Recent Elections, Entrepreneurship and Women Rights in Turkey

I've just participated a great event of TurkishWIN (Turkish Women International Network). The founder of the organization is a Turkish woman, Melek Pulatkonak. Although she has a full time job in New York (you can guess how hard she works), she also organize events, activities, seminars, etc to connect Turkish businesswomen.


Gülseren Onanç was the speaker of the event and Elmira Bayrasli asked questions. Gulseren Onanc is also graduated from Istanbul Technical University, and I just realized I like people who studied in the same atmosphere with me :) I love my college!


Here are the topics of the event and my ideas.


Women Rights: 

• Women have to have a right to WORK anywhere in the world in a equal way with men. If a woman wants to work and earn money, there shouldn't be any power against it. Governments should support women works. 
• A woman who worked (know how to deal with work atmosphere, colleagues), partied, travelled, dated in a healthy psychology would raise her children better than the one who didn't do this normal things. That's what my father said to me once, and daddy, I agree!
• Women who works are more confident, beautiful, and hot!
• Since Adam & Eve, women control everything; would you rather this control mechanism is more educated, clever and independence?
• I've learned that Turkey's current president said in the international women day : "Turkish women! Make 3 children." And there is more than 2 millions young girls don't go to school, because they are female and my president tells make 3 kids, don't work, be a housewife, serve your man; that's why you're exist. (It reminded me the American Dream: a rich husband, a big house, dogs, kids, no work; what a good life..)
• "There are 3 million 825 thousand citizens today who cannot read or write. And of these an overwhelming majority (82 percent) is women...." a great author Elif Shafak tells about a fact of Turkey. If they don't go to school, and marry when they are 14 years old, how come they can learn to read & write. "Women need books far more than men do. Ignorance hurts us much more. We crave ideas, stories, novels, just like plants need constant watering to grow..."
• Whenever I see a person I just look at their signature: their mothers, their parents education. Mothers are sacred not because they give a birth, they raise their kids, and this is the biggest ART in my opinion and please let this art be more high quality.  

In Turkey with KAGIDER (the Women Entrepreneurs Association) they made campaigns to support women entrepreneurs but there was not any good ideas and not enough applications. In this case, I do not agree that there have to be women entrepreneurs. This is not a big deal. The point is there are women suffers with their dominant husbands and kids, and they want to work, they have to work then! Politics and campaigns supposed to help that problem.

Entrepreneurship:

Researches show that in Turkey entrepreneurs are mostly high school graduates, they start to work and then start their own business. They grown up in business life. In USA, they go to college, before they start-up they find an idea, make a business plan, find their investment, etc. They plan everything. 


Which one is better? You can read a lot or know everything about the business, without the real experience in the field, it's useless. If you don't know how to lead your employers, how to deal with very small details which you can only learn when you're working, your education doesn't work.


Yesterday, my lovely roomie gave an example. She went both acting and directing schools. The people who studied directing are able to write a book about how it should be, they know everything, however, when it comes to the act, when they try to direct people in the game, they don't know how to talk with actors.


Elections:


The same thing with the power of experience in the field, in Turkey the party who acts more like public and listen what they need and offer what they need won the elections. Gülseren Onanç said that their mistake was they thought with the 1920's mind and they didn't listen people. Now there is a new Social Democratic Party of Turkey (CHP) with the new young crew, they will work and think harder. Let's see..


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Gülseren Onanç is a member of the assembly for the Social Democratic Party of Turkey (CHP). Before joining the CHP, Onanç was the President and Chairperson of KAGİDER, the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey from 2007 through 2010. She was one of the founding members of KAGİDER and has also chaired the European Union Committee. Onanç holds a B.A. in Management Engineering from the İstanbul Technical University. Following her graduation, Onanç moved to the U.S. and pursued an M.B.A at MichiganState University. After graduation, she administered pharmacy companies in Russia and the Turkic Republics as a Marketing Specialist. Later, she occupied managerial positions in the food sector and worked for various international management consultancy firms. She became professional in technology and management applications. She founded her company that provides technology based marketing solutions. She established Ticketturk, a web-based ticket sales firm in 2003.

Elmira Bayrasli is the Director of Communications of Peace Dividend Trust and writes and works on global development issues. She is working on a book development that focuses on aid and entrepreneurship.  For the past several years, Elmira was the Vice President for Policy & Outreach at Endeavor, a global non-profit that supports High-Impact Entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Before joining Endeavor, Elmira was the Chief Spokesperson and Director of Press and Public Information at the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In 1994, she joined Madeleine K. Albright’s team at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, first in New York and then Washington D.C. In 1996 she received a White House Presidential Appointment assigned to the Secretary of State’s office. Upon Richard Holbrooke’s appointment to lead negotiations to break the Cyprus stalemate in 1998, Elmira was invited to join that team. She received her MA from Columbia University in Middle Eastern studies and BA from New York University in political science. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has contributed to several books and publications and is a frequent speaker and commentator about entrepreneurship and development issues.