Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday took issue with gender equality, saying that women and men cannot be equal because they have different “natures and bodies.”
“You cannot bring women and men into an equal position; this is against nature,” Erdogan said while addressing a meeting of an association promoting women rights in Istanbul. “You cannot subject a pregnant woman to the same working conditions as a man. You cannot make a mother who has to breastfeed her child equal to a man. You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist regimes did… This is against her delicate nature.”
Erdogan instead promoted the notion of "equivalence" and equality of women before the justice system.
"They talk about equality between men and women. The correct thing is equality among women and equality among men. But what is particularly essential is women's equality before the justice [system]," he said. "What women need is to be equivalent, rather than equal; that is, justice." [Today's Zaman] Read more
