Although number of working women is still lower than other countries, Turkey has more women entrepreneurs in those days. With the help of charities and associations, women can get credit and support to establish their own business. Also there are some big companies, some of them multinational, which give opportunity of employment for women.
Why having a job is important for females? To feel more happier, comfortable, to gain financial freedom or escape from dominance of males? All of them can be true, it changes case to case but there is something that doesn’t change: We are creating superwomen from ourselves.
A superwoman who becomes mother, wife, housekeeper and business woman at the same time! That’s the thing that I saw from my mother and I will do in my life. A superwoman can find enough time for her work, her baby, her house and her job. Unfortunately not for herself. Even if she needs holidays or some spare time for only herself, that is not possible. Still she is happy to being sufficient for her all works.
According to research of TUIK, Turkish Statistical Institution, women are happier than men. But it defines happiness as being healthy and no reason for being unhappy. So this is a very subjective issue. Since there are huge differences in income level and education level in Turkey, some of the women cannot dream of having job, having freedom, they don’t know the meaning of having own decisions, they were born in conservative families and maybe married at age 15. Because of that we cannot depend on general statistics to say about happiness level of females is higher than males.
If we look at profile of women entrepreneurs, most of them are married and they are looking for their financial freedom. Their parents didn’t suggest them to establish their own job but they tried their best to achieve it. One of the popular Turkish magazine, Infomag, had an article at their March issue about this issue.
And the working women in Turkey. Families prefer being nurse or teacher for their daughter but they are not doing this way today. Still it can be related with stereotypes but finance industry is the most popular one in Turkey for women employees.
There is another important research about women employment which was conducted by Forbes, another reputable business magazine in Turkey. Forbes is drawing attention of companies which give employment opportunities for females and list them. In this list, Akbank has a different place with 318 women in top management. Also, first five companies in the list were PepsiCo, Garanti Bank, Avivasa, Yapı Kredi and Memorial Health Group. Those companies are giving social rights and good working environment for their female employees. Numbers in the list show that power of working women and their potential to have more places in top management. And we can sum with the statement at the top:
High heels will take your place!