In her weekly article, Gülseren Onanç reflected on the event hosted by the SES Equality and Solidarity Association that brought together Turkey’s six-party opposition table and the representatives of the women’s movement, academics, journalists and activists.
As SES Equality and Solidarity Association, we brought together the representatives of opposition groups of Turkey’s six-party opposition table and the representatives of the women’s movement, academics, journalists and activists in an online meeting.
“How will women take part in Turkey’s democracy building?” We organized our event by focusing on this question.
While the gender gap widens, concrete and egalitarian women’s policies are not evident in Turkey.
As SES Equality and Solidarity Association, we believe that women’s leadership will make the world a more inhabitable place. We believe that the fifth article of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, “ensuring gender diversity”, has a leverage effect on the implementation of other articles. Yet, we are getting further and further away from this goal. With the impact of rising right-wing politics in the world and in Turkey, the pandemic and the economic crisis that followed, the gender equality gap has increased. According to the World Economic Forum index, 136 years are needed to achieve gender equality in the world.
The situation is worse in Turkey. In addition to the president’s decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, there is a serious setback in the protection of women’s rights and the implementation of gender equality. The reactionary masculine mentality has taken over the judiciary, the police, the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs) and state institutions so much that it is getting harder and harder to fight against it as women’s rights defenders. Moreover, closure cases are being filed against women’s organizations such as the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, which fight effectively on the ground against these forces.
The women’s movement is a free, independent and courageous movement with high self-confidence, advanced organizational skills, and strong ties to academia. The women’s movement cannot find sufficient political support in its struggle against this masculine mentality that takes state institutions with it.
There are no concrete women’s policies apart from saying that the coalition of opposition parties will rejoin the Istanbul Convention. No one is saying how to solve the under-representation of women in politics. We do not hear any concrete policy proposals on how to find a solution to women’s poverty, how to combat violence against women, and how to increase women’s employment. The approach of the opposition coalition known as the “six-party opposition table”, which came together as an alternative block with the proposal of a “Strengthened Parliamentary System”, is “waiting for a change in power”.
We have expectations from the opposition coalition
However, we think that democracy cannot be built without the participation of women and without the implementation of egalitarian policies. For this reason, we argue that feminist women’s organizations should play an active role in the building of democracy. We question how women can actively participate in the decision-making mechanisms and policy-making processes of political parties. We have expectations from the opposition coalition: We want to see concrete, convincing steps and actively participate in this process.
For all these reasons, we brought the representatives of the coalition together with the representatives of the women’s movement. We wanted to direct the questions in our minds directly to them.
The fact that all of the representatives were men drew a lot of backlash.
When we made the announcement of the meeting on social media, we saw that a large part of the society is now uncomfortable with the picture of men excluding women in politics. “Do you think it is necessary for more women in politics?” To the question, 65 percent of Turkey’s respondents said “yes”. This rate is 81 percent for those who define themselves as modern, 60 percent for traditional conservatives, 52 percent for religious conservatives.
Men and women should fight together for gender equality
Furthermore, we believe that gender equality is not a women’s issue, but a democracy and development issue, and that women and men should fight together to achieve this equality. We believe that in the fight for gender equality, men should actively fight with us instead of waiting quietly on the sidelines. We renewed the call to the six male representatives of the opposition coalition to fight together with the women’s movement to achieve gender equality.
CHP Deputy Chairman Muharrem Erkek, Democrat Party Deputy Chairman Bülent Şahinalp, DEVA Party Legal and Justice Policy President Mustafa Yeneroğlu, FUTURE Party Deputy Chairman Ayhan Sefer Üstün, IYI Party Deputy Chairman Bahadır Erdem and Felicty Party’s Deputy Chairman Bülent Kaya attended as speakers. More than 250 people consisting of representatives of the Women’s Movement, journalists and academics watched the meeting and asked their questions to the speakers.
I can summarize the outcomes of the meeting I moderated under a few headings:
- Representatives of the opposition group were in sincere harmony among themselves. No one stole role from each other, they were in conformity.
- They stated that they sincerely attach importance to gender equality and included equal representation in their common agreement.
- They stated that they believe more women should enter politics, but argued that women hesitate to enter politics.
- If the election is won and the representatives of the coalition come to power, they believe that they can solve the inequality between men and women. They argue that ensuring gender equality in all decision-making mechanisms should be a state policy.
- They stated that they advocate policies aimed at eliminating the disadvantages of women in politics, social life and employment.
- They believe that education is very important to achieve gender equality. They think the problem is cultural and it will take a long time for that to change.
T24 writer Candan Yıldız, who attended our meeting, stated that her view of the opposition coalition’s perspective was “yes but not enough.” Cumhuriyet writer Özlam Yüzak, furthermore criticised the fact that the parties’ have not internalized the issue of women’s rights in their domestic policies.
Here are my comments on the presentations of the representatives of the opposition coalition, who sometimes found the questions from the participants too critical:
No concrete policy advice and no self-criticism
- They present gender inequality as one of the inequalities imposed by the dominant power. They do not hold their own parties and their leaders responsible for this picture we see in Turkey. They are not self-critical.
They are not making a concrete policy proposal regarding the concrete problems of women like to include domestic labor in the economy, to increase the number of nurseries, to prevent child marriages, to support girls in education policies, to ensure equal representation of women in politics by changing the Law on Political Parties, with the co-chairmanship system. - We did not hear any of the concrete policy proposals, such as involving women in decision-making mechanisms. They prefer to believe the myth that women are distant from politics. They do not think about what they should do differently in order to bring women into politics. They are not aware of the male-dominated administration in their party.
More women, more policy proposals, a new policy
We also have to criticize ourselves. We, women activists are preoccupied with so many grim day-to-day problems that we leave it to male-led political parties to shape big politics. At the meeting, I saw once again that we should take a more active part in policy-making processes. We must give an organized struggle to bring more women into politics.
In order for the male-dominated politics to change, we must increase our dialogue with the party’s administrations, develop our policies together, establish a new political language and way of doing politics together, and build democracy together.