From half of Turkey’s population (a very talented half as well), up to only 30% of people (though this % is optimistic and accessed through family workers) are participating in the labor force. This is one of the obstacles on the way to the overall development of the country. For many years (18+), as a woman in business life; I can write my name on the list of people who has these feelings and thoughts. Beyond that, I also have gone too far and tried to do something about it. I say “I’ve gone too far.”; because I think that I failed too badly, despite the hard work, the plan, the communication and dedication. We must be able to understand the factors that affect us from outside if we continue to push in spite of all these things to be successful and believe that these efforts are due to the fact that women who have existed in business life are owed to their fellow women and to the country.
I will continue to mention the examples of “transgression”, which consist the subject of the article in a similar way, but more mature, such as by describing a project to train certificated female electrician headworkers from Ministry of Education in Istanbul: A revolt against discrimination of women in this sector in Turkey. When you enter such a business; you have to convince the managers first. Women who work as electrical technicians are present in Europe. But taking the conditions in Turkey into consideration, we have prepared a program suited to work in office so as to prevent our women to think they will be on site. According to this program, the ministry will open a certified course and the teachers are ready. Even if you do business through İŞKUR, they can even get their allowances throughout the training. State pays their SSI etc … The Istanbul Chamber of Electrical Technicians is ready to support. Announcements, brochures are ready. If you mention all these things and say, “Let us to be paragons in this business”, and they reply “Let’s try it then”, then the real story begins. In this example, the story did not start, even ended actually. I said “yes” to the project, and unlike all of my fellow male accomplices, who gave time and effort, our women did not have a demand for this profession. As an HR professional who knows that the institution culture will consume the strategy as a meal, I have to necessarily calculate how the country’s work culture will eat the project as well! From here, as I sat down for drawing attention to the “factors in spite of everything”; I made a questionnaire on the project with proper questions, like the kind of social media loves to spread. If everyone adds their own lessons to this list; I think we will lead to “more mature and possible” projects. We should.
1. Do we have a claim to compete in every issue ?
This can be a claim, but it is not alive in life. If the condition that one cannot carry lots of things with just two hands correct for the institutions, it may also be true for the individuals and the genders. There may be areas where men can compete more favorably than women, and vice versa. If an institution tries to compete in every area and can not use its resources in the most optimal way (there are interesting exceptions that have emerged in recent times), individuals may be distributing their energy to the wrong places and leaving the room while they are trying to be in different areas, without competitive advantages. Accepting this will not weaken us. Moreover, we do not need to be able to wrestle to be strong!
2. The woman’s inner strength, is it strong enough to suppress the outside voices?
Only this inner and sincere faith, desire, need, dedication, ambition, etc., zeroes the power and weight of the stereotypes. It is not possible for us to do this for someone else, believe for the others. We can only provide the ground for “interest and potential demand”. That interest and desire is whether born or not. Claiming otherwise has the risk of becoming a rescue mission for women despite of their own identity and is being rejected. But if there is a sincere wish; a woman can also be a wrestler. She’s pretty well accepted as well. In this case, we will have access to ready-made customers to work for employment in areas where women already desire. Maybe less exciting but more likely to get results.
3. What is really preventing the desire to work?
We cannot overcome it without recognition. Moreover, to recognize and assume that you know are two different things. In Turkey, as biggest obstacles in front of female employment, if men, public pressure and neighborhood pressure are still be thought of ; we need to think a bit more detailed and open-minded. A woman may not really want to leave her identity as a woman or a mother. She may wait for her husband to be a winner; while showing her own productivity limited to his family. This may be the reason why she is formed on Earth. It may or may not be a conviction for generations behind this belief. I have seen women in my professional life who have no actively working women in their family and have gone from the footsteps of their fathers for being self-educated women, as well as women who has been trained by their fathers very well, such as a woman graduated from the Electronical Engineering department of the Bogazici University, but still wants to be the woman of her household. We must not attack our own imaginary windmills, but attack with right spears, to rightly defined obstacles. We should not waste any time with hopeless wars.
4. Is it worth it to get out of the house ?
The stubble stone really scares a big frog; Yes, there is a burden to work with. If you are a woman, nobody says you are already “working” and you continue to work at home. “I extend my feet, my coffee comes with my newspapers, nobody waiting for a chat, what I have today is enough.” is only a dream. It is expected that you will not sleep with your sick child at night and not be late for work the next morning. So if we’re gonna be superheroes, at least we can fly, right? Yet women’s profits, even in the same jobs, are low compared to their male counterparts. And if their qualifications are low and they are already candidates for low jobs, staying home and looking after the child is the most logical unless you have to. Employees who are in this situation because they’re obliged want to return home once this obligation vanish.
5. Whether to enlarge the stone or to reduce the frog?
If we are not ready for the work that can afford the cost of getting out of the house, as that preparation is a business that requires time and effort; we need to be able to reduce the cost of leaving home. It seems that this stone will not grow, unless the frog becomes smaller. This is not only about neighborhood kindergartens, elderly care workers in the neighborhood, full-day schools or study homes, easy access to health, transport facilities, and work from home. For sociologists and trainers; It’s a long-term business. In society, there are ways we need to take for understanding women’s “duties”, duty-sharing, women’s business life and approach at home. For this reason, it is an important success factor to consider employment and related projects. We will train and hire, but if nobody comes; it may be necessary to show the place, show the way, show the time; because a job is a whole proposal.
Who is Nurhayat Ulucan?
In 1993, she decided to make a Human Resources Master in 1993, while it was mostly unheard of. She graduated from Bogazici University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations in 1991. Se has graduated from Purdue University in 1998, after a 7-year American adventure that she has struggled in it, and she has found an opportunity to add Ali Yahya and motherhood in her life for the last 10 years. She’s an idealist but paying the price, and therefore, she’s happy and peaceful to all the world’s folk handicrafts, paintings, ceramics, Turkey and Turkish music, who’s a laborer both amazed and bewildered by people.