"The Turkish people's deep civilisational roots and aspirations
to live in an advanced information society and democracy in the
21st Century justify the highest political focus on gender
equality. This is why the Turkish government, parliament and all
the political parties have an ever more important responsibility
to improve Turkish society's performance on gender equality to
above the European average. Turkey is an interesting case from
this point of view. On the one hand, women's rights have been
recognised since the beginning of the Republic in 1923. By 1930,
women had acquired the right to vote at the municipal elections.
Since 1935, Turkish women have been elected to the national
parliament. Turkey has had women as prime minister and as
president of the Constitutional Court, and as ministers of the
interior, economy, education and so on. However, the
representativeness of Turkish politics in terms of gender is
still far from impressive. Turkish women have also emerged in
professional life, reaching the