WEEK

8 GENDER

o Sex: The biological and anatomical differences distinguishing females from males,
such as differences in reproductive capabilities and body shape and size.

• Sex Differences: The Role of Biology
– Field of sociobiology
– Not nature versus nurture, but nature AND nurture
– Cross-cultural historical differences between men and women are too
great for nature alone to explain behavior

Remember that most sociologists do not ignore the role of biology in explaining
differences between men and women.

The field of sociobiology has studied such differences. Some very convincing evidence
shows that genetics, hormones, and brain physiology are associated with gender
differences in certain behaviors such as language skills, interpersonal relations, and
physical strength.

For example, they would explain women being in nurturing occupations to women’s biology
to be nurturing and caring to be mothers.

However, most sociologists argue that these differences are also, if not mostly,
culturally determined. Sociologists ask how nature and nurture interact to produce
behavior with the focus on how people are socialized to adopt particular values and
norms that affect their behavior. For sociologists, if biology determined everything we
wouldn’t see such large differences in standards for men and women between
cultures or throughout history.

o Gender: Social expectations about behavior regarded as appropriate for the
members of each sex.
It refers to the psychological, social, and cultural differences between males and
females.

How are males expected to behave? How are females expected to behave? What are
a society’s definition of masculinity and femininity? These are questions concerning
gender.

o Gender role socialization: Gender role socialization refers to the process whereby
male- and female-typed roles and practices are learned through social agents such
as schools, the family, and the media.

As they grow, children internalize the norms and expectations associated with
males and females. Children are guided in this process by positive and negative
sanctions, that is, socially applied forces that reward or restrain behavior.
They receive rewards when they behave correctly, and they are punished when they
don’t. This process is complicated. Social factors like race, ethnicity, religion, and
social class all affect the type of gender socialization a child experiences.

For example, a young boy could be positively sanctioned for complying with masculine
expectations such as being aggressive (“What a brave boy you are!”) or negatively
sanctioned for violating these expectations (“Boys don’t play with dolls. What are you, a
sissy?”). If an individual develops gender practices that do not correspond with his or her
biological sex—that is, if he or she is deviant—the explanation given is inadequate
socialization.

This rigid interpretation of sex roles and socialization has been criticized on a
number of fronts. Many writers argue that gender socialization is not an inherently
smooth process; different agents such as family, schools, and peer groups may be at odds
with one another. Moreover, socialization theories ignore individuals’ ability to reject
or modify the social expectations surrounding sex roles.


o Social construction of gender: In contrast to theorists of gender socialization, who
assume that biology plays some role in establishing differences between males and
females, advocates of the social construction of gender perspective reject all
biological bases for gender differences.

They argue that both sex and gender are socially constructed products. Or the assumed
gender differences, between how we think of masculine and feminine attributes in turn
construct sex differences. The physical body is the focus of interest here. Gender identity
and culturally defined sexual differences are inextricably linked within individual
human bodies. For example, because it is part of masculinity to be tough and strong,
compared to women, men end up putting on a different body image.

• The Social Construction of Gender: How We Learn to “Do” Gender
– Everything is involved when we “do gender,” from our actions to our
clothing, mannerisms, speech, and body language
– Society functions in a more orderly manner when gender is clearly marked

• Every aspect of our selves is involved when we “do gender,” from our actions to our
clothing, mannerisms, speech, and body language.

• The research that journalist Norah Vincent did for her book Self-Made Man: One
Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man: Vincent hired a professional to learn how to talk
like a man, changed her hairstyle and clothes, wore clothes that hid her breasts, and
then went undercover in various settings as a man to observe how men behaved
when they weren’t with women and how she was treated differently as a man
versus a woman. Sociologists who study gender argue that because gender is so
pervasive in structuring social life, gender status must be clearly differentiated if
society is to function in an orderly manner. When one’s gender is not readily
apparent, people don’t know how to behave.

At 5 feet, 10 inches, and 155 pounds, Vincent passed as a medium-build man she called Ned.
Her transformation began with a buzz cut, baggy men’s clothes, and a too-small sports bra
to flatten her breasts. Vincent underwent months of training with a professional voice
teacher to learn how to sound like a man. She then went undercover in a range of
typically male settings, including a bowling league, a strip club, a monastery, and a men’s
support group. She also observed the importance of gender in even the most ordinary
everyday encounters—including shopping for a new car at a dealership. When she went
into the showroom as Norah, the salesman’s pitch quickly turned flirtatious, but when she
returned to the same salesman as her disguised alter ego, Ned, the tone was all business and
the talk was all about the car’s performance. As Self-Made Man reveals, gender is powerfully
shaped by social context and transcends one’s biology.


This is hard to grasp because we usually think of somebody’s sex as biologically
determining, but
1) The way we make use of our biological given, our body is socially constructed,
such as men speaking in a certain way or how our bodily movements are.
2) Gender is not bound by sex. We “do gender” in everyday life, which contributes
in shaping sex differences. The way we stand, the way we wear our hair, the way
we speak are all part of our gender performance, which underlines sex differences.

SO WE HAVE 4 LAYERS HERE:

1) Reproductive organs which determines ours sex
2) Sex: The biological and anatomical differences but socially constructed (the way we
walk, sit, our voice) male/ female
3) Gender: The social expectations associated with sexes (women wearing skirts or
being nurturing, putting on make-up) men/ women
4) Gender socialization: This is how we learn female and male type roles/ how to be a
man or a woman. We learn to develop behaviors that are associated with our
biological sex, according to this view.
5) Social construction of gender: Gender is socially constructed to there is no direct
relationship between our sex and how we perform our gender + our sex and our
reproductive organs

So we started with, reproductive organsà Sex (masculine and feminine as socially
constructed)à Men and women (what behaviors are associated with being male or
female – this is easier to see for us because it changes a lot from culture to
culture)à The difference between the two genders, which gender has more
powerà Inequality

Different theoretical approaches have been used to explain gender inequality in
economics, politics, the family, and elsewhere.

• Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
- Pays attention to how we perform these socially constructed
gender roles in our interactions, on a daily basis.
- We don’t just socialize into gender roles but we constantly work
on them.
- We face gender assessment as a result of our performance.
- These performances underline gender differences.

So they situate the social construction and performance of gender in interactional
situations. These situations are not instances of display of essential sexual natures
but the production of differences itself.

 Doing gender, also legitimizes and reproduces the social structure. When there are
so-called essential differences between men and women, it could be argued that
social structure is constructed upon these differences. When we do gender
“appropriately” we help reproduce a system institutional arrangements that
are based on sex category and if we fail to do that, we are generally
individually blamed.

Gender roles do not show the constant work that we put it to perform the gender
identity. It sounds as if we just occupy this role. We perform or “do gender” constantly
in our daily life, in interactions. So, just because people have a penis, they do not
automatically act masculine but they learn to perform masculinity.

We do not just have one way of doing gender but it is context based, we learn to show
gender-appropriate behavior in different contexts, performance at the risk of gender
assessment, which is called accountability.

So any activity a person does, they would be held accountable for the performance of
that activity as a woman or a man and how they are classified in one or the other sex
category would legitimize or discredit other activities.

So any activity would be of womanly or manly nature but “doing gender is not
always to live up to normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity, it is to
engage in behavior at the risk of gender assessment” (Sternheimer, 178, by Candace
West and Don Zimmerman)

Once these categories are set, they would be reinforced by physical settings (such as
men and women having separate bathrooms), social situations where the attributed
masculine traits would be displayed (such as aggression in sports) and physical
differences between men and women where men tend to be taller and bigger and
stronger than their partners.

• Interaction and sexism:

EXAMPLES TO SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEX AND GENDER

Too Fast to Be a Woman The Story of Caster Semenya
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-UX0LE_tCg)

Meet the Woman Who Straight-Up Rocks a Beard (http://jezebel.com/meet-the-woman-
who-straight-up-rocks-a-beard-1525265585)

Friends: Male Nanny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hmWCH3JXqU)

While we are “doing” gender and sex, race and class, we are also “doing differences” (West
and Fenstermaker, 1995) where the differences along these lines seem to be “natural” or
“normal” ways of organizing social life. We perform class, race and class, through many
things including taste and consumption choices, our behaviors, evaluations of others (as
symbolic interactionism), and through our bodies. We do not just perform these
independent of hierarchies and inequalities.

- The body is a key mechanism through which we “do difference,” starting from gestures,
hairstyle, walking, talking to clothes we wear, how we present our body.

“If men could menstruate” article talks about how things would be different somewhere
in the first step (reproductive organs) in turn affecting the inequality between men and
women. So she is showing that the inequality comes from the social construction from sex
(masculinity) to gender (men) and inequality. Something that is seen so biologically
determining our sex, our gender and the finally the inequality would work totally
differently.
As men have more power, anything associated with them- something as basic as
menstruation- would be considered positive, a sign of strength, rather than weakness.

So when you think about gender inequality and how often this inequality is attributed to
“essential” differences between men and women and the different expectations about the
kind of positions that men and women fill in the society, think about how we say they are
socially constructed.

EXAMPLES TO GENDER SOCIALIZATION

GENDER INEQUALITY TODAY

Research on Gender Today: Documenting and Understanding Gendered Inequalities

• Patriarchy
 – Dominance of men over women
• Gender inequality
– The inequality between men and women in terms of wealth, income,
and status

As we have learned so far, gender is one of the main dimensions along which we
differentiate humans in society. Yet men and women are not merely viewed as different in
most societies; in many domains, men and women experience unequal treatment, with men
consistently holding more political, economic, and social power. Male dominance in a
society is patriarchy. Although men are favored in almost all societies, the degree of
patriarchy varies.



• Gendered Inequalities in Education
– Gender roles through activities, games, and books
Schools teach children not only basic academic skills like reading, writing,
and math but also a society’s gender roles as one the agents of socialization.
Informal styles of dress vary between girls and boys. Children learn
about gender roles through games, films, and other activities that take
place at school. Studies of elementary school storybooks portray boys
showing initiative and independence and girls as more passive and
watching their brothers.

– Teachers interact with boys and girls differently
Teachers interact differently with boys than they do with girls. Teachers give
boys more attention and spend more instructional time with them.
Teachers challenge boys more than they challenge girls. In summary,
the different treatment received by boys and girls leads to gendered
behavior that may play out later in life in the work world.

- Educational Attainment
• Women rank higher than men in % of high school graduates completing
college prep curriculum, % of high school graduates immediately enrolling
in college, and total higher education enrollment.
• The share of conferred degrees has increased for minority women and men.
• The number of white men earning bachelor’s degrees has essentially
remained the same, while the number of white women, and men and
women of color earning bachelor’s degrees has grown.

• Gendered Inequalities in the Workplace

Gender typing: Women holding occupations of lower status and pay, such as secretarial
and retail positions, and men holding jobs of higher status and pay, such as managerial and
professional positions

Despite the advancements that women have made in the paid labor force, work is still
segregated by gender. Women tend to hold positions that are lower in status and pay
compared to men. This is called gender typing. Women still dominate secretarial and
retail positions, and men still dominate managerial and professional positions. Changing a
gender-typed job into a gender-neutral job takes time, but women are slowly moving into
occupations once occupied primarily by men, and men have begun to work in fields once
dominated by women.

Sex segregation is the concentration of men and women in different occupations. Many
sociologists believe that sex segregation in occupations is the primary cause of the gender
pay gap. A job’s pay is associated with its gender composition. Occupations dominated by
women are paid less than occupations dominated by men, even after adjusting for
cognitive, social, and physical skill demands, amenities, disamenities, demands for
effort, and industrial and organization characteristics.

• Horizontal segregation - the separation of women into nonmanual labor and
men into manual labor sectors.
• Employer and institutional discrimination help maintain the separation of
women and men in the workplace.
• Socialization encourages children to internalize sex-typed expectations of
others, which shapes their occupational aspirations and preferences.
• Traditional gender role stereotypes are reinforced through the family,
school, peers, and the media with images of what is appropriate behavior for
girls and boys. This includes defining appropriate occupations for women
versus men.
• Vertical segregation - the elevation of men into the best-paid and most
desirable occupations in nonmanual and manual labor sectors, whereas
women remain in lower-paid positions with no job mobility.
• Is based on deeply rooted and widely shared cultural beliefs that men are
more competent than women and are better suited than women for
positions of power.
• Vertical segregation is reproduced because it is consistent with the value of
“male primacy.”
• Devaluation of women’s work - higher societal value is placed on men than on
women, and this is reproduced within the workplace.

Gender Pay Gap: Still get paid a proportion of what men in same positions get (88% in
Turkey)
- Women across the world work in the lowest-paying jobs. Women also work
much longer days than men. In the United States, women work 25 minutes more
than men, with the difference being greater in some European countries like
Austria (45 minutes) and Italy (103 minutes), but not as great as in Benin, where
women work 145 more minutes per day than men. Women also make up 60
percent of the world’s working poor. Women work in the lowest paid industrial and
service-sector jobs in all countries, and they are overrepresented in the declining
agricultural sector of developing nations. Overall the gender pay gap has narrowed
over the years, but in some parts of the world the gap is still very large, such as in
the Middle East and North Africa where women earn 37 cents to every man’s dollar
or in South Asia where the pay gap is 42 cents.

Glass ceiling: A promotion barrier that prevents a woman’s upward mobility within an
organization (small number of women in senior managerial positions, while men rapidly
ascend in female dominated occupations “glass escalator”)

The glass ceiling refers to the promotion barrier that prevents women’s upward mobility
in occupations, particularly those dominated by men. Although women have risen to
occupy jobs in middle- and even upper-management, there are only a small number of
women in the most highly paid and powerful positions in many occupations. One reason is
that gender stereotypes still work against women; the bias is in favor of people who look
like other leaders. Women deviate from the norm of the white, college-educated male who
is already in power and are therefore less likely to be chosen for top positions.

• Gendered Inequalities in the House

- Although men now do more housework than they did three decades ago, a large
gender gap persists.
- Further investigation shows that it is the intersection of gender, marital status, and
parental status that most powerfully shapes housework.
- Sociologist Arlie Hochschild refers to the unpaid work that employed women
perform when they return home from their paid jobs as the “second shift.” In
2003, the United Nations estimated that in the United States women work 6 percent
more than men. Most of that time is spent on unpaid labor, and it does not include
time spent caring for children. If time spent on childcare were included, the gap
would greatly increase.

• Gendered Inequalities in Politics

Women are underrepresented in all levels of government. We see the highest number of
women in local politics as members of city councils or as mayors. In 2012, only 20 out of the
100 U.S. senators were women and 78 of the 435 U.S. House members were women.
Women are also underrepresented in the executive branch of government. There have been
no women presidents, although there have been some women governors or mayors of large
cities. Women are also underrepresented in the U.S. courts. Today there are three women
on the U.S. Supreme Court. There are women in all major political parties, but most women
politicians are associated with the Democratic Party.

• Gendered Inequalities in the World

– Women are underrepresented in governments everywhere
– The U.S. ranks 70th out of 187 countries in women’s political representation
– Occupational sex segregation
– Women work longer days than men
– Women make up 60 percent of the world’s working poor
– Persistent gender pay gap


As of 2011, women made up only 19.3 percent of the combined membership of the national
legislatures throughout the world. Only in Rwanda (56.3 percent), Andorra (53.6 percent),
Sweden (45.0 percent), South Africa (44.5 percent), Cuba (43.2 percent), Iceland (42.9
percent), and Finland (42.5 percent) do women make up a significant part of parliament; in
the Arab states, the figure is only 10.7 percent. It is interesting that Rwanda, which rates
very low on the UN’s Human Development Index, is close to Sweden for the highest share of
women in the lower house of the parliament. The U.S. Congress is 19 percent female, placing
the United States roughly 70th out of 187 countries for which data exist. Women are most
likely to hold seats in national legislatures in countries in which women’s rights are a strong
cultural value—where women have long had the right to vote and are well represented in
the professions.


THEORIES ON GENDER INEQUALITY

• Functionalist approaches
– Men and women specialize in different tasks to achieve social
solidarity and integration
– Talcott Parsons saw family as efficient with women in expressive roles
and men in instrumental roles

Remember that functionalist approaches see society as a system of interlinked
parts that, when in balance, operate smoothly to produce social solidarity.
According to functionalists, men and women specialize in different tasks so as to
achieve social stability and integration.

Sociologist Talcott Parsons was particularly interested in the socialization of
children and believed that stable, supportive families were the key to successful
socialization.
He saw the family as operating most efficiently with a clear-cut sexual division of
labor in which women carry out expressive roles, providing care and security to
children and offering them emotional support, and men perform an
instrumental role—namely, being the breadwinner. These roles are said to be in
line with men and women’s biology. Because of the stressful nature of men’s role,
women’s expressive and nurturing tendencies should also be used to comfort
and care for men. This complementary division of labor, springing from a
biological distinction between the sexes, would ensure the solidarity and stability
of the family, according to Parsons.

This theory does not really see the inequality between men and women in the
society and how gender and gender roles are socially constructed, putting
women at a disadvantage. Feminists have also emphasized how people usually
occupy the roles that are culturally expected in culturally expected ways. Parson’s
view of the expressive woman does not pay attention to how women are in a
subordinate position at home. Also, different studies show that the way tasks are
assigned to men and women differ. Societies also differ in how much men are
seen “dominant” over women.

• Feminist theories
– Emphasizes the centrality of gender in analyzing the social world and
particularly the uniqueness of the experience of women
– Liberal, radical, black, and postmodern feminism

• Historians mark the first wave feminist movement in U.S. and throughout the
world in the 19th century.
o The U.S. feminist movement began in 1848 with the first Women’s Rights
Convention, lead by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
 o Adopted a declaration of sentiments demanding, among other things,
women’s right to vote.
o Similar movement also began in Great Britain at same time, with increasing
demands for women’s political and economic equality.
o The Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 affirmed U.S. women the right to vote.
In Great Britain, women were given the right to vote in 1918.
o In Turkey in 1930.

• Second wave focused on the expanding legal rights for women.
o 1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed prohibiting sexual
harassment in the workplace and providing equal workplace
opportunities for women and minorities.

• In 1990s the third wave of feminism attempts to address multiple sources of
oppression
o Acknowledges oppression based on race and ethnicity, social class, and
sexual orientation in addition to sex.


There are a variety of feminist approaches to understanding gender inequality that
reflect the variety of feminisms that exist.

Feminist theory is a sociological theory that emphasizes the centrality of gender in
analyzing the social world and particularly the uniqueness of the experience of
women. There are four main feminist perspectives—liberal, radical, black, and
postmodern feminism.

– Liberal feminism
• Believes that gender inequality is produced by unequal access
to civil rights and certain social resources, such as education
and employment, based on sex
• Seeks solutions through legislation

Liberal feminism is a form of feminist theory that believes that gender inequality is
produced by unequal access to civil rights and certain social resources, such as
education and employment, based on sex. Liberal feminists see inequalities as
rooted in a society’s attitudes and believe that the most effective solution to
inequality is through legislation. Liberal feminists are advocates of legislation like
the Equal Pay Act or Sex Discrimination Act. Liberal feminists work within
established political and economic systems to bring about gradual change in society.

Liberal feminism is criticized for not dealing with the root cause, systematic cause of
gender inequality. Radical feminists accuse liberal feminists to encourage women to
accept an unequal society and its competitive character.

– Radical feminism
• Believes that gender inequality is the result of male domination
in all aspects of social and economic life
• End inequality by overthrowing patriarchy

 Radical feminism is a form of feminist theory that believes that gender inequality is
the result of male domination in all aspects of social and economic life. Unlike liberal
feminists, radical feminists believe that the only way to eliminate gender inequality
is to overthrow the patriarchal order, for patriarchy touches all aspects of social and
economic life. Radical feminists argue that men control women’s roles in production
and child rearing, they exploit women by relying on their unpaid domestic labor in
the home, and men as a group deny women access to positions of power and
influence in society. Men’s violence against women and their control over women’s
bodies are a large focus of radical feminist approaches to ending gender inequality.

– Postmodern feminism
• Challenges the idea of a unitary basis of identity and experience
shared by all women
• Celebrates the “otherness” of different groups and individuals
• No overarching solution to gender inequality

Postmodernists argue that there is no “grand narrative” or linear history that guides
social life. Postmodern society is highly pluralistic, diverse, and in a constant state of
flux. Such assumptions are found in postmodern feminism, which is a “feminist
perspective that challenges the idea of a unitary basis of identity and experience
shared by all women.” There is no grand theory that can explain women’s position
in society, nor is there any single, universal essence or category of “woman.’’ Since
postmodern feminism sees plurality and diversity in social life, its approach is to
celebrate the “otherness” of different groups and individuals. Since there is no
overarching explanation for women’s oppression, there is no overarching solution
to end it. But they say that women’s experience should be however they want it to
be, it cannot be defined in a certain way.

GENDER INEQUALITY IN TURKEY

UNFPA (Situation in Turkey)
https://turkey.unfpa.org/en/node/9689

Though there had been a progress on the elimination of gender inequality in Turkey
especially after the beginning of 2000, the statistics still reflect the grim reality. According
to the Gender Gap Index (2015) of World Economic Forum, Turkey is the130th country out
of 145 countries. In other words Turkey which is the 17th biggest economy in the world is
the 15th last country in terms of gender equality.

Only 15% of the MPs are women (November 2015 elections). This was not so different
before the last elections and despite several efforts the figures are far from equality in terms
of representation.

As in many other aspects of life gender inequality persists also in the labor market. Labor
force participation rate of women is 30% and 70% for men (TurkStat Labor Statistics
2015). Unemployment rate of men is 9.7% and 13% for women.
The fact of violence against women as a concept emerged through gender inequality is
widespread in Turkey as in the rest of the world. Every 4 women out of 10 is exposed to
physical and sexual violence at least once in their lifetime as stated in the Domestic Violence
Research in Turkey in 2014 (In 2008 the exact figure was 42% and in 2014 it was 38% -
meaning there is no significant difference). These figures show the scale of the problem and
call for immediate action. A UNFPA survey titled “Business against Domestic Violence”
indicates high prevalence (32 per cent) of sexual and physical violence among white collar
working women and the absence of response mechanisms within the private sector.
As a recent picture, according to the research of BİANET (Independent Communication
Network) on the number of femicides reflected in the media, in 2014 281, in 2015 284 and
till July 2016 153 women were killed by their husbands or immediate partners. This means
that approximately one woman was murdered in every 30 hours.

Working Turkish Women Pays the Highest Wage Penalty for Motherhood
https://www.ilo.org/ankara/news/WCMS_652242/lang--en/index.htm

Gender pay gaps striking, women still paid less Based on an analysis of 70 countries and 80%
of wage earners worldwide, comparing women and men in homogeneous subsets by
education, age, hours worked (full-time vs part-time) and public vs private sector using
weighted measures, the study reveals that global gender pay gap stood at 18.8%. The gap
was 12% in Turkey, 2.7% in Belgium, 11.7% in Norway, 13.3% in France and 16.6% in the
United Kingdom. Gender pay gap remains a challenge for all countries to surmount.

The report also shows that traditional explanations, such as differences in the levels of
education between men and women who work in paid employment, play a limited role in
explaining gender pay gaps, and the "unexplained" part has a larger effect. In high-income
countries, education has an impact of less than 1% in pay gaps. In other words, women are
paid less not because they have lower education. On the contrary, women in wage
employment have higher education levels than men.

Deep pay gap between working mothers and working non-mothers: Turkish women pay the
highest penalty Recent studies identify a "motherhood penalty" as a source of gender pay
gaps. This indicator of pay gap between mothers and non-mothers reveals striking results
when compared to the "fatherhood premium" indicating the pay gap between fathers and
non-fathers.

Mothers tend to have lower wages compared to non-mothers due to a host of factors,
including labour market interruptions, reductions in working time, employment in more
family-friendly jobs with lower wages, or discrimination in hiring and promotion. Fathers
on the other hand earn more than non-fathers through pay supplements on account of
fatherhood. In sum, mothers are wage-punished for being mothers, while fathers are wage-
rewarded.

By its 29.6%, Turkey is the country with the highest motherhood penalty among both
upper-middle and lower-middle income countries, and hosts the most disadvantageous
conditions in this regard. Working Turkish mothers pay the highest penalty by receiving
30% less in wages than non-mothers. Motherhood also causes labour market interruption,
and women's permanent exit from labour markets. Women's participation in labour force is
lower than men in all countries worldwide regardless of pay level or age group. Further
disadvantageous are women of 25-35 age group whose participation in labour market goes
down for first-time motherhood generally in this period. Unfortunately, most women of 25-
35 age group who leave the labour market for motherhood do not return.
- Director of the ILO Office for Turkey Özcan: "Gender pay gap is a biggest manifestation of
social injustice. Denying women of the pay they deserve is a worst form of violence against
women"
Commenting on the report, Mr. Numan Özcan, Director of the ILO Office for Turkey said:
"Turkey is the country with the highest motherhood penalty among the 70 countries in the
report. Comparing the mothers and non-mothers, there is 30% of pay gap between two
groups. The penalty for being a mother in Turkey is to receive less wages by 30%. Turkish
women pay the highest penalty for motherhood in the world."

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN WORKING LIFE IN TURKEY
https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/SDP17/SDP17030FU1.pdf

Women in Turkey generally suffer from the cultural attitudes and values towards their
employment that directly related to the patriarchal prejudgments according to Yenilmez
[8]. As it is mentioned above, “engaging in domestic work” is the biggest reason of why
women are not included in labour force. Being a house wife is the first reason not to
participate in the labour force (58%) before disability, health and illness (13%) and being
enrolled in education and training. According to the statistics in 2012, while the percentage
of “married” men employed in cities is 71.8, the corresponding rate drops down to 20.5
percent in “married women” [9].

Koten [9] also stated that, marriage is advantageous for men in terms of the active
participation in his paid business life, whereas it culminates in disadvantages for women in
this respect; this phenomenon can be observed rather readily at the stage of recruitment for
married women with children or expecting a child definitely constitutes a detriment even if
they are highly competitive, well-informed, educated and/or skilled.

Reconciliation of work and family life (work–life balance) is essential for gender equality.
Balancing women’s home related responsibilities would increase the women’s participation
in the labour [14]. In Turkey, prejudices about the gender roles in society reinforce different
types of roles among men and women. The male role is expected to be main source of their
family income i.e., ‘head of the household or breadwinner’ and the female role is proposed
to be mother and housewife and their primary assignment is domestic jobs and only
secondly as workers. Domestic work constitutes one of the major obstacles of women in
contributing the labour force in Turkey. Findings have shown that Turkish men spend far
less time doing domestic work than men from other countries, while Turkish women spend
far longer than the average [15]. Even the modern and more educated Turkish woman
tends to be conflicted about working outside of the home, which is mainly associated with
guilt over responsibilities to their families.

Koten [9] stated that, domestic responsibilities of women not only create the problem of
work–life balance but also contribute the women’s inferior position in the labour market.
For example, because of their domestic responsibilities it is believed that women are not as
reliable as male workers, and they withdraw from their work when they become a mother
or when they get married [16]. So, it is assumed that the turnover rate is higher than that of
men and attachment to work is lower. These beliefs and assumptions affect female
education and on the job training as well. Employer’s belief about women’s weak
attachment to work makes employers not to support women workers to enjoy on the job
training. As men, employers think that women workers would leave their job when they
marry or become mothers. Consequently, women are not promoted to higher position even
if they have the same qualifications and experience with men.

Childcare responsibility is the most important one among domestic responsibilities for
women. Researches show that possibility of women with children to participate into labour
market is less likely compared to women with no child. According to Soyseçkin [5], in
Turkey, accessing the high quality and widespread child care especially for 0-6 years old
children is determining on women’s decision to work or not. This situation directly reflects
to the ratio of women’s employment in Turkey. For example, compared to OECD 2013
average, women’s employment rate having at least one child between 3 and 5 years old is
very low (21.4% for Turkey and OECD average is 63.3%).