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ABSTRACT
This paper assesses the substantive representation of women through parliamentary speeches in Turkey with the goal of determining whether legislative behavior differs across gender. By using content analysis of parliamentary speeches given in the Turkish Grand National Assembly between 2002 and 2011, this paper evaluates who speaks more often and on which policy areas they focus. More specifically, it examines the relative participation of women as well as the subjects they choose to address. The analysis of Turkish case is important not only to further our understanding of Turkish politics but also to improve our understanding of women in parliaments with low gender parity. The results reveal that, although there is no significant difference between female and male legislators in terms of the total speeches they delivered, gender differences exist regarding the policy preferences of MPs, even after controlling for partisan, constituency and institutional factors. Female legislators are more likely than their male colleagues to prefer speaking about women’s equality issues, children and family issues, and education. In contrast to previous findings, female legislators are as likely as male legislators to prioritize speaking on health care issues.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Thomas and Welch, “The Impact of Gender”; Lovenduski and Norris, Gender and Party Politics; Swers, “Are Women More Likely”; Childs and Withey. “Women Representatives”; and Kittilson, “Representing Women.”
2 Dodson and Carroll, Reshaping the Agenda; Wangnerud, “Testing the Politics”; and Schwindt-Bayer, “Still Supermadres?”
3 Childs and Krook, “Should Feminists Give Up?”
4 Mansbridge, “Quota Problems.”
5 Ibid.
6 Mansbridge, “Should Blacks Represent Blacks?”; and Carroll, “Representing Women.”
7 Swers, “Research on Women.”
8 Schwindt-Bayer, “Still Supermadres?”; Proksch and Slapin, “Institutional Foundations”; Proksch and Slapin, The Politics of Parliamentary Debate; and Aleman, Ramirez and Slapin, “Party Strategies.”
9 Tamerius, “Sex, Gender, and Leadership.”
10 Cramer, “Enlarging Representation.”
11 Osborn and Morehouse, “Speaking as Women.”
12 Shogun, “Speaking Out.”
13 Celis, “Substantive Representation of Women.”
14 Broughton and Palmieri, “Gendered Contributions.”
15 Diner and Toktas, “Waves of Feminism in Turkey”; and Tekeli, “The Turkish Women’s Movement.”
16 Diner and Toktas, “Waves of Feminism in Turkey.”
17 Marshall, “Authenticating Gender Policies.”
18 Arat, “Türkiye’de Kadın.”
19 Cakir, Erkek Kulübünde Siyaset.
20 Ayata and Tutuncu, “Critical Acts.”
21 Konak-Unal, “The Substantive Representation of Women.”
22 Thomas, How Women Legislate; Schwindt-Bayer, “Still Supermadres?”; and Schwindt-Bayer, Political Power and Women’s Representation.
23 Schwindt-Bayer, Political Power and Women’s Representation.
24 Berkman and O’Connor, “Do Women Legislators Matter?”; Dolan and Ford, “Women in the State Legislatures”; and Schwindt-Bayer, Political Power and Women’s Representation.
25 Ayata and Tutuncu, “Critical Acts.”
26 Konda, “Research on Women’s Representation.”
27 Swers, “Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation.”
28 In the 2002–2007 legislative term, 4 women MPs were assigned to the Committee on EU Harmonization; 3 to the Committee on Constitution; 2 to the Committee on the Environment; 2 to the Committee on Health, Family, Labor and Social Affairs; 2 to the Committee on Human Rights Inquiry; 2 to the Committee on Internal Affairs; 2 to the Committee on State Economic Enterprises; 1 to the Committee on Justice; 1 to the Committee on Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology; 1 to the Committee on National Education, Culture, Youth and Sport; 1 to the Committee on National Defence; 1 to the Committee on Petitions; 1 to the Committee on Plan and Budget, and 1 to the Committee on Public Works, Reconstruction, Transportation and Tourism. In the 2007–2011 legislative term, 16 women MPs were assigned to the Committee on Equal Opportunity for Women and Men; 6 to the Committee on Constitution; 6 to the EU Harmonization; 6 to the Committee on National Education, Culture, Youth and Sport; 5 to the Committee on Foreign Affairs; 4 to the Committee on the Environment; 4 to the Committee on Health, Family, Labor and Social Affairs; 4 to the Committee on Human Rights Inquiry; 4 to the Committee on State Economic Enterprises; 3 to the Committee on Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology; 3 to the Committee on Petitions; 2 to the Internal Affairs; 2 to the Committee on Justice; 1 to the Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Affairs; 1 to the Committee on Plan and Budget, and 1 to the Committee on Public Works, Reconstruction, Transportation and Tourism.
29 In the 2002–2007 legislative term, among 24 female MPs, all of them had professions:, 7 business women, 6 academics, 4 lawyers, 2 engineers, 1 author, 1 bureaucrat, 1 dentist, 1 doctor, and 1 journalist. In the 2007–2011 legislative term, among 48 female MPs, all of them had professions:, 9 academics, 9 business women, 8 lawyers, 6 engineers, 2 architects, 2 nongovernmental organizations activists, 2 public administrators, 1 archeologist, 1 bureaucrat, 1 cadastral mapping technician, 1 district governor, 1 doctor, 1 journalist, 1 landscape architecture, 1 nurse, 1 pharmacist, and 1 teacher.
30 Schwindt-Bayer, “Still Supermadres?”
31 A major reform which was passed in parliament on 21 January 2017 and approved by referendum replaced Turkey’s 95-year-old parliamentary system with one concentrating virtually all political power in the presidency. Under the presidential system, legislative power is invested in the 600-seat Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The members are elected for a four-year term by mitigated proportional representation, with an election threshold of 10 percent.
32 Comparative Agendas Project Comparing Policies Worldwide https://www.comparativeagendas.net/pages/master-codebook.
33 See Appendices for the list of 23 policy topics and examples of how speeches were coded.
34 AKP, the governing party, was used as a base category.
35 Coveney, Logistic Regression, and Firth, “Bias Reduction.”
36 Schwindt-Bayer, “Still Supermadres?”
37 Lovenduski and Norris, Gender and Party Politics.
38 Ayata and Tutuncu, “Party Politics of the AKP (2002–2007).”
39 Grey, “Numbers and Beyond.”
40 Erdem-Akçay, “Expanding Women’s Rights.”
41 Women’s issues had always been discussed within the boundaries of patriarchal norms in Turkey. However, the AKP’s mode of patriarchy that characterizes its gender discourse is different from the two modes of patriarchy with which the women’s movement in Turkey is familiar, i.e. republican and liberal. It has been called a neoliberal conservative patriarchy, which borrows from Islamic patriarchy and is formed through a combination of religious-conservative, nationalist and liberal value sets (see Cosar and Yegenoglu, “New Grounds”). The AKP both encourages women to enter the labor market and suggests that they remain at home by stressing how it is difficult to intertwine their working and family life and how they can risk their children’s well-being, the integrity of the family, and eventually, social integrity. It does not let the principle of individual liberty extend the borders of the free market and believes that, in the private realm, patriarchal norms legitimized by religious references should be observed.
Additional information
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Saadet Konak Unal
Saadet Konak Unal is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. She received her PhD degree in August 2018 from the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. She specializes in comparative politics and methodology, with an expertise in Turkish Politics. Her research primarily focuses on gender, political representation, identity politics and legislative behavior. Her teaching interests focus on Comparative Politics, Quantitative Methods, Gender and Politics, and American Politics.