Turkey gave full political rights to women, including the right to elect and be elected locally in 1930 (nationwide in 1934). Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex. It is the first country to have a woman as the President of its Constitutional Court. Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution reads that the family is "based on equality between spouses".
The Turkish feminist movement began in the 19th century during the decline of the Ottoman Empire when the Ottoman Welfare Organisation of Women was founded in 1908. The ideal of gender equality was embraced after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey by the administration of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose modernising reforms included a ban on polygamy and the provision of full political rights to Turkish women by 1930.
Turkish women continue to be the victims of rape and honour killings, especially in Turkish Kurdistan, where most crimes against women take place. Research by scholars and government agencies indicate widespread domestic violence among the people of Turkey, as well as in the Turkish diaspora. Despite Turkey being a patriarchal society, there are many historical examples of Turkish women involved in public life and activism.
Women in Turkey face significant discrimination in employment, and, in some regions, education. The participation of Turkish women in the labor force is less than half of that of the European Union average and while several campaigns have been successfully undertaken to promote female literacy, there is still a gender gap in secondary education. There is also widespread occurrence of child marriage in Turkey, the practice being especially widespread in the eastern and central parts of the country.
In 2018, Turkey ranked 130th in the World Economic Forum gender gap index, out of 149 countries.
History
In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries during the Sultanate of Women, women of the Imperial Harem had extraordinary influence on politics of Ottoman Empire. Many of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, like Kösem Sultan, or sometimes daughters of the sultan as Mihrimah Sultan, leaders of the Harem, who effectively ruled the Empire. Most of these women were of slave origin. The period started in 1520 during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent until 1656, the reign of Mehmed IV.
During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, educated women within the elites of Istanbul began to organise themselves as feminists. The first women's magazine, Terakki-i Muhadderat, appeared on 27 June 1869 as a weekly supplement to Terakki (Progress) newspaper. With the Tanzimat reforms, improving women's conditions was considered as part of a wider modernisation effort. Ottoman women's movement began to demand rights. They fought to increase women's access to education and paid work, to abolish polygamy, and the peçe, an Islamic veil. Early feminists published woman magazines in different languages and established different organizations dedicated to the advancement of women. The first women's association in Turkey, the Ottoman Welfare Organization of Women, was founded in 1908 and became partially involved in the Young Turks Movement. Writers and politicians such as Fatma Aliye Topuz, Nezihe Muhiddin and Halide Edib Adıvar also joined the movement. In her novels, Halide Edib Adıvar criticised the low social status of Turkish women and what she saw as the lack of interest of most women in changing their situation.
During the Turkish War of Independence, Kara Fatma a widow proved herself as a successful militia leader.