Research on Cultural Studies

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Foreword

This book, Research on Cultural Studies, is a collection of papers on cultural studies written by educators and researchers. The topics include women rights in Turkey, witness statement as evidence in Turkish law, legal regulations about organ or tissue trafficking, the new social movements in Turkey, humorous discourse on social media, the traditional country fairs in Turkey and so on.

The first paper by Selda Caglar discussed the women’s rights in Turkey. The author in her paper talked about negative social perception towards femininity and women’s human rights in Turkey. Hakan Karakehya in his study explored how witness statement could be used as evidence in Turkish criminal procedures. The following study by Nazmiye Ozenbas talked about a new category of crime: organ/tissue trade. She discussed the legal regulations about organ or tissue trafficking with the Turkish Penal Code. Her next study was about the protection of personal data in terms of criminal law. In this study, she talked about how data protection regulations were adopted worldwide to function for the lawful processing of personal data and to prohibit the misuse of it. The study by Ozgur Oguz was about the workers’ right to terminate labor contract for valid reasons in occupational health. In the following study, Sadullah Ozel evaluated the principle of proportionality in the context of requirements of the democratic and social order that complete this principle. The study by Gaye Tug Levent and Gulcan Azimli Cilingir provided information on the scope of implementation of the judicial assistance system in Turkey and the existing legal regulations pertaining conditions with particular emphasis on the applicability of the concept of judicial assistance in the province of Van, based on relevant statistical data. The study by Murat Kayalar, Elif Turkan Arslan, Savas Yildiz, Behic Cetin and Sehriban Aygun was about whistleblowing related legal arrangements in Turkish Law and the decisions made by The Board of Ethics for Public Officials, founded within Prime Ministry. Cigdem Mine Yilmaz in her study discussed the legal type of marital regime between spouses in Turkish law with general survey of marital if an alien element occurs. The study by Oya Acet Ozcan was about new social movements in Turkey and the role of the alternative media in framing contention. She gathered the data through online non-participant observation between January 1, 2013 and May 30, 2013, the preliminary period for the Gezi Movement, among the political conversations and sharings on the group page ‘the Others’ Post’ on Facebook. Mahmut Guler in his study explored “village” neighborhood in the new metropolitan regulation. In the study by Vehbi Kara, In this paper, a new era named Ownership and Liberty was ← 9 | 10 → discussed with an emphasis on the types of governments that lack in freedom. The author in his study also answered how people would be able to be set aside from these negative conditions such as slavery, thrall, and the exploitation of human labour. Nedret Caglar in his study explored the contribution of Turkish Republic citizens living in the European Union to the results of Presidential Elections in 2014. In the following study by Ozlem Cakar Celik, the perceptions of university students about the city concept and the city of Elazıg were examined. Interviews were carried out with 34 students during the 2014/2015 academic year. Aytul Kasapoglu in her study talked about the status and problems of sociology in Turkey. She tried to answer what the essence of the problems of sociology with regard to academic freedom, communication, education, research and public sociology in Turkey was and what academic sociologists advocated to solve the existing sociological problems in Turkey. In the following study, Ugur Gunduz discussed humorous discourse on social media mainly in the opposition and resistance parts of Turkey’s cultural and social context. While analysing humorous social media sharing based on hypotheses, he used the inductive method along with a literature review. Ugur Gunduz and Nilufer Pembecioglu in their study explored the twenty-first century media and film industries’ relationship with games and toys. The study provided an analysis of toys and games and their relationship with the movies and marketing strategies. It also presented an impact analysis, which identifies the negative consequences of these games on youngsters with a literature review. H. Burcin Henden Solt conducted a literature review on child-friendly cities initiative and made suggestions on behalf of applicability in her study. In the following study, M. Funda Afyonoglu and Merve Ertene asked the question of change in the philosophies of Kant and Sartre. They argued that it was necessary to ask first “What is change?” in a philosophical manner, before investigating changes on social and behavioural sciences. I. Okan Akin started his study with a brief introduction of the philosophical roots of the problem of representation, the crisis of which resulted in the search for new models of political expression. Then he provided some striking examples from a direct understanding of participation under the notion of art as an affective experience. He also examined the confrontational theatre as a radical attempt to stir the audience. Finally, he discussed the provocative definition of “the spectator as a voyeur.” H. Nurgul Begic in her art study talked about the traditional felt master, Mustafa Yuneş, in Odemis, Bademli. Andrea Lombardinilo in the following study investigated the role that symbolism gained in McLuhan’s sociological research, pointing out how the study of memory and the examination of the literary tradition was fundamental to understand, specifically, the developments of communication and ← 10 | 11 → of cultural studies in their complexity. Vedat Caliskan, Faize Saris, Muhammed Zeynel Ozturk and Berrin Gultay examined the economic and commercial spatial connections of the traditional country fairs in Turkey. In their study, they found the examples of traditional fairs in a total of 63 settlements in 54 districts located within the boundaries of 21 provinces in Turkey. The study by Gunes Acelya Sipahi and Meltem Onay was about family-owned businesses in Izmir. They tried to answer what the characteristics which the managers with the Level Five Leadership should possess are, and if there were any differences between the two generations of managers of family-owned businesses in terms of the level five leadership cycle. The next study attempted to reveal how powerfully Caryl Churchill’s play Light Shining in Buckinghamshire unearthed the unrecorded and ignored matters and events, providing one with a different perspective in reviewing the history. Ali Serdar and Reyhan Tutumlu Serdar in their study discussed the novel, I Have Killed My Love, by Belkıs Sami. The final study in this book by Emine Yavasgel and Ece Karadogan Doruk presented a quantitative analysis of the religious pluralism model, conducted within the framework of the dynamics of the “sacred,” global ethics and interfaith dialogue.

Finally I would like to thank the authors in this book for their great effort. Also I would like to express my gratitude to Hasan Arslan for his patience and understanding during the publication process.

Mehmet Ali Icbay

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Selda Çağlar

Protection System of Women’s Human Rights in Turkey

Introduction

Women who have been positioned at a secondary level, and even at lower levels, in society merely due to their gender have been made to play the roles given to them by society. The superior position of men stemming from the patriarchal traditions or laws has placed the dominance of men at the very centre of the social life. As a result, women have been considered as the people who were responsible for serving and obeying men instead of being individuals with rights. Social gender, or with a more explicit expression, the duties and responsibilities given to women by society, the impression of women in the society, the expectations from women and the life codes built on them have led to the situation today in which women cannot benefit from basic human rights and freedoms both in private and in public life.

This situation has been carried to the international arena with the contribution of social women movements, and thus, the notion of protecting women in accordance with the international legal system has been brought into the agenda. The ban on discrimination and the issue of equality have been expressed on a gender basis in international documents. The dynamics of the women movements and the sensitivity developed at the international level have been merged and the decade starting with the year 1975 was United Nations’ Decade for Women. In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is accepted as one of the basic documents on gender equality and which put the member countries under the responsibility of “ensuring the equality of men-women and taking the specific and temporary precautions for this purpose,” was accepted. With this agreement, the theme of ‘women’ has come into being in the agreements and documents accepted by the European Union (EU) and the European Council (EC), and new responsibilities were incurred for the states for the purpose of protecting and strengthening women. However, although some of the problems of women have been solved under the scope of general human rights, and some under the precautions that are specific for women, most of the problems of women still exist in various societies in varying rates, and the efforts to find solutions for these problems are still continuing. ← 15 | 16 →

As well as the problems encountered both in Turkey and in the world, the governmental bodies and Non Govermental Organisations are still fighting with the problems of women that have been placed in the roots of the society mostly depending on the traditional and cultural structures (Kazemi, 2004). Based on this truth, firstly, we consider it beneficial to give some information on the regulations related with the place and rights of women in the Turkish legal system. In the second place, the merging of the legal battle for the rights of women with corporate structures, and the issue of whether these efforts have given efficient results will be discussed, and new solutions will be developed with the help of universal principles and standards.

1. Legal Regulations on Human Rights of Women

The Turkish Republic signed the “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women” in 1985 and approved it after stating some drawbacks due to the items of this convention that were in conflict with the Family Law of the Turkish Civil Code. These drawbacks were eliminated in 1999 after some regulations in Turkish Civil Law were made. The statement on the 9^th Item of the Convention was also eliminated with the changes made in Turkish Citizenship Law. By doing so, there were no items of the convention that were conflicting with the Convention.1 The Voluntary Protocols Appendix, which acknowledges the Individual Application Right, was signed by Turkey in September 8, 2000, approved by the Assembly in July 30, 2002, and was put into force in January 29, 2003. The Turkish Republic had the responsibility of applying the CEDAW.

From then on, the Turkish State has made various changes and regulations mainly in the Constitution to adopt the Convention. The Items of the Constitution that are related with women-men equality were made more explicit and were emphasised as of 2000, and the gender equation principle was reflected in all the relevant laws. The Item stating that “Women and men have equal rights. The State is responsible for ensuring that this is realized in everyday life of the society” was added to the 10^th Item of the Constitution in 2004. By doing so, the state expressed that it would not discriminate among citizens on the basis of gender. On the contrary, it stated that women and men had the same rights in all areas, and had undertaken that it would apply the necessary policies and take the precautions to ensure that women use their rights with equal opportunities. On the same date, the 90^th Item of the Constitution was amended, and the road was cleared for applying in the scope of international agreements in conflicts that ← 16 | 17 → could emerge due to national laws containing different regulations on basic rights and freedoms defined with the international agreements (Çağlar, 2014, p. 68).

As of the late 1990s, the laws were revised by taking the social gender of women into consideration, and amendments were started to eliminate gender inequities, to protect women’s rights, and to secure them. To illustrate, regulations on banning the “discrimination between genders” and empowering and protecting women within the family and society were included in Turkish Civil Law that was valid as of January 1, 2002. Changes were also made in the legal status of married women; and the leadership of men within the family was abolished (Tuskan, 2012, pp. 445–449). In the new Civil Law, the marriage age of women was increased and was equalled to that of men. From then on, when women married, it was free for them to keep their maiden names, and other necessary regulations were made to protect women from physical, sexual, and economic violence.

An important step was taken to protect women who were the victims of violence and to prevent the violence against women, which is a serious problem in Turkey in 1998, and the law of “Protecting the Family” was adopted. The law of “Protecting the Family” has been an important legal tool in taking the necessary precautions in preventing domestic violence in on going marriages. The law was criticised for having many missing points and these points were completed with the amendments that were made in 2007. However, despite all these regulations, “Protecting the Family” has not gained the status of being a regulation in the international standards. The law has not become widespread in practice2 and women who are victims of violence have not been able to use their individual rights due to strict bureaucratic obstacles. Since no precautions were taken, no action plans were made and no protection was taken in order to protect the women who were the victims of violence. The function of the law of “Protecting the Family” has been weak.

The battle of the Turkish State against violence gained speed with the presentation and signing of the “Prevention of Domestic Violence and Violence against Women and the Agreement on This Issue” which was released by the AK Ministers Committee on May 11, 2011 in Istanbul. This was the first agreement that had the sanction in terms of domestic violence and violence against women at ← 17 | 18 → the international level3. (Official Gazette, 2011). In order to fulfil the responsibilities that stemmed from the agreement, Turkey firstly abolished the “Protecting the Family” law, and adopted the law on “Protecting the Family and Preventing the Violence against Women” on March 8, 2012. Basically, the new law is a more inclusive one in that it includes the terms of the Protection of Family, and enables the coordination between institutions in terms of preventing violence and giving the decision of protection and providing temporary financial aid for the victims.⁴ With this law, it is aimed that the violence against women are reported immediately, revealed and prevented; and also, the victims are protected and the offenders are punished more severely. Despite all these developments, it is also observed that the new law is criticised by women, NGOs, academicians, and legal experts. The main criticism is that although there are many issues behind violence against women that cause inequalities and discrimination, which are against human rights, the regulations lack the necessary elements to cure these dynamics (Özkara & Can, 2012, pp. 341–348).

It is observed that women murders, which are one step further in the process of violence against women, cannot be prevented although this issue is included in the Criminal Code. One of the factors that are influential in this issue is the fact that the aversive terms were not included in the Criminal Law that was released in 2005 in such a manner that could prevent these murders (Civil Society Executive Board & TCK Women Platform, 2010, p. 8).

The issue of women employment, which is an important tool in empowering women in socio-economic terms, is also considered one of the problematic issues in Turkey. In the Employment Law, which was released in 2003 and that aimed to better the conditions in this field, the notion that no discrimination could be made in employer-employee relations in terms of any reason including gender issue was clearly expressed. In this law, the following terms were also included; no different processes can be made in contracting employees, in applying and terminating the contracts in terms of gender or pregnancy neither in a direct manner nor in an indirect manner, lower wages may not be decided upon due to gender reasons for the same and equal amount of work, and issues like gender, ← 18 | 19 → marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, and birth may not be the reason of terminating a contract. Specific terms for increasing the employment of women in state institutions as well as in the private sector were also added to the Law of Governmental Officers and to the law of Vocational Training, and issues like access to work, opportunities for raising in rank at work, and training and working were also included. The issue of not applying to higher institutions for a complaint due to discrimination in terms of gender was also emphasised clearly in the law. In order to show that the legal measures are supported with political willpower, the Prime Ministry Circular was released in 2004 and was called as “Practicing in accordance with the Equality Principle in Employment,” and it was forbidden in governmental institutions to apply gender discrimination in employment issues. However, despite the legal and political efforts, it is obvious that the rate of women employees in the public sector is still low (Civil Society Executive Board & TCK Women Platform, 2010, pp. 14–19).

Despite the change in laws that ban discrimination based on gender and that try to ensure for social gender equality, there is no concrete success in this field. This causes authorities to consider that these regulations are not realised and practiced in real life. The parallel changes in relevant laws and regulations having not been fulfilled are also a part of this challenging situation. To illustrate, Civil Law, which regulated the marital property after divorces to prevent the divorcees becoming poor in economic terms, which was released in 2001, did not cover marriages before that date. The couples that were married just before the date of this law were given the opportunity of changing and sharing the marital properties within one year; however, millions of women who could not apply within that year were not able to make use of this law. In the Review Process of the situation in Turkey conducted by the CEDAW Committee in 2005, there were critics of the Civil Law due to not including the issue of keeping the maiden name for married women, and the government promised that the necessary changes to the law would be made in that direction; however, this did not come true.

The inclusion and representation of women in the decision-making mechanisms in Turkey is extremely low when compared with that of men in historical terms. As well, there are no legal terms regulating this field and encouraging women to participate in political activities. For this reason, the Law of Political Parties and Elections of Turkey must be redesigned to include women-men equality and democratic involvement, and to cover the equal representation term for men and women. These regulations must also provide opportunity for women to be nominated from the rows that have a high probability to win in elections. The term equality must be included both in the Constitution and in the Law of Political ← 19 | 20 → Parties and Elections at a rate of 50% and in such a way that will be valid both for national and local elections. At least 30% of the financial aid that is transferred to political parties must be devoted to women branches of political parties until full equality is ensured and research and policies on women are conducted, and it must be defined in such a manner that will be consistent with the share that is allocated for political parties by taking the number of women nominees into consideration (Civil Society Executive Board & TCK Women Platform, 2010, pp. 10–11).

The most important legal measure in protecting the equality of women-men is perhaps the equality terms in the Constitution becoming in line with the CEDAW’s 1^st item; and the acceptance of the Equality Framework Law.