Thread: Erdogan: women not equal to men

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine Erdogan, attends the opening ceremony of an imam-hatip school in Ankara Nov. 18, 2014.

Monday, 24 November 2014


Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting on women’s rights on Monday that gender equality was contrary to nature and said feminists did not recognize the value of motherhood.

Erdogan, whose conservative, Islamist ideology frequently raises hackles in more liberal segments of Turkish society, said women's “delicate” nature meant it was impossible to place them on an equal footing with men.

“You can't get a woman to work in every job that a man does, like they did in communist regimes in the past,” he told the meeting of Turkey's Women and Democracy Association.


“You can't put a pickaxe and a shovel in their hand and get them to work. That's not the way.”

He said women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, but their different role in society had to be recognized.

Erdogan's critics in mostly Muslim but constitutionally secular Turkey have regularly accused him of puritanical intrusiveness into private life, from his advice to women on the number of children they should have to his views on abortion.

But his divisive rhetoric has won him the support of the country's pious Anatolian heartlands, helping secure his victory in the first popular election for head of state in August after more than a decade as prime minister.

“Our religion gave woman a station. What station is this? The station of motherhood ... Motherhood is something different and is the most unobtainable, the highest station,” he said.

“There are those who understand this, those who don't. You can't tell this to feminists, because they do not accept motherhood. They have no such concerns.”

Economists cite the low numbers of women in the workforce as an obstacle to Turkey's development, while the European Union -- which Turkey has been negotiating to join for over a decade -- has urged the country to do more to improve gender equality.

“We know women are not physiologically equal. But equality is about having equal rights, equal status and equal opportunities,” said Gonul Karahanoglu, president of women's rights group KA.DER.

“He defines women only as mothers. It is discriminating against all the women who don't have children. He always says the same things,” she said.


http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News...al-to-men.html

Looper (and a few other knowledgeable members) will be along shortly to fully support Erdogan's view.

Originally Posted by Neverna

Looper (and a few other knowledgeable members) will be along shortly to fully support Erdogan's view.

Yes....knowledgeable.

Originally Posted by ENT

women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, but their different role in society had to be recognized.

What is so controversial about that?

Treated equally in the eyes of the law means only in the eyes of the Turkish law,....in court.

Fat chance of the likes of Erdogan convincing Europe of Turkey's eligibility for EU membership based on his interpretation of equality.

Keep the women where they belong, is his implication, barefoot in rge kitchen and saddled with kids, and if possible in a black bag.

“You can't put a pickaxe and a shovel in their hand and get them to work. That's not the way.”

True. You need both hands for a shovel.

I'm not particularly fond of the western version of womanhood, so I moved to o Asia...What's that mean? Nevermind, if women want to be equal to men perhaps they should sprout dicks? If men want to be equal to women, something I've never heard anyone say, but have read occasionally in crap reports by bogus study groups, they fail to mention the clit effect on men? Wonder why?

Men who complain about equal rights for women should be castrated then wrapped in rainbow flags and sent to England.

BTW, what's Turkey gaining by joining the E.U.? Right, nothing.

In the past women were excluded from voting and excluded from intellectual, powerful and prestigious work roles.

They were considered the property of their husbands to do with as the husband pleased.

Women's rights have come a very long way in the last 100 years (which is the blink of an eye in the history of the human race).

However, the 1960s saw the emergence of a fatally flawed sociological theory that the difference between men and women was a manufactured difference and a purely social construct that could be deconstructed through re-education.

This lead to the political idea that seeing men and women as in any way fundamentally different was some kind of hate crime against women.

Thankfully sanity is re-emerging and it is once more acceptable to point out the difference between men and women and suggest that women are better suited to certain roles just as men are better suited to certain roles, due to their physical and emotional (but not intellectual) differences.

Roles that involve working with children, caring, nursing and home making are generally better suited to women since this is the evolutionarily prescribed genetic job description of the female homo sapiens.

Roles involving physical strength, aggression, violence and risk taking are better suited to men since hunting and warring are the genetic job description of the male homo sapiens.

90% of the jobs in the modern workplace rely mainly on intellectual power so there should not be (and in the west generally are not) any barriers to entry to women.

Some parts of the world are a bit behind the curve when it comes to women's rights and they should not be allowed to use the newly established rationale (acknowledging differences in the sexes) to back-slide on women's rights which may be what is going on here, I don't know enough details about Turkey.

Originally Posted by ENT

Our religion gave woman a station.

I don't know the situation in Turkey but with views like these I suspect Erdogan may be using the new enlightenment as a Trojan horse for repressive practices.