipped to support their family’s educational needs. There are examples of individuals born in illiterate families who have risen in society, but statistical evidence shows a direct correlation between the parents and the children’s education level. Encouraging girls to play a more active role in society therefore has wider benefits.
