Firstly, I’m very impressed by the initiatives in your group. They’re wonderful. I had heard about some of them. I’m also aware of Eczacıbaşı’s support of the program we started at Sabancı. All this is very positive. Positive discrimination ought to be the approach of choice in every area of entrenched inequality. Quota systems are in force in many countries. Campaigns to encourage affirmative action measures could be instigated, and companies that already have quotas could be supported. Women represent 14 percent of all members in Turkey’s parliament. That’s much lower than world figures. I think their share in the US is about 18 percent in the house of representatives but higher in the senate. Countries comparable to Turkey that have used quotas, even for a short time, have raised these percentages to 40 or 45, even though those quotas were only in effect for a limited period. I like the system of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) of having co-chairs. In fact, I think this party on the whole functions much more democratically than the others, and their systems to combat gender inequality work far better. This is one example; at work and in politics – in the public sphere – the quota system is positive in my view. I also think that affirmative action ought to be extended. Again, business could lead the way in promoting affirmative action in Turkey. It should be involved in every stage from creating and promoting a narrative, even criticizing the content of advertising, for example. Several non-governmental organizations have similar projects. They look at the content of educational curriculums, and how the image of women is conveyed to children. It’s such a multi-layered area that the business world could be taking on different roles in every layer, in my view.
IÖ
AÇ
The simplest thing to do here is what’s known as the “zipper system.” You alternate between a man and a woman and flip a coin to pick the starter. Because someone’s going to lose and you don’t want an unfair advantage. This is used in systems like ours where internal party controls are quite tight. Without such an arrangement, it wouldn’t have been possible for women to come to the fore as much as they did in Sweden or Norway.
IÖ
This list method was tried in many parts of Latin America. I’m quite familiar with the example in Mexico. It quickly went all wrong. At first, the lists were announced, and everything was equal. Then the women were removed from the list and replaced by men. But now there’s a law: If a woman is removed, another woman takes her place, when a man’s removed, another man takes his place.
AÇ
I believe the present government is hearing two messages from society. One is quite conservative. Women should stay at home and stay out of education or business. Two children aren’t enough, three is better. Four is best. This is a truly powerful message. I’m not surprised that the AK Party is listening. But there is an even more powerful one that emerged in the study I conducted with Ersin Kalaycıoğlu. It’s a more liberal message. There’s a segment of urban society that’s conservative and also struggling to make ends meet. The men want their wives and even their daughters to work. But they can’t. Because the men also want to marry those daughters off. Any daughter still unmarried at 20 is a problem for the family. So they want her to marry. And at the same time they want her to work because they need the money. But once she’s married, she can’t not have children. So how’s she going to work then? There’s only one way, and that’s for government to provide widespread childcare facilities. This is in practice everywhere in Europe. In the Netherlands, every neighborhood has a day care center, and no one asks you where you’ve come from and how much you’re going to pay; the standards are set. You take your child over and give your address. As long as your address is in that neighborhood, you can use the center, whether you’re a Dutch citizen or not.
Expectations in Turkey are still quite basic, and they’ve not yet been met. Just about everyone now has dishwashers, washing machines, and refrigerators. As far as I know, most sales today are replacement sales in Turkey. What’s still lacking?
People don’t go on holiday for example. Lots of people, more than half of the Turkish population never goes on a holiday. So, there’s a demand for greater participation in the economy to earn more income to meet economic expectations. In Europe, this demand was met in the 1960s and 1970s; in Turkey, it’s still not met. Policies that facilitate women’s entry into the workplace could pave the way in this regard.
IÖ
Yes.
AÇ
The first priority is to improve the quality of education. The second is to adopt a childcare policy that will enable women’s participation in the economy. These are the two policy areas that will create a political basis for Turkey’s transformation in the near future, and both are directly concerned with women. Whose job is it to look after children’s education in Turkey? In the home, it’s not the man, it’s the woman who does this.
IÖ
Urban women in particular are very important here, including women in lower middle or lower income groups. There are so many religiously conservative women who don’t want to live with their in-laws or parents, who don’t want to live in an extended family. Their values have moved on from those prevalent in their villages, from the idea of three generations living together. The majority of domestic workers, for example, are in this situation. They’re adults who are able to work outside the home and earn money, and they know they wield a certain degree of power. They benefit from the urban economy, and they see the level of comfort people enjoy in the city. Both they and their daughters want to benefit from these opportunities. This could lead to a truly momentous evolution. They want to move out and live in their own home or perhaps even a different neighborhood. That’s why childcare centers are so important.
BE
The final topic that comes to my mind is that there are too many fault lines in Turkish society today. They intersect one another and cause earthquakes. It’s not just a matter of Islamist versus secularist, either. There’s a fault line between Sunni and Alevi. The division between our right and left is much starker than in many other countries. And then, of course, we have the nationalists and the Kurds. Is all this our heritage? A heritage of our geographic position and history? One that isn’t our own fault, yet the remnants and the legacies prove to be so troublesome?
AÇ
From an optimistic point of view, this could be seen as a treasure of sorts. It means this isn’t a homogenous society like Sweden, Norway or Denmark.
That said, even their homogeneity is artificial. The Swedes and Finns have only come to recognize the Lapps, for example, in the past few decades. So no society is homogenous in essence, and this can be turned to advantage, as a dynamic resource. The best-known example is the United States of America.
BE
Yes.