Promises, promises

In recent weeks, the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, abandoned its decision to name women to 15 percent of the mayoral candidate posts in the March 29 local elections. With nominations at the municipal and district levels drawing to a close, only a handful of women have been selected to run for the 3,225 mayoral positions, and none in the 16 largest cities.

However on Wednesday Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the AK Party aimed to fill a third of the country’s city council seats with women. This is wonderful news, if he's serious. Women Branches Chairwoman Fatma Şahin made the "15 percent" public declaration several weeks ago. Imagine how demoralized she feels. Imagine how women like Sibel Eraslan feel, without whose door-to-door campaigning analysts say the AK Party couldn’t have pulled off its 2002 victory. Still today, women's AK Party branches have no official power or budget.

Almost all the female respondents in a survey conducted by the Gönülbirliği Cultural Solidarity Association in Ankara said the number of female politicians was too low and that measures should be taken to increase female participation in state, political party and nongovernmental organizations.

Turkey has only one female mayor - Tunceli Mayor Songül Erol Abdil from the Democratic Society Party (DTP). Only 25 out of the AKP's 340 deputies are women. It would be polite to say that the prime minister’s lone female cabinet member State Minister for Women and Families Nimet Çubukçu has failed the people she serves, neglecting institutional abuse of orphans and women’s rights.

Vile permissiveness
More than 1,000 women and girls have been killed - and those are documented cases - over honor and virginity by their own families since 2001. Last month, a government-appointed District Education Board official visited an Istanbul university and forced 30 female students to answer questions about who in their dorms was drinking and sexually active. In November an 18-year-old was subjected to virginity tests after her Istanbul dorm manager alleged to the girl’s father that she was sexually active. The accusation and subsequent dismissal attempt was based on bruising to the girl’s face and neck.

If more female representatives were in government, it's hard to believe this "official" behavior would be so easy to get away with. President of Turkey’s largest teachers union, Eğitim-Sen, Zübeyde Kılıç told Bianet that the government’s position on women encourages such allegations which victimize young women. "It cannot be a coincidence that the virginity discussion is taking place at the time of the Justice and Development Party."

Remarkable, smart women - observant and non-observant - are willing to change conditions. They want to be part of a government that works for people, not one bent on pursuing a backlash against the progress that Turkish women have fought so hard for. The AK Party’s dim light bulb often illuminates what appears to be a black comedy about backroom thugs. But local elections are no comedy and these guys don't own the back room. If the AKP and its female candidates can pull off even half the increase Erdoğan seeks in women's city council seats, more men will see women for what they are: Valuable decision makers, not desexualized stay-at-home collateral.