As Turkey is essentially an Islamic country, Islam plays an important role in the lives of women. Having begun in Arabic countries in 7C AD, Islam was influenced by the traditions and customs of these countries and the way in which women were treated. Men could marry or live with as many women as they liked, kill women and even bury new born girls alive. When Islam made marriage laws and put a limit on the number of wives allowed, it was accepted as the first system to give some economic rights to women by saving them from the sole sovereignty of their husbands.
In Turkey, following the declaration of the Republic in 1923, one of the most significant elements in the social revolution planned and advocated by Ataturk was the emancipation of Turkish women, based on the principle that the new Turkey was to be a secular state. In 1926, a new code of Turkish civil law was adopted which suddenly changed the family structure. Polygamy was abolished along with religious marriages and divorce and child custody became the right of both women and men.
A minimum age for marriage was fixed at 15 for girls and 17 for boys. Perhaps most importantly, the equality of inheritance was accepted as well as the equality of testimony before a court of law; previously, under Islamic law, the testimony of two women was equal to that of one man. With the secularization of the educational system, women gained equal rights with men in the field of education as well and no longer had to wear the veils and long garments required by the old religious beliefs.
The right to vote for women was granted at the municipal level in 1930 and nationwide in 1934. Theoretically, Turkish women were far ahead of many of their western sisters at that time, for instance in France where women only gained the right to vote in 1944. The charter of the International Labor Organization adopted in 1951, declaring equal wages for both sexes for equal work was ratified by Turkey in 1966.
Although all the new regulations brought the status of women to a very improved level, the actual status of women within the family institution did not provide for proper equality between men and women. Still today, the husband is the head of the family. A woman does the housework, and if a woman needs to work outside the home she has to get the approval of her husband. As a Turkish proverb says “a husband should know how to bring food and the wife to make it suffice” confirming once again a woman’s place in the home.
Women Today
Social life consists of two different places: Inside and outside the home. Women leave the outside world to the men, generally remaining in the home. Women get married at an earlier age than men and settle into their role of housewife and home maker. As the education level of women increases, the fertility rate decreases. Nearly every female university graduate has only one child.
9 million of the 21 million working population of Turkey are women. In the rural areas, the rate of working women, especially in agriculture, is very high. However, women work in this sector as an extension of their housework and not to make a living. In urban areas, women hold important posts in both public and private sectors, the arts and sciences.
Today, Turkish women are bank managers, doctors, lawyers, judges, journalists, pilots, diplomats, police officers, army officers or prime ministers. Nearly two thirds of health personnel including doctors and pharmacists, one quarter of all lawyers and one third of banking personnel are women.
As for the politics, in the elections of 1937, the number of woman MP’s was 18, which meant 4.5%. Today, unfortunately, this rate is much less than before. However, Turkey has also seen Tansu Ciller as the first woman Prime Minister. Although men and women are equal before the law, men are tolerated in regard to adultery and women are more advantageous in terms of working conditions.