Empowerment and Resistance Strategies of Working Women in Turkey

Abstract

This article deals with the empowerment and resistance strategies used by working women in Turkey. In order to explore the ways in which gender ideologies are produced and resisted, a very specific group of women were studied using life history and focus group interviews. The interviews were conducted with women who had graduated between 1960 and 1970 from Girls' Institutes. The Girls' Institutes were all-female high schools and the curriculum of these institutes was particularly geared towards modern domestic, or homemaking skills. However, despite the notion of producing modern women for the domestic sphere, most of the graduates have chosen to work outside their homes. Of these working women some have remained single, some have not had children. These outcomes present a paradox. The article focuses on the resolution of these paradoxes, the power and resistance manoeuvres that women employ and their relationship to the processes of modernization and westernization in Turkey.

The Determinants of Women’s Empowerment in Turkey: A Multilevel Analysis

“…Patriarchal norms, laws, and political institutions that lead to systematic organisation of male supremacy and female subordination hand more agency, resources and power to men in many countries, including Turkey-the focus of this article (Cindoğlu & Toktaş 2002;Ross 2008;Caraway 2009;Akyüz & Sayan-Cengiz 2016). Many women, through years of socialisation into the patriarchal ideology, may not question gender inequality, 'especially in those societies where women's subordination is so deeply rooted in sociocultural norms that men's control over women is taken for granted even by women themselves' (Osmani 1998, p. 68; see also Akyüz & Sayan-Cengiz 2016;Beşpınar 2010).…”

A behavioral analysis of investor diversification

“…These findings on gender could be intrinsic to the emerging market under study. In fact, the republican culture in Turkey largely promotes women rights as a symbol of westernization and modernity which leads to gender roles redefinition (Toktas and Cindoglu, 2006) and the use of empowerment and resistance strategies by women (Cindoglu and Toktas, 2002). …”

What the City Has to Offer: Urbanization and Women's Empowerment in Turkey

“…Still, in many cases, throughout a diverse set of countries such as Chile, China, and Bangladesh, working provides women with considerable benefits, even though, as will be discussed later, the nature of the jobs needs to be taken into account as well. As Cindoğlu and Toktaș (2002, 37) maintain, [T]he advantages of working include: economic independence (the most important), social security, social productivity, opportunity for self-realization, social environment outside the house, prestigious social status, opportunity to renew oneself, motivation to take care of oneself, quality mothering time for children, respect in marriage and more say in family affairs.…”

“…Based on a study conducted in Bangladesh, Banks (2013) argues that women's entry into the workforce and their increased mobilization shake (if not totally change) the patriarchal norms and beliefs and socially entrenched gender roles of many married couples (see also Hammad 2016, 13–14, on Egypt; Moghadam 1998, 91, on Turkey). Cindoğlu and Toktaș (2002, 44) also find that work enables single women to have a “powerful bargaining position vis-à-vis the institution of marriage.” In a similar vein, Moghadam (1996, 4) maintains that the employment of women enables them to become autonomous human beings and contribute to social development beyond household responsibilities within the context of the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. Education and labor force participation are also mutually enforcing.…”

“…However, it is evident that urbanization has multiple repercussions on women's lives and their empowerment beyond economic participation. As a result of urbanization, women receive better education, are able to determine the number of children they have, and can invest in themselves and their children (Ashraf, Karlan, and Yin 2009, 333; Cindoğlu and Toktaş 2002, 32–37; Chant 2013, 13–15; Erman, Kalaycıoğlu, and Rittersberger-Tılıç 2002, 404–5; Eswaran 2002, 434). Women in cities usually have better access to a variety of civil society organizations (Goldman and Little 2015, 773; Janssens 2009, 974; Lind 1997, 1205–7; Wyndow, Li, and Mattes 2013, 37) and microfinance institutions 5 (Ashraf, Karlan, and Yin 2009; Haile, Bock, and Folmer 2012; Kabeer 2001; Osmani 2007; Pitt and Khandker 1996; Weber and Ahmad 2014), which have the potential to empower them politically and economically.…”