Elementary education is both a
right and obligation for both sexes and is offered free of charge in state
schools in Turkey. From the beginning of the Republic it was for five years and
covered the ages between seven to eleven. Since 1997 it is for eight years.
There are huge regional differences in both achievement and schooling rates
within the country. Turkey, as a developing country still needs to benefit from
the modernist project of education. The
gap between the illiteracy rates of women as well as the gap between their
employment rates needs careful scrutinizing. As a consequence of the
neo-liberal policies the ratio of employed women, which had been rising until
then, started falling in the 1980’s. The claims of liberal feminists for equal
access to education are pursued to eliminate this gap. These policies are
crucial and need to be implemented. Yet, on their own they are not enough to
address the current situation.
Gök and Tan agree that elementary
education has a transformative potential to create critical consciousness and
equality and challenge sexist values but in its current situation it is in
harmony with the prevailing inequalities in society. According to Gök (1995),
whether the liberatory function of education is fulfilled needs to be
questioned since it leads women to jobs with low prestige and limited income in
the field of reproduction rather than production Under the current
circumstances the education of women does not challenge the existing gender order
in the country. Gök argues that the analysis on women in education needs to be
conducted at the interaction of public and private spheres because the
educational achievements of women are not reflected in the labour market. Both
Tan (1994) and Sayılan (2006) argue that the effects of patriarchal family
structure, Muslim traditions, and underdeveloped capitalism strike women in
Turkey.
Tan claims that women’s education
through republican reform had two effects on social transformation. First, it
questioned patriarchy and created the women citizen donated with civil and
political rights. Second, it deconstructed the structure determined by Muslim
traditions (Tan, 1994). The Republican reforms were in line with the feminist
demands of the time in the West. These demands were liberal in nature and
wanted to achieve equality with men. The roles of women in the private sphere
went unquestioned and not challenged in the process. Therefore, women received
extra responsibilities as wage earners without denying their existing workload
in the house. Because there has not been a change in male attitudes about the
household division of labour, the working woman is still under double burden.
There are two studies in the
field of education that might help understand the gender ideology of the Turkish
Republic, Helvacıoğlu’s (1996) study on textbooks and Akşit’s (2005) study on
Girls’ Institutes. One of the most influential studies that reveal the history
of women in education has been by Akşit. According to her, girls’ education had
a central position in legitimizing the state ideology. For her “In the
transition from the empire to the republic young women were the essential
constituents of the modernist project” (p:219). The first generation students
of the Girls’ Institutes were to create social transformation by affecting
their families, neighbors and the following generations. These girls were
silenced while trying to achieve the impossible task of transmitting the
Western civilization but keeping the national character.
Helvacıoğlu[1]
establishes a link between the state ideology and the representation of women
in textbooks. In her studies, it is possible to find striking examples of the
presentation of women in textbooks starting from 1928 (Gümüşoğlu, 2006). In the
early years of the Republic women were encouraged to take part in the public
sphere as free citizens, in line with the needs of the young Republic. However, starting as early as 1945 there has
been a counter-revolution about the stats of women in textbooks. After the
1950s women started to be presented within the household doing domestic chores
and the apron became their uniform. Opposite roles have been perpetuated for
men and women in the textbooks since then. Along with Atatürk’s saying that
‘women are the first teachers of children’, in the early years of the Republic
they were the bearers of knowledge along with the males whereas in the later
years the only thing they could teach was to make jam or pickles according to
the textbooks. In her more recent work Gümüşoğlu
claims that it is possible to find more women in textbooks today but they are
still sexist and household tasks are still women’s responsibility (2006). The
altruistic mother figure of the 1990s, who lives for the others and is loved
and respected for this reason, is hardly empowering for the schoolgirls.
[1]
Helvacıoğlu and Gümüşoğlu are in fact the same person, although in some studies
her early and later work has been taken as if two different people conducted
it. The change in her surname apparently
signifies a change in her marital status. Only after the change in the Turkish
Civil Code have women started to keep their maiden names without appealing to
the court.
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