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Europeanization without substance? EU–Turkey relations and gender equality in employment

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This paper focuses on EU–Turkey relations through gender-related employment policy practices. We argue that Turkey is undergoing a process of ‘Europeanization without substance’, in which vague commitments and policy initiatives to enhance female labour force participation coexist uneasily with a contravening political discourse. This is not merely the result of a stalemate in accession negotiations, nor does it stem from the diversity of employment practices across the Union. It rather results from the deliberative discourses used by Turkey’s political leadership to selectively appropriate certain aspects of Europeanization to further a politically motivated agenda that, in essence, negates gender equality altogether. This, we argue in turn, is reflected in a set of practices, policy initiatives, and public statements that make substantive progress in EU–Turkey relations harder. This process is facilitated by the diminishing emphasis placed by the EU on gender equality in employment as manifested by the evolution of gender equality practices at EU level and reinforced by austerity-led policies during the economic crisis.

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Notes

  1. For the purposes of this study and notwithstanding alternative definitions, we define gender equality in employment to mean equal and unhindered access by women to the labour market to facilitate their financial emancipation and engagement in civic life as individuals equal to men.

  2. World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Index 2015, available at http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/.

  3. Many of these original directives have been clarified and brought together into one legal document and can be found in the EU Gender Equality Recast Directive on gender equality in employment and occupation (2006/54/EC). However, in other areas, such as equal treatment and social security (Directive 79/7EEC), the original directive remains in force.

  4. Improving the position of women constituted one of the focal points of Turkey’s modernization process. Women were given full political rights as early as 1930s, and their role as carriers of the modernization and westernization project was underlined. Gender equality, at least in the public sphere, was therefore a primary facet of Turkey’s modernization objectives. Nevertheless, the patriarchal and protectionist understanding of the state was reflected in several legal provisions, which perpetuated gender inequality. Particularly, the Civil Code and Penal Code established the man as ‘the head of the household’, whereby a woman’s decision to work was to be authorized by her husband or father. Moreover, provisions in social security arrangements made women dependent on their father or husband and tied their social protection to the family’s male members, considered the main breadwinners. Coupled with the weakness of the welfare state, these provisions established a social structure where the main role of women was to take care of family members and undertake domestic work (Gunes Ayata and Tutuncu 2008).

  5. This is a widely debated measure as it is not effectively implemented and many work places do not hire women so as not to reach the numbers provided by the law. Moreover, the fact that the law explicitly states 150 female employees is questioned by feminist groups because it associates the role of caregiving with women (Bugra 2014; Korkut and Eslen-Ziya 2011).

  6. Nevertheless, some of the legal amendments that are beyond the focus of this paper (concerning the debate on increasing women’s quotas and adultery discussions involved in Penal Code proposal, for instance) already witnessed JDP’s recourse to religiously inspired references (Gunes Ayata and Tutuncu 2008).

  7. Among the examples worth mentioning here is the suggestion in 2011 by the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors that female rape victims could marry their rapists (NTV 2011) as well as the Health Ministry’s statement a year later that children born because of rape could be ‘taken care of’ by the Ministry (Sol 2012).

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Acknowledgements

This paper stems from the 2015 Jean Monnet Workshop hosted by Dimitris Tsarouhas at Bilkent University and funded by the European Commission, Project No. 529070-LLP-1-2012-1-TR-AJM-CH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Ayşe İdil Aybars

  2. School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Paul Copeland

  3. Department of International Relations, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

    Dimitris Tsarouhas

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Aybars, A.İ., Copeland, P. & Tsarouhas, D. Europeanization without substance? EU–Turkey relations and gender equality in employment. Comp Eur Polit 17, 778–796 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-018-0125-2

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