I thought I'd better post something, otherwise Beri might catch up with me and I'll have to buy him a Coke. :) This week we've begun the transition from media to gender by examining the film Tough Guise. Many interesting points about gender have already arisen in our class discussions, and I'll blog more about these a bit later. But first, I thought you might be interested in some information on the status of women in Turkish society.
In the recent Global Gender Gap Report (2009), published by the World Economic Forum, Turkey was ranked 129 out of 134 countries surveyed - in other words, Turkey is at the bottom of the world league table when it comes to promoting and protecting women's rights. To make matters worse, its position has fallen over the years - it ranked 123 out of 130 in 2008, 121 out of 128 in 2007 and 105 out of 115 in 2006. As you can see, its position has changed only relative to the bottom. You can see the country profile by clicking on Turkey here. Can you guess which country was ranked first? Have a look at its country profile and compare.
The report looks at equality in terms of economic participation, education, health and political empowerment. You can read Gila Benmayor's opinion piece in the Hürriyet Daily News here. The HDN also lays claim to being "Turkey's most feminine newspaper."
Once you've had a look at the report, I hope you'll start trying to answer the obvious question: Why? I look forward to reading your analyses...
Hello Sonja,
ReplyDeleteThank you for talking about the Global Gender Gap Report. It was really helpful:) I used it for my blog entry of the week. I hope that you'll enjoy reading what I thought about the country rankings and Turkey's placement on it.
I think Turkey unforunately approaching its ancient times even women have gain right before the other countries. I will mention more about this issue on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI think the gender gap in turkey has to do with our culture. After adopting the Islam values, our culture started to shape similar to Islam values, naturally. Islam put women's rights in the background. And Turkey has changed its view recently in history (By Atatürk in the 20th century). For such a short time, things cannot change drastically, especially things about culture..
ReplyDeleteI thought Switzerland, Sweden and Finland would top the list... It was surprising for me to see Lesotho in the 10th place. And look how much South Africa has improved!
ReplyDeleteBurkina Faso has 6.0, Benin has 5.5, Mozambique and Zambia have 5.2 births per woman!
ReplyDelete(Mali 6.5!)
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