Last week authors Dr Gamze Cavdar and Yavuz Yasar spoke on their new  book, Women in Turkey: Silent Consensus in the Age of Neoliberalism and Islamic Conservatism.  Dr Cavdar’s introduction described her difficulties finishing the book as she was determined to publish data the Turkish Government considered to be in opposition to the official government statistics.  She was banned from further entry into Turkey but eventually was able to complete the final chapters with the help of family and colleagues.
The focus of their talk was on the progress (or lack thereof) in women’s employment in Turkey under the AKP party which has been in power since 2002.  The AKP party (Justice and Development Party) has portrayed itself as Neoliberal, pro-Western and pro-American.  In recent years this ruling party seems to have  become more authoritarian and more theocratic and less dedicated to secularism (the constitution of Turkey requires a secular state).
 
Against this historical backdrop, the authors collected data regarding the employment of women, digging deeper into the government’s statistics on the subject. Shortly after the AKP party came to power,  gender issues were centered on whether or not scarfs were allowed at official functions (eg, worn in public by cabinet members).  This seemed to shift the attention to Islamic gender identification rather than the employed woman as an individual.  Likewise, looking at the portrayal of women in the media it remained clear that their work role was most properly 'domestic'. Women did not appear as individual entities but often in a secondary role to their husband.
 
Looking deeper into the government’s statistics on women's employment meant looking at the idea of “broad” or “decent” employment which refer to underemployment, inclusion of “want to work”, seasonal employment and the quality of the job.  The conclusions were that women’s employment in Turkey has not progressed as much as the government has promoted under Neoliberalism and there is more consensus between Turkey's brand of Neoliberalism and Islamic conservatism.