General elections and the crisis of women’s political representation

In Turkey, women won the right to vote and run in elections in 1934. The following year, in which the first Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) convened after women received this right, women represented 4.5% of all members. Later on, this figure fell, and stood at 1.9% in 1946, 1.3% in 1957, 1.8% in 1965, 0.9% in 1977, 3% in 1983, 1.8% in 1991 and 2.4% in 1995.

In the general elections of 1999, for the first time in Turkey, the very low representation of women in parliament became a topic of heated debate. Although the number of female candidates was higher than ever, their eventual rate in parliament was only 4.2%.

As for the elections which followed, the percentages were 4.4% in 2002, 9.1% in 2007 and 14.38% in 2011.

In 2002, women’s organizations drafted two bills and presented them to the general public. The proposed “Constitutional Amendment for Equality” would make it a constitutional obligation for the state to provide equality of opportunities; and the draft amendment to the Law on Political Parties and Elections would introduce a 30% women’s quota in the TGNA and local assemblies. 

Women continue to apply pressure in the political arena for this purpose. However, in both local governments and TGNA, women’s representation is still significantly below 33%, generally considered to be the critical threshold. As such, one can speak of a crisis of women’s representation in Turkey. There are various factors which affect women’s participation in politics.

Due to the gendered division of labor, which is a historical and cultural fact, women and men perform different kinds of work. Women’s work mostly takes place in the private sphere of life, which is considered to be an “apolitical” arena unlinked to the public sphere. The gendered division of labor limits women’s social experience to the family and neighbors. This division of labor paves the groundwork for the dominant social mentality, which makes it seem natural for women to be excluded from political processes. Due to the widely accepted view that traditional female roles are not compatible with politics, women are prevented from entering politics by their husbands and close relatives.

According to a survey, men have a positive opinion about women’s participation in politics, but do not want to see female members of their own family in the political arena. As such, the first barrier to be overcome by a woman willing to step into politics is the widely held view that family and politics are incompatible.

The road to gender equality passes through equality of opportunity between the two sexes as regards individual development. International rankings such as The Human Development Index and the Global Gender Gap Index show that there is a yawning gap between the two sexes in terms of education and income. Turkey ranked 125th among 142 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index in 2014. Education and income level are important barriers before the political participation of women. The obligatory fees paid for becoming a candidate in elections and campaign expenses push most women out of the electoral race.

Political parties are mainly run by male, middle class, middle aged professionals. However, it is known that the key factor for equal participation in politics is equality of opportunities which can bolster people’s capacity of organizing their participation in social life.

In the traditional point of view, women are assigned to social charity work which is considered to be in line with their family duties. Likewise, they join the women’s branches of political parties. What is needed here is a paradigm shift, from women’s volunteer social activities to women’s empowerment for political representation.

The male-dominant political model

In Turkey, just like across the world, political life has been shaped by the norms of men which dominate it. Due to their gender roles, men are encouraged to make money, become powerful and compete. They carry these values along to politics. Values such as aid, self-sacrifice, harmony and mutual understanding are crowded out by success, subjugation, rule and clout in the political sphere. These latter values are largely alien to women, who are raised throughout their life to be sensitive to the needs of others. The male-dominant discourse in politics requires that women and men compete under the same conditions. However, it neglects the fact that women and men do not live under the same conditions outside of politics. In the political sphere, women find themselves obliged to play by rules shaped by a male-dominant discourse.

Political parties have hardly taken any measures to ensure gender equality within. Women are mainly expected to volunteer in social work and create political support. Discounts to candidacy fees for women, gender quotas in party organs and elections, and similar measures have appeared only recently in some parties’ charters. Nevertheless, most of these rules are not obligatory and depend upon the whims of party officials.

Almost all political parties view their women’s branches not as a mechanism which prepares women to partake in decision-making processes, but as a unit in charge of secondary activities that produce limited political results. There is no transition between the main party organization and the women’s organization. Women’s branches do not nominate female candidates to the party’s decision-making mechanisms and the link of representation between female representatives and the women they should represent is broken.

Women’s problems and representation are usually brought up in campaigns just before the elections. Then, these issues are simply forgotten and abandoned to the few who might be interested. Women candidates have to overcome all these barriers. However, a rise in female participation in politics could lead to numerous favorable changes and reinforce democracy.

Need for radical change

Women cannot be represented by men in the political arena. If one social group has the authority to make decisions about key issues that concern another group, whose problems it has not experienced, the democratic nature of the link between those representing and those who are represented becomes questionable.

The democratic principle of self-determination requires us to accept that the settlement of women’s problems can be achieved only through the political representation of women themselves. Female participation in politics is a prerequisite for establishing true democracy. Female participation in the settlement of questions related to women as well as processes of conflict resolution and peace will pave the groundwork for more efficient, long-term solutions.

In the run-up to the general elections, we expect political parties to stick to their traditional attitude in designating candidates. We do not expect parties which deploy methods such as direct appointment, primary elections, tendency surveys to do much to help women candidates. There are no female MPs in 43 out of the 81 provinces. This democratic deficit can only be changed through a very radical change in the process of nomination.

In this regard, People’s Democratic Party (HDP), whose charter guarantees “at least equal representation for women in all decision-making mechanisms” can be taken as a good practice. The presence of co-chairs in party organs and local government is another exemplary practice for equal representation of genders. This model or similar models could be adopted by other political parties as well.

As an NGO which defends the equal representation of women in all decision-making mechanisms, we are aware that there will be a gap between the gender distribution we would like to see and that which we will eventually be faced with. The rise in the number of female candidates is a positive sign which suggests that representation of women will increase; however, even our most optimistic guess points to an eventual rate of 25%.