Turkish Women’s Winning The Right To Elect And To Be Elected And Press

Women’s struggle for equal rights with men has a long process of evolution. The role of women in political and social life was restricted and controlled until the 20th century. Women’s achieving the right to enter public life was valued by the community only as the natural extension of the development of the concepts of democracy, human rights, and equality. Turkish women got equal rights with men had before Islam. In the Ottoman Empire, especially until the Tanzimat period, the strict interpretation of Islamic rules prevented women from using these rights. Turkish women started to show an interest in politics during the late Ottoman years, especially during the Second Constitutional Era, but this interest was not yet in the form of gaining political rights. During this period, the aim of the women’s movement was to bring women into social and economic life. To achieve this, women established constitutional organizations. In the Second Constitutional Era, Ottoman women gained the attention of the press and claimed their political rights. But there were many obstacles in front of the women’s movement, such as the traditional and patriarchal structure of society. During this period, no large-scale change was achieved in the status of women. However, this period marked the beginnings of change. The Republican Era saw a significant change in the destiny of Turkish women. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Republican intellectuals showed respect for women’s rights, and radical reforms were made. Social and economic rights were given to Turkish women by civil law in 1926. Until the 1930s there were no attempts to change women’s political rights. Political rights were given to women from the 1930s onwards. Ataturk recognised women’s political rights, and as a first step, politicians gave women to right of elect and to be elected in municipal elections. In 1933, women possessed the right to elect and to be elected as mukhtar and board of oldermen elections. And on 5th December 1934, women succeeded in participating in parliamentary elections. This marked the culmination of an important stage of democracy. Women used their right to elect and to be elected for the first time in the 1935 elections, in which 17 deputies were elected in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. After Turkish women gained political rights, Turkey, with its high proportion of female deputies, was one of the top countries in this respect. But in the following years, a dramatic turndown was seen in the political status of Turkish women. The ratio of female to male deputies achieved in 1935 was only repeated in the 2007 elections, and today, the number of women participating in parliament in Turkey remains below the world average. Furthermore, Turkey ranks below some underdeveloped countries which granted their women political rights much later than in our country. It is true that Turkish women gained political rights under the leadership of Ataturk in the early Republican years, ahead of many developed countries. In Turkey, many intellectuals have claimed that Turkish women earned these political rights without any particular effort. But in doing so, they do not give credit to women’s attempts which started the Second Constitutional Era and continued in the Republican years. Women also tried to take the political initiative in elections before 1935, during the Republican era. However, early Republican politicians believed that women were inadequate and not ready for such changes, so they recommended that women wait until they were ready. Furthermore, there was no real environment for constituting political organizations, except for a political party known as the CHF, which came into power. Turkish women did not organize themselves and struggle to take political rights like women which lived in Western countries. However, given the circumstances mentioned, this behaviour is accepted as normal.

Keywords

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Human Rights, Women’s Movement, Political Rights, TGNA