More than half of the women in Turkey aged between 25 and 29 do not work, a recent survey by the Turkish Confederation of Employers´ Unions (TİSK) has revealed, and as many as 60 percent of women aged between 15 and 29 do not attend school.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=95819

Oh my god.... this is alarming... Really... I´m at a loss of words to say how tragic this is... 50% of young women don´t work and 60% of girls don´t go to school? That´s a national emergency!

i believe that Turkish women and girls worth for all the bests as the all world women without any pressure or discriminate,they eachone as a rose but shame on us we men´s rules we never will learn how to treat a rose

I object to the title of this thread!!!

the reality of the situation is that most of the girls who don´t go to school ARE NOT SITTING AT HOME.

They are out in the fields all day under the blistering hot sun. Have you ever picked cotton? It is a terrible job. Your back breaks and your fingers get ripped to pieces. Little fingers are the best.

In America 200 years ago black slaves did this job. In Turkey today girls who should be at school are doing it.

Dont blame the parents in all cases: many of them are desperately poor and need the income to feed all the mouths in the family.

All power to groups like Kardelen and Baba Beni Okula Gönder that give parents a small bit of money (what the girls could have earned) to send them to school.

A good post Marion, but I do think also that there are some girls out there working their fingers to the bone because the village men won´t ! Maybe not huge amounts but it does happen.

When you drive through many villages, you see it, young and old women in the fields, in groups by the side of the road waiting to be collected to be taken to the fields, and in many cases the menfolk stand around watching and smoking their cigarettes, while they are bent over double working. It amazes me how many people smoke who have no money to feed their children.

What is needed is education in these places, education among the male societies but it is a huge job to try to change something which has been present in their culture for centuries.

Although fundementally I agree with you, that the post itself indicates that Turkish women are lazy and this is not true, I also feel that they work too hard because many men won´t.

And my comments really can´t pertain to the Istanbul way of life, because it is totally different here.

Well... I don´t see the word "lazy" anywhere in the article, and that´s not what I understood from it. To me, it shows that girls are not sent to school, instead they are kept for farm work and then marriage and then farm work and home slavery for her husband.

If the article said "50% of children ages 25 - 29 stay at home" and "60% of children ages 15 - 29 are not attending school" then the story would be completely different - one would start thinking about poverty, hardships...etc. But in the case of this article, all one can think of is SEXISM, DISCRIMINATION against girls, women´s lower status, lower expectations, possible seeing women as less then men.... etc.

I don´t think that the scenario described by Cacik is a rare one at all - in various shapes, and to various degrees I think it´s pretty much all encompassing.

i hope i don´t say wrong but in my personal opinion unhapiness common and happiness exception in our country about social,economical,educational,traditional ... reasons.And thats a fact to women feeling unhappiness more and happiness less then men,and i think noone of us never can defend Turkish women have equal status in social and economic life for the biggest part of Turkish people.We still having problems of men dominant and feudal culture.But things changing in our country to with the effects of more global world and responses of industrilaztion ,so i hope Turkish women get their all rights as the all world women as soon as....

Ayhan, bravo!!