Attitudes of women towards women policies of political parties

SUMMARY ATTITUDES OF WOMEN TOWORDS WOMEN POLICIES OF POLITICAL PARTIES The political parties are indispensable institutions of contemporary democracies. They are instrumental in getting the demands of different segments of a given society to its political agenda and controlling government. They are also functional in providing a suitable ground in which alternative solution proposals to social and economic problems are discussed and electoral support is ensured before they are put into effect Thus, they legitimize the political system. What political parties could and cold not do is, to a great extent, determined by political system, political culture and electoral system. Women, as is the case in many other areas, are in a subordinate position in the political arena. As of November 2001, women constitute only about 14% of elected members of the parliaments and the senates in the world. There are a number of reasons for this relatively lower level of representation of women in political sphere. Generally women are not as visible as men, even though the reasons might differ across countries. However, this fact is not in conformity with the principles of democratic representation and gender equality, which would be a reason for dissatisfaction. The vision and policies of the political parties regarding women's position in politics are crucial in increasing political representation of women and make them more visible. This is because in order for candidates to get elected, they have to appear in a rank in a party's list where the chance of getting elected is high. Since the present uneven female representation has a long history, it does not seem to be easy to overcome this representation problem without introducing a positive affirmative action, such as quotas. Turkey is not any exception in this venue. After a general evaluation of women's position in politics, two issues have been particularly examined in this dissertation. Firstly, women policies of Democratic Leftist Party (DSP), Motherland Party (ANAP), True Path Party (DYP), Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Republican Populist Party (CHP) and Virtue Party (FP) as representatives of main political tendencies are reviewed. Secondly, an area study has been conducted to find out how women look at those policies as well as how they feel about female political participation, relations of politics and religion, the roots of women's problems and their solutions, etc. To this end, randomly selected 567 women have been interviewed by using a questionnaire which includes 57 questions, some are open ended. As far as the former topic is concerned, one can argue that the main strategies of Turkish political parties toward women do not diverge much from their counterparts abroad. All Turkish political parties deal with women and women's problems to get their votes. Interestingly, the less likely for a party to come to power, the higher the degree of concern about female political participation. As opposed to right-wing parties, left-wing parties have a higher tendency to implement positive affirmative action, going beyond rhetoric. However, the findings indicate that women do not share a common attitude, which could be attributed solely to being female, toward these political parties and their women policies as well as most of the other issues. The determining factor in shaping the approach or attitude of women toward these policies and women's problems is not "being woman," it seems, but rather political identity and political party preferences. Key words: Turkish political parties, women policies of political parties, political participation, women's problems, Democratic Leftist Party (DSP), Motherland Party (ANAP), True Path Party (DYP), Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Republican Populist Party (CHP) and Virtue Party (FP). xix