However, there is one subject on which sides appear to have reached a consensus even if the way this has been achieved is by sticking their neck in the same patch of sand. Everyone seems to concur that the position of women in Turkish society is best ignored. Periodically, the World Economic Forum (WEF) produces an evaluation of the gender gap in the family of nations. The report evaluates a variety of things -- women's access to education, to employment and to political office. It looks at women's health, equality of pay and enrollment in higher education. Consistently, Turkey flounders at the bottom of the league. In its 2008 report, the WEF put Turkey at a lonely pole position. Of course, one can criticize the methodology of these sorts of league tables, but even with a big pinch of salt, Turkey's standing is depressing. It ranks 127th among 130 nations, even behind Iran (116), a neighbor not famous for promoting the role of women in public life. In Turkey, the report more than implies the ceilings are not so much made of glass as reinforced concrete.
There is, however, an even larger gap between the actual position of woman and the way woman's rights are perceived. This is a point made afresh by Nigar Göksel in a piece published recently by an American think tank, the German Marshall Fund (GMF), entitled “Women in Turkey -- What is on Paper, What is in Practice?” Legislation in Turkey promises gender equality; women in Turkey were first able to vote in municipal elections in 1930. Atatürk was a social revolutionary who famously recognized that for society to discriminate against half of humanity was to cut off its nose to spite its face. Yet nearly 87 years after the republic, women figure hardly at all in party political life. There were two women elected as mayors to the 81 provincial capital cities and of the districts only 15 out of 900.
In those rare moments when the opposing camps do see a problem, they are more than happy to blame the other side. The secularists point a finger at the undertow of religiously sanctioned intolerance that gives men the right to manage women's sexuality and therefore keep women from rising to the top. The conservatives accuse the secularists of having their own blinkered view of the world, one that stops women wearing headscarves from taking their rightful place. Both sides are probably right. And both sides are equally consistent in failing to recognize a far deeper malaise.
The one political party that has succeeded in calling the others' bluff is the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP). Of those mayorships, one of the two provincial capitals and 12 of the 15 districts belong to them. And this is a party that draws its support from what the rest of Turkey regards as the most tribal, primitive and patriarchal part of the country. Yet clearly the DTP has managed to mobilize grassroots women's support without alienating their male overlords.
The current debate is whether the mainstream political parties should allocate a quota of women candidates. The argument in favor states that this would allow Turkey to creep up the WEF league table. The argument against (and one made by the current prime minister) is that this attitude patronizes women. Despite that many of his supporters have little truck with Darwin, he advocates a form of social Darwinism that if a woman is to become a successful candidate, she has to battle her way into a hostile world. Of course, if the current generation of politicians were to change their attitude, perhaps women would have to find men at their own unprofitable game.
