Women participation and representation in Turkey's politics: Problems and solution proposals

It is a fact that in Turkey, women's participation in politics at low rates from past to present. The fact that women do not exist actively in Turkish politics shows that it is not enough to make legal arrangements to turn some rights into practice. Society needs its own time and changing mentality to realize the ideal in the representation of women. Although legal regulations are one of the prerequisites for political participation, it is essentially the exercise of rights concretely and massively. The effect of the patriarchal system, women needafter regaining their political rights in Turkey, with the comfort of long legal rights as well as arranged did not show any effort to achieve equal political participation of women. In Turkey, women have gained political rights in the 1930s and had entered Parliament for the first time with the 1935 elections. After this, the rate of women deputies in parliament has decreased continuously; however, after the 2000s, the rate of 4.5 percent of female representatives in 1935 was achieved. According to women in many countries of the world, it is an issue to be emphasized that the Turkish woman, who has previously obtained her political rights before, has not reached 20 percent of her representation in parliament today despite all the time. The main claim of this thesis is the insufficient political participation of women in Turkey; the reason for this is that it is hidden in social and cultural codes rather than legal regulations. Thus, the representation of women will be determined with concrete data and the reasons for this will be examined. The scope of the study includes the period after the Republic. The qualitative research method was used during the study; content analysis was made for the related text and documents. In the past eighty-five years, the proportion of women representatives in parliament can only reach 17 percent; Patriarchal society structure, lack of education, lack of economic independence of women, environmental pressure, negative attitude of political parties and media, lack of legal gender quota can be attributed to many factors. This thesis offers solutions to the problems mentioned. Keywords: Politics, Political Participation, Women Participation, Women Representation, Gender