HURRIYET- Columnist Ferai Tinc comments on a letter sent by Anna Karamanou, the chairperson of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, to seven parties in Turkey. A summary of her column is as follows:
A new bargaining chip has been put on the table for our dealings with the European Union: women. If I were you, such a development would also fill me with feelings of rebellion and nervousness. However, I am on the side of women and their calls for democracy, freedom, equal rights and the rule of law. Therefore I was pleased with the letter, sent by Anna Karamanou, who chairs the European Parliament’s Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, to seven parties in Turkey, requesting that their candidates’ lists give much more room to women candidates. Stating that women were underrepresented at the Turkish Parliament and that the percentage of women deputies was woefully small, the letter added, ‘All the members of our commission are concerned about this situation.’ The letter also emphasized that the equality of men and women was a priority principle of democracy and that this principle was a condition for Turkey’s EU membership. The letter also reminded the parties that the condition of boosting the number of women in Parliament appeared in Turkey’s Accession Partnership Document.
Yesterday our newspaper carried an opinion column by Oktay Eksi which I agreed with until its last paragraph. In the piece, he emphasized that Turkish women had much more active roles in social life than women living in many Western countries but that they remained excluded from the politics. He then asked, ‘So why haven’t Turkish women been able to achieve the same scale of participation in politics?’ Eksi, an open-minded person who certainly favors the equality of the sexes, answered this in an unexpected way: ‘When women need a diploma to get a job, they don’t shrink from the work and risk needed to achieve this. But if they are looking to advance within a particular field or profession, they expect this to be handed to them on a silver platter.’
This is entirely off the mark. Our women do in fact work hard in the field. They deal with every kind of work, including cleaning party buildings, handing out announcements, organizing meetings, collecting money and conducting outreach campaigns. Can one possibly belittle the work done by women from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Anatolia? Didn’t the fieldwork carried out by women contribute to the Welfare Party’s (RP) coming to power? Women worked very hard at organizing when people thought that the Motherland Party (ANAP) was the hope of Turkey, didn’t they? Moreover, it’s not easy for women to transcend their traditional social roles and go into politics with a political party, but still they are succeeding. However, when election time comes around, women are preemptively pushed off the candidates lists in order to make room for those who have more power and the money, and unfortunately men are way ahead in these respects.
However, I do agree with Eksi’s call for women to continue to struggle. Women should put forth more effort, and in fact many are doing just that. A large number of women’s organizations recently established the Women’s Coalition Initiative, with the undertaking of the Organization for Supporting Women Candidates (Ka-Der). A ‘No Vote!’ campaign was started against those parties which aren’t reserving places for women candidates. Women are now being encouraged to become candidates. The number of women on the primary candidates lists exceeded 500, the highest number so far in the history of the Republic. I believe that these efforts will bear fruit. Yet, is being a woman sufficient to reflect women’s points of view concerning political issues? No, but equality in representation is an important opportunity and a first step.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION