U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan tours the Blue Mosque on April 7, 2009 in Istanbul
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said women cannot be treated as equal to men, and has accused feminists of rejecting motherhood.
“You cannot put women and men on an equal footing,” he told a meeting in Istanbul. “It is against nature.”
He also said feminists did not grasp the importance of motherhood in Islam.
His comments often seek to appeal to his pious core supporters, says the BBC’s Mark Lowen in Istanbul, but they anger more liberal voters.
Turks who have more secular views argue that the government’s social policies are taking the country in a dangerous direction, our correspondent says.
Mr Erdogan has previously urged women to have three children, and has lashed out against abortion and birth by Caesarean section.
‘Delicate nature’
His latest remarks were delivered at a women’s conference in Istanbul.
“In the workplace, you cannot treat a man and a pregnant woman in the same way,” Mr Erdogan said, according to the Anadolu news agency.
Women cannot do all the work done by men, he added, because it was against their “delicate nature”.
“Our religion regards motherhood very highly,” he said. “Feminists don’t understand that, they reject motherhood.”
He said women needed equal respect rather than equality.
Mr Erdogan also told the Istanbul meeting that justice was the solution to most of the world’s issues – including racism, anti-Semitism, and “women’s problems”.
The Turkish leader often courts controversy with his statements.
Earlier this month, he claimed that Muslims had discovered the Americas more than 300 years before Christopher Colombus.
In his 11 years as prime minister, Mr Erdogan became a crucial player in regional politics.
However, his reputation has suffered recently over the crisis in Syria, and accusations of authoritarianism.
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Categories: Europe and Australia, gender, Turkey, Women, Women In islam, Women Rights, Women's right
This reminds me when I was invited to the US by the late Sir Mohammad Zafrullah Khan. I stayed with him for a week in December 1963. Sir Zafrullah Khan was invited to a lecture by the New York Times. During the ‘get-together’ with the Editor and the organizers Sir Zafrullah Khan was ‘attacked’ by the Editor’s wife, saying that ‘we in the USA have equality between men and women’. Sir Zafrullah Khan listened for some time and then asked: “Madame, do you have children?” Like any proud mother she told of her children, one in college, one in high school etc. Sir Zafrullah Khan then said: “Madame, please now tell your husband to have the next 3 children”. The lady was speechless! Sir Zafrullah Khan then kindly explained that there can never be equality in purpose of men and women, but according to the Qur’an (and he gave all the references) in value men and women are of course fully equal.
The equality slogan is misleading. Men and women are not equal in many respects. Physically and emotionally they are different. Let any feminist deny this! People are different and not exactly equal. They are different from each other in respect of their gender, physical appearances such as height, weight and color. Blacks are not equal to whites, and whites are not equal to Asians, and Asians are not equal to Hispanics. And of course men are not equal to women.
Western media has decided to misrepresent and sensationalize the issues. In depth journalism has disappeared. “News channels” are nothing more than entertainment.
In Islam women are different but equal to men. And this is the case everywhere in this world regardless of religion, race or color.
So what the Turkish Prime Minister is saying is absolutely correct. The BBC should not allow entertainment and performance on its news channel.
I guess it depends how you define “equal”. The two posters above appear to define it as “identical to” or “the same as”. If that’s your definition, then no two men or two women are equal, let alone men and women.
A couple of brief internet searches bring up the following definitions: “the same in number, amount, degree, rank, or quality” and “correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability.”
To me, those definitions do not indicate “the same as”, as no two people are the same, regardless of gender. But the two genders as a collective are equal in terms of rank, quality, value, and ability. Therefore men and women are equal.
As for the fact that women can carry children and men cannot – that has nothing to do with being “equal”. Men and women have different biological functions, that’s all, but they’re both human beings – it’s not as though one is a banana and the other a giraffe!
With respect to the above poster who said “there can never be equality in purpose of men and women”, that is simply untrue. An individual’s purpose is whatever they want it to be, and should not be prescribed or imposed based on gender stereotypes. Nor should opportunities be denied or prohibited to one group based on gender. Many women don’t want to have children – for them, procreating is not their purpose. Let us let grown adults have autonomy over their own lives, whether they choose to be faith leaders, world leaders, business people, armed services personnel, a stay at home dad…etc.
And please, we all know that when people talk about men and women being unequal, what they really mean is that women are inferior, and shouldn’t have the same opportunities and rights as men. And the comment about women having a “delicate nature”!! – what utter, stereotypical, nonsense. Women are not one homogeneous group any more than men. So no, the Turkish President is entirely wrong and deeply sexist.
I agree with the above poster mostly. Women in Islam have been Faith leaders, political leaders and business leaders. (Prophet’s wives, Kadija and Ayesha). In Islam women are free to pursue whatever goal in life they choose.
The quote of the Turkish president is being taken out of context and much is being lost in translation. But it does underline the bigoted nature of Western entertainment channels (BBC, CNN etc)They just cannot resist to make a fool of themselves. They report without context and without perspective. The result is the wrong image of Islam and Muslims. There are more anti women politicians and white men in the US than most other places. But their bigotry is never attributed to Christianity.
I hope we can separate the plight of women in the Muslim world from Islam and correctly attribute it to poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity and job.