In an overwhelmingly masculine political climate in Turkey, it is necessary for women to fight the discriminatory attitudes in political discourse, the head of the Turkish Association for Supporting Women Candidates (KA.DER), Nuray Karaoğlu, told EURACTIV Slovakia.
KA.DER has worked on ensuring adequate and equal representation of women and men in all elected and appointed decision-making mechanisms and political bodies in Turkey for the last 25 years, counting over a thousand members and four branches.
Since 2017, Karaoğlu has been its president, believing that “gender equality is critical in participation in political decisions” and. “the spread of women’s representation in every area of society will bring an equal, free and democratic structure”.
The Turkish political environment of neoliberal, nationalist, and religious discourses, which some conceptualise as “the new mode of patriarchy“, is rapidly turning towards authoritarianism even according to the EU. Yet backsliding of democratic practices appears to affect women and their representation even more.
“In authoritarian regimes, political isolation is a must to be safe. It has been observed that there is such a tendency among female citizens as well,” Karaoğlu noted, adding that the number of women defining themselves as not interested in politics is increasing.
Karaoğlu noted that “despite the anti-democratic and authoritarian attitude, we are in effect women, women see politics as an important solution.”
Falling short of equality
Turkey was among the first nations in the world to have achieved voting rights for its women (in 1930), with full universal suffrage in 1934.
Nevertheless, over the years, the country has been falling short of gender equality, ranking 113th out of 149 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum, and performing even worse than countries with a similar level of Islamic influence, economy, or the governance length of one head of state.
It also recently withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty designed to increase protection for women and girls in the face of domestic and gender-based violence.
Despite the hardships, KA.DER continues to look for practical solutions. Since 2003, it has been running the Şirin Tekeli Political School Program, empowering women in the field of policymaking, raising their political awareness, and enabling them to be individuals with an actual female perspective, Karaoğlu explains.
The initiative aims “to make women the women leaders and politicians of the future, to raise their political awareness, to empower them in this field and to enable them to be individuals with a female perspective”.
In cooperation with UN Women Turkey, KA.DER also supports the political candidacy of female candidates for the upcoming metropolitan, city, district, and town presidencies and mukhtars in local elections.
But “for politics to become a safe space for women, it is necessary to clear the political space from masculine and discriminatory attitudes, ” the KA.DER president added.
Masculine solidarity
However, several obstacles remain. Research quoted by Karaoğlu confirms that most Turkish opposition parties have not placed more women on candidate lists or considered deploying quotas compared to the ruling party.
Asked about this phenomenon, Karaoğlu explained that women are interested in being a part of politics. Still, they are up against a “planned and discriminatory practice by being placed on lists that cannot be elected”.
She added that the nomination commissions are made up of all or mainly men, which further exacerbates the issue.
“The only attitude that the opposition and the government have in common in political culture is a masculine solidarity,” she adds.
Karaoğlu said she believed all that could be overcome with a change of mindset. However, until this happens, organisations such as KA.DER and the pressure from civil society remains integral.
“We know that even in this century, equality for women still cannot be realised… Women, who have been a part of a great struggle from past to present and who won their rights by resisting, have no intention of taking a step back or giving up their rights.”
[Edited by Alice Taylor/Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
