One of the lessons of the protests is that younger Turks are far more accepting of each other’s differences. This helps explain why there were covered women who marched shoulder to shoulder with anarchists and gays. A group of uncovered women academics and journalists — myself included — recently petitioned the government to scrap any law that prevents covered women from holding elected or bureaucratic office.

 

Not that it will make a difference. Erdogan’s reluctance to allot power to covered women has less to do with politics than with a deeply engrained patriarchy that cuts across party lines. Only 79 of Turkey’s 550 lawmakers are women. More than half (45) are from the AKP. “Women are twice removed from power,” comments White, “once by their sex, and also by their piety.” And if covered women are fielded by the AKP in the 2014 local elections, she says, “They will end up in ‘the shop window’ — as the Turks say — not in any position of responsibility or power.”

via Erdogan Plays the Headscarf Card – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.