Turkish women torn between their rights and polarization

One of the increasingly polarizing issues in Turkey is women’s rights, including their role and participation in political and public life.
The fact that we are still discussing, never mind having a week-long debate about, this topic is really odd in a country where women claimed their rights long before many of their European counterparts.
There are many historical examples of Turkish women who successfully became involved in public and political life in Turkey, even though it was a patriarchal society. In fact, a constitutional amendment in 1934 ensured that Turkish women were among the first in the world to achieve the right to vote and run for elected office. This was 10 years before women in France were granted full suffrage, and 37 years before those in Switzerland. As early as 1930, just 7 years after the Republic of Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkish women were granted the right to vote in local elections.
Therefore it is surprising, and saddening, that we are still debating women’s rights in a country that had such a promising initial record on the issue. However, due to the widening gap between secularists and conservatives in Turkish society in the past decade, Turkish women have come under constant pressure and been deprived of their rights.
The most recent example started when Ozlem Zengin, a deputy from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power in Turkey for 17 years, said that “women had no name” before the AKP came to power, prompting outrage from the opposition.
“Women had no name in this country until the AKP came to power,” Zengin said in parliament. “Women built the AKP and that’s why we, the women and men in the party and our president, try to make life easier for women with the work that we carry out.”
She also said that during her party’s time in power, it has created opportunities for women and worked to make life easier for them.
Not surprisingly, her comments about the lack of a presence and representation of women in Turkey before the AKP era caused outrage in public, political and social media circles. Although much of the criticism of her remarks was justified, the way it was often presented, using discriminatory and pejorative rhetoric, was not.
Zengin’s comments might have been at least partially correct if she had said that “conservative” women had no name in Turkey before her party came to power. Conservative women have indeed gained the opportunity to exercise more of their rights in public life during the AKP’s time in power. Obviously this is a positive and overdue development, because a healthy democracy requires that all citizens, regardless of political, ideological or religious beliefs, have a voice in the political and public arenas.
The lifting of a decades-long ban on wearing a headscarf in state institutions was a crucial step toward ending the human rights abuses that affected the lives and futures of thousands of women in Turkey. In 2008, the Turkish parliament passed an amendment to the constitution allowing women to wear the headscarf on university campuses, and the ban was lifted in 2010.
This was followed in 2013 by a decision to allow women to wear headscarves while working in state institutions. The same year, four female MPs entered parliament wearing headscarves. This was a memorable moment in Turkish political history.
The support of liberal and secular women in the fight over the headscarf issue should be noted. In the early years of the AKP, the women’s movement within the party was acting as a united force to defend the rights of all women, conservative or otherwise.
At the moment, we are a long way from that unity. It is unrealistic to expect the growing polarization in the country would not affect the women’s movement, as it has affected several other issues in the country.
“Both women and youth may enter politics if politics develops on the moral basis. I wish all women could unite on certain objectives and act together,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, during a meeting with members of the Serife Baci Women Platform last weekend.

The lifting of a decades-long ban on wearing a headscarf in state institutions was a crucial step toward ending the human rights abuses that affected the lives and futures of thousands of women in Turkey.

Sinem Cengiz

Women are still excluded from social and political life by certain groups who dislike their increased visibility and role in society, he added, and this can only be changed by the continued efforts of women’s organizations.
“But it would also be wrong to suggest that ‘women have no name’ — they sure do,” he said. “But their weight in politics is not sufficient. The most important reason for this is the fact that the political arena is highly corrupted and this corrupted climate does not allow women to do politics.”
While some level of polarization is perhaps inevitable in any country, it seems to have been particularly unwholesome in Turkey in the recent years. Given that violence against women and femicide is one of the gravest problems facing Turkey, the lack of unity among political parties, civil society organizations and the women’s movement in general rubs salt into a gaping wound.

• Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkey’s relations with the Middle East. Twitter: @SinemCngz