The equality of the sexes has been a topic on the fingertips of Turkish bloggers as of late. Even with reforms to the penal code about a woman's right to veil (or not to), a woman's freedom of body, and stricter repercussions for rape, the equality between man and woman in Turkey is still contested. The legacy of Ataturk‘s secular reforms when the Republic of Turkey was founded has given the country the veneer of female equality…but with probing questions does the polish wear away? Mustafa Akyol from The White Path has a wonderful set of articles on the post-patriarchal society of Turkey, where he discusses the history of Turkish feminism and why it has been stunted by the very reforms that were meant to foster it. When I told her that I was reading a report which shows that Turkey is making great progress in women's rights and the AKP government is helping that, she was first surprised, then defiant, and finally counter-attacking. “Who is financing that report,” she asked, “it must be the EU who spreads these lies.” By saying so, she was just confirming to me a crucial point made in the ESI report – that, “Kemalist women… are the out of touch with the reality of contemporary Turkey.” To understand why, one needs to look at a bit of history. A standard story in Turkey is that our women were in total darkness before Atatürk, and his reforms gave them all that they needed. But that is a half-truth. Atatürk of course made many important reforms, but there are other facts which one needs to realize in order to get the sex matters right. One of those facts is the feminist movement in the pre-Atatürk, i.e., Ottoman, era. As the ESI report also notes, Ottoman feminists – such as Ms. Fatma Nesibe, who used to quote from John Stuart Mill and argue for a “feminine revolution” – addressed the gender gap much before the Turkish Republic. In the last decade of the Ottoman Empire, societies emerged with names like Taal-i Nisvan or Müdafaa-i Hukuk-u Nisvan, or “The Advancement of Women” and “The Defense of the Rights of Women.” When Atatürk came to power, he gave many important rights to women, but he did something that would be very harmful in the long term: He closed down these feminist clubs. Why? Well, it was due to the widespread belief at the time that the state should be the master of society and orchestrate it authoritatively. (For the same reason, Mustafa Kemal also banned Sufi orders and freemason lodges; civil society was considered dangerous or, at best, useless.) Turkish Diary adds her voice in response to a recent article about women's rights in Turkey and how the debate between Secularism and Islamism figures into the situation: What strikes me in the second chapter is the last part: one of the two periods in the whole history of the Turkish Republic when women saw major improvements starts in 2001. Which, as you know, is the period when the Akp, the “Islamist” party, went to power. Please don't get me wrong. I know I may look like a fan of Akp. I'm not. I mean, I'm fully aware of their many faults – not only in the last weeks – and I know they are far from being the solution to Turkey's problems. But I must recognise Turkey has made lots of improvements under their rule. Now that I have made this point clear, let me go back to the subject of this post. A couple of years ago, in Istanbul, I met the leader of a feminist organization. One of the things she said that stroke me most was: “There are two kinds of discriminated women in Turkey: those who don't want to wear the headscarf, and are forced to; and those who want to wear the headscarf, and are forced not to”. Of course, one could think that a headscarf is just a piece of tissue and that women have far worse problems to think of. But don't forget that Atatürk, just to abolish the fez, didn't hesitate to kill the men who wore it. For women who wear the headscarf, this may mean not having access to university. Or renouncing a political career. Is this fair? Now, I have heard many arguments against the Islamic headscarf in public places. None of them ever convinced me, in Turkey or in France. While I heard women who are against the scarf but, in spite of that, think that the France law against it is one of the most stupid things the French government could have done. One of them is Nobel Prize (winner) Shirin Ebadi. I agree one hundred per cent with them. I won't go into details on this specific issue, I only want to point out that the “Islamist” party many are so afraid of is the one that, according to a European think-tank, has made the biggest improvements in the condition of women ever.