Women’s Empowerment in Turkey and Beyond

Kursat Cinar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000763751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Women's Empowerment in Turkey and Beyond offers a methodologically, theoretically, and empirically rich analysis of women's empowerment in male-dominated societies, juxtaposing the Turkish case in comparative perspective.

The volume explores institutional and societal obstacles against women's empowerment in patriarchal communities, how women cope and bargain with patriarchy in such societies, and how they try to achieve better living standards for themselves and their families. It also pinpoints areas for improvement in women's empowerment via institutional and societal change in the areas of education, economics, politics, and social life. Interdisciplinary contributors offer in-depth fieldwork analyses as well as rigorous statistical techniques. The multi-disciplinary and multi-method nature of the book provides both breadth and depth to the study of women's empowerment and offers fertile ground for further research on gender politics.

Interdisciplinary in nature, Women's Empowerment in Turkey and Beyond will be of great interest to scholars of Gender Politics, Turkish Studies and Women's Empowerment. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Turkish Studies.

Women and the city: female empowerment in the world, 1960–2014

Kürşat Çınar iD

ABSTRACT

It is vital to understand the structural and institutional dynamics behind female empowerment as its realization benefits not only women but also society at large. Drawing on an original, global-level dataset that covers 169 countries between 1960–2014, this article mainly explores the effect of urbanization on women’s empowerment throughout the world. The article argues that urbanization has distinctive effects in different realms of female empowerment in politics, economics, and education, with the biggest impact being in education. The article further states that urbanization has a non-linear effect on women’s empowerment with a diminishing impact at higher levels of urbanization. After certain levels of urbanization, other political and economic factors, such as how democratic and economically affluent a country is, will determine the discrepancies of female empowerment in countries with similar levels of urbanization. To further test the stated hypotheses, the article looks at the Turkish case as a typical example of a patriarchal society with a neoliberal economic order. In light of the global and local level analyses, the paper aims to contribute to extant debates and studies in feminist studies, urban studies, modernization theory, and democratization.

Introduction

Despite rising modernization and urbanization levels all around the world, women are consistently and considerably behind men with respect to access to resources, standards of living, and personal and political freedoms. Overall, women have access to a narrower variety of jobs, get paid less than men in same sector jobs, and have higher unemployment rates than men in all educational background categories.¹ Throughout the globe, men overwhelmingly dominate economic decision-making bodies such as corporate boards and central banks, while women are typically excluded from these positions. Furthermore, women continue to constitute less than 20 percent of the members of legislative assemblies, almost 130 years after women first achieved suffrage.²

Lack of female empowerment leads to unfair political, economic, and social conditions for women, as well as under-utilization of the full potential of the whole society. Hence, it is very important to grasp the societal and institutional dynamics behind female empowerment. Among other political and socioeconomic factors, urbanization stands as a potentially crucial determinant of women’s empowerment.

It is true that urbanization transforms the social fabric of societies both at the individual and the macro level. While it leads to more emancipation and economic affluence for many, it also creates new challenges or reinforces already extant economic and social inequalities. This paper focuses on the impact of urbanization on women’s empowerment, particularly in the areas of education, economy, and politics, while also bearing in mind the effects of democratic political institutions and economic development.

Modernization theory asserts that economic development accompanied by urbanization and industrialization shall affect both men and women positively.³ This assertion has been supported by some later scholarly works,⁴ whereas others oppose such a view.⁵ For instance, Chaudhuri states that unlike the prevailing notion in modernization theory, which states that modernization, industrialization, and urbanization would automatically make everyone better off, women’s status in many countries have worsened in many aspects.⁶ In a similar vein, other experts maintain that increased pressures of globalization, especially in today’s world, has led to a deterioration of women’s economic and social rights.⁷

In the contemporary era, globalization and neoliberalism bring new opportunities and prospects for many (including women) but also make many women’s lives more vulnerable.⁸On the one hand, relevant and recent literature on feminist studies and globalization shows that revolutionary changes emanating from economic restructuring via urbanization and globalization catalyze women in many countries to organize collectively so as to respond to the local effects of globalization.⁹ On the other hand, while the new neoliberal, global world order expects individuals to be self-sufficient and self-governing in the face of the dismantling of the social state, women in many patriarchal societies also assume most (in many cases all) of the burdens of the household work, such as child and elderly care.¹⁰ In many corners of the world, sociological changes such as urbanization and modernization simply reproduce gender power hierarchies and unequal gender order.¹¹ Hence, it is crucial to both conceptualize and contextualize women’s empowerment and agency in relation to the ‘entrenched power hierarchies’ in the socioeconomic transformation of all societies around the world in the face of urbanization, modernization, and globalization.¹²

This article aims to test the aforementioned claims regarding the effect of urbanization on female empowerment. It analytically divides female empowerment into its political, economic, and educational dimensions to find out in which particular realms urbanization leads to betterment or deterioration in women’s life standards. It argues that urbanization has distinct effects in different realms of female empowerment in politics, economics, and education, the biggest positive impact being in the area of education. It further states that urbanization has a non-linear, quadratic effect on female empowerment with diminishing impact at higher levels of urbanization. The article maintains that: (i) the transformative role of urbanization usually affects women’s empowerment positively at the aggregate level; (ii) however, this positive change can only be realized with supportive societal and institutional structures, including inclusive political and economic institutions for women; (iii) the aggregate level analysis regarding the relationship between urbanization and women’s empowerment that offers us generalizable findings should be further buttressed with more in-depth, meso- or micro-level analyses. In general, the paper aims to contribute to a variety of academic literatures, namely feminist studies, urban studies, modernization theory, and democratization.

The structure of the article is as follows. It first offers a literature review on the state of female empowerment in urban centers. It then conducts empirical analyses based on an original global dataset that covers all the available data on female empowerment (1960–2014) in the areas of politics, economics, and education, as well as urbanization. To further test the reliability of the research findings, the article explores the Turkish case, as an archetypal example of a society replete with patriarchal norms and institutions and a neoliberal economic order. The paper finally discusses the major political and social implications of these statistical findings and offers new avenues of future research.

The state of the literature

Women’s empowerment has been seen both as a policy target, as well as a tool for higher affluence throughout the world. Many experts and scholars use the term so extensively such that there are more than 20 different definitions of the concept today that tackle different aspects of the phenomenon.¹³ Hence, it is vital to clearly identify what is meant by this concept so as to set clear goals for its achievement. This paper defines ‘women’s empowerment’ as t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Women and the city: female empowerment in the world, 1960–2014
• 2 Does migration contribute to women’s empowerment? Portrait of urban Turkey and Istanbul
• 3 Untangling the gender gap: nomination and representativeness in Turkish local elections
• 4 Women’s empowerment on a local level in Turkey: the case of violence against women
• 5 The making of the ‘new’ patriarch in women’s self-narrations of political empowerment: the case of local female AKP politicians in the aftermath of 2009 elections
• 6 Married to Anatolian Tigers: business masculinities, relationalities, and limits to empowerment
• Index