Consul General, Deborah K. Jones

Consul General Deborah K. Jones' Speech at AK Party's Women's Summit

Istanbul, March 10, 2006

Sayın Devlet Bakanı, Mayor Topbas, Chairs of Ankara and Istanbul Women’s Branches:

It is a delight to be here with you all today, and I am especially honored to have been included among the speakers addressing the opening of this important summit.  I thank you for the invitation, and particularly for the opportunity it provides to highlight just how much women in Turkey and the U.S. have in common as we work to enhance the status of women in our two countries, and to increase their role in public life and civil society.  Women, of course, have always played essential roles in society as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and much more; and fortunately, we’ve come a long way from the era when the 19th century French writer Stendhal famously said that “Geniuses born as women are lost to the public good.”  But much remains to be done.

I have been struck by the number and quality of recent events in Turkey highlighting the important role women can and should be playing in all sectors of life:  your celebration last December marking the 71st anniversary of the right to vote; the recent “Alliance of Civilizations” congress focusing on women’s key roles in intercultural dialogue; and a February meeting within the framework of a group called the “Democracy Assistance Dialogue” that brought together women from across this region --  all highlight Turkey’s commitment to making women full, productive and protected partners in our societies.  I am excited to be part of this conversation and want to talk about some of the common challenges, goals, and ideas for solutions that women in the U.S. and Turkey share.

One of the summit themes I was asked to address is that of globalization, and its particular impact on women.  First let me say that globalization is a word that, for some Americans, evokes a number of troubling images and fears, while for others it represents opportunities and new horizons.  In the United States some worry that economic globalization will threaten their livelihoods, and that jobs will be exported to other countries.  Culturally, some are concerned that globalization will impose conformity and sameness, that their familiar, personal neighborhood coffeehouses and cafes will be replaced by impersonal global chains -- and sometimes this happens, driven by market forces.  And sometimes we fear that our security may be threatened.  Most recently we witnessed a huge outcry in reaction to the notion of a foreign owned company managing our U.S. seaports.

I recently heard concern expressed at a conference here in Istanbul that the invisible forces of globalization seek to mold all the world’s women into the form of a Hollywood movie actress or American magazine models.  Believe me:  women in the U.S. share the fear that media images pressure us and our daughters (and increasingly our sons as well) to conform to a certain standard of behavior and beauty.   I know from attending a variety of fora here in Istanbul that the worries many people in my country have about globalization are shared by many in Turkey and around this region, who perhaps fear that a giant cultural tsunami is coming to drown out local culture and identity.

In this I am reminded of Porfirio Diaz, a former President of Mexico, our neighbor to the south, who famously lamented in the 19th century:  “Poor Mexico; so far from God and so close to the United States.”  But the reality is – and I say this as someone who grew up 60 miles from the border and who lives in an officially bilingual state in the U.S. – that core Mexican culture remains intact and the influences have flowed in both directions in a creative symbiosis.  Those of you who have traveled in the United States, particularly in the southwestern part of the country, know this to be the case.

Indeed there are elements of global culture today that seem to spread faster than our ability to keep up, my teenaged daughter’s video/computer habits and musical tastes, for one.  But we have to remember the positive aspects of globalization as well, the increased flow of people and knowledge across borders, virtual and otherwise.  In addition to vastly broadening our culinary tastes, this globalization makes immunizations discovered through research in one country available to others throughout the world.  This globalization means that tsunami victims in Thailand and flood victims in New Orleans receive assistance in massive amounts from a concerned and informed world.  This globalization of information sharing allows networks of women to communicate directly with one another and to build solidarity across borders as we debate and discuss the issues and challenges in our lives, to ensure that people who value the same things can strive together to preserve what we hold dear and to share solutions.  I often tell people that my 14-year-old daughter is far more aware of the lives and issues affecting 14-year olds in Dubai, and Istanbul and Afghanistan than I was aware at 14 growing up in California of the lives of other Americans my age living in Ohio or New York.  And as she becomes aware of those cultures, she gains in respect for their diversity of thought, of belief, of tradition, in sum, of those things we hold most dear -- and precisely those things taught to us by perhaps the most important women in our lives, our mothers.  

While it is easy to talk about the psychological impact globalization seems to have on many – the sense that we are being swallowed up by a global movement that imposes a sort of impersonal uniform modernity -- there is often a problem in quantifying that impact, and thereby measuring its actual effect.  Given the scarcity of reliable empirical data, academics are struggling with how to measure the economic impact of globalization on livelihoods and overall welfare.  Some have suggested that jobs moving to countries having cheaper labor costs, for example, hurt not only the individuals who lose the jobs in a developed economy, but also those who gain them, as they are allegedly exploited by a greedy and voracious capitalism.  Others, however, might see this phenomenon as a positive, as workers in emerging economies gain new opportunities to earn income and make economic decisions based on financial independence, and thereby escape the poverty and misery that too often is their daily lot. 

The absence of objective data is especially true as regards globalization’s impact on women.  We need more gender-focused research that disaggregates information to assess the situation of women.  This is a theme we hear repeatedly, in the U.S. and abroad.  Often studies – whether concerning new drugs, tax implications, the shifting workforce – seem primarily geared toward men.  That needs to change if we are to have the facts for informed policy making. 

We cannot avoid the inexorable historical flow of global forces, but we can choose to manage them, through the creation of institutions that promote democracy and tolerance, and indeed, not just tolerance, but a valuing of diversity, and equal treatment for people of different faiths and traditions.  This is what will help to ensure that the world remains a vibrant and exciting place.

Here I’d like to turn to the experience of women in the U.S., and to share with you some of the challenges we have faced and continue to face, and the solutions we have found.    Achieving freedom and equality require endless effort.  Secretary of State Rice has said that when she thinks of America’s “Founding Fathers,” she thinks of wonderful, insightful men, but indeed flawed men – men who founded a nation where women were not full citizens and were not allowed to vote until early in the last century, and then only after a long and bitter struggle.   I’m tempted here to draw  a comparison with your own nation’s founder, Ataturk, who saw how critical these issues of women’s emancipation and suffrage were.   But despite any flaws America’s “Founding Fathers” may have had, they bequeathed to us institutions, and the liberty to act within those institutions, to correct those flaws, which we are continually in the process of doing.  What a radical, beautiful idea they had:  that by protecting individual liberty and freedom through the establishment of institutions based on the rule of law, individual Americans would act to protect and preserve those institutions, and with them the Nation.  What a remarkable act of faith in the human spirit.  So yes, we make mistakes.  Sometimes very big ones, such as the institution of slavery.  But we are a self-correcting society, and have the capacity to do so within the safety net of our institutions, which in turn protect the individual.

Turkey has had in place since its founding important legal provisions that protect women’s rights, and many here are actively working to enhance the legal framework that serves as the protective umbrella under which women can exercise those rights.  As we have learned in the United States, however, legal frameworks do not change mentalities and behaviors overnight.  That takes time and education.  Women around the world are often seen -- by both men and women -- as being inherently weaker than men, too emotional, unfit to make decisions for a nation.  Some wrongly claim that religion constrains actions and potential, but we need to separate faith and belief from tradition, and ensure we are identifying correctly what holds women back, including their own choices.   Social change takes time.  The evolution of attitudes towards women takes time.  But having a legal and institutional framework that establishes a standard for accountability is essential to changing those attitudes, as is a democratically elected leadership that hears the voices of its many constituents.

With such frameworks in place we can act to improve the status of women.  Women in the U.S. continue to experience discrimination in the area of equal pay for equal work.  We face the universal challenges inherent in combining careers with raising families, particularly in our transient society where the extended family is not nearby.  And we certainly lag behind some of the European countries in public assistance for childcare (although we come out ahead in terms of rising to positions of senior management).  We continue to deal with domestic violence.  And our level of women’s participation in the legislative branch:  just 15 percent currently.  Some of these issues may sound familiar to you.  But let me also underscore that women’s participation in the U.S. political process – even if not as lawmakers, but as civil society advocates or political party members – has made a huge difference.  Women have been willing to raise their voices and take risks in order to advance their agenda, and great strides have been made in past decades. 

The Equal Pay Act of 1963, for example, required equal wages for men and women doing equal work.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also addressed hiring practices affecting women.  A Presidential Executive Order in 1967 prohibited bias against women in hiring by federal government contractors.  New laws are not enough, of course; they must be fully implemented.  Despite the Equal Pay Act, studies suggest that a wage gap still exists for a number of reasons.

Public participation in the legislative process is key for women to advance their interests.  I’ve heard some academics scoff at so-called average citizens being able to contribute anything to the development of law.  But who knows better what children need from schools than a mother?  Who better to give input on how the state’s money should be spent than a tax-paying woman?  Who better to comment on healthcare policy than a woman who has just taken care of her ailing mother for months?  We often hear that women in Turkey, and the U.S. for that matter, aren’t interested in politics – politics is considered a dirty word.  But the reality is that whenever you have more than one person in a room, you have “politics,” and women as mothers, wives, teachers, daughters, sisters have indeed been involved in the politics of the family; it’s just a matter of expanding the playing field; many of the issues are the same.

When we change the word from “politics” to concrete issues such as education, health and resource allocation, women become more interested.  Just as women in Turkey led a large, organized campaign during the recent development of a new penal code, women in the U.S. have been making an impact on national decision-makers for years through advocacy on these issues.  We all need to stay engaged, not only as women, but as concerned citizens, and to look for opportunities to express our ideas and leadership.

Women’s empowerment has also been enhanced by ministerial appointments, and participation in political parties.  While a seat in the U.S. Congress or parliament doesn’t always ensure one woman’s voice will be heard, given the imperatives of party discipline, it is harder for the voice of a Minister or Cabinet Secretary to go unnoticed.  The world’s first female cabinet minister served in Denmark in 1924, and the first U.S. female Cabinet Secretary served as Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt a decade later.  This is no longer unusual and over the past ten years, we have had women in the U.S. acting as our Secretaries of Education, Labor, Interior, Agriculture and State.  Others have administered our Environmental Protection Agency, managed our influential Office of Management and Budget, and served as the U.S. Trade Representative, our number one trade negotiator.  By my count there are nearly 20 female Foreign Ministers in the world today; there are now 11 women Heads of State or Government in countries on every continent.  Young girls need role models whose lives are examples of achievement.  Just as we have been fortunate to have such models for our girls in the U.S., I know I am together today with some of the role models for Turkey’s young women as they consider their own futures.  

Last but not least, education plays a key role in making the transition from simply accepting one’s situation to actively shaping it.  Education and literacy will be critical to nurturing the development of the next generation of women leaders worldwide.  In the U.S., around the beginning of the twentieth century, women obtained just 19 percent of all undergraduate college degrees, but by 1985 more than half of all college students were women, and their numbers increased dramatically in graduate studies as well.  The adult literacy rate for women in Turkey now stands at 81 percent, according to UNICEF.  Studies have shown a direct correlation between female literacy and overall national development.  I know that Turkey and the United States share a deep interest in education as a key priority.  In February 2005, the U.S. contributed $9 million through the World Bank to a project implemented by the Turkish Social Solidarity Fund designed primarily to help families keep their children, particularly their daughters, enrolled in school. 

We have also worked to support our partners in Turkey’s broader NGO community, including those with a focus on women’s and children’s issues.   We have organized speaker programs with local partners to discuss early childhood education and literacy, trafficking in persons – another heinous global trend – and combating poverty through social programs.  We have conducted exchange programs to bring Turkish women together with their U.S. counterparts to share ideas about supporting women in business, politics, the media and international relations.  We also provided a grant for an NGO to bring to Turkey a leader in the field of project development in support of women’s economic independence.   Our desire is to work to support NGO partners by exchanging ideas and exploring new approaches. 

And so, in closing, I say to everyone who is gathered here, thank you for what you do every day to express and fulfill the vast potential of the human spirit. You can always know that in the United States of America, you will have a friend; you will have a partner and companion in that journey toward a better situation for women because it is a journey upon which we ourselves have embarked, and are still pursuing, in the United States.   When we enrich women’s lives, when we educate them and improve their economic well-being, we enrich the lives of their families and society as a whole.  I look forward to further cooperation and exchanges as we pursue these important goals together.