Women’s most significant trait is motherhood: Turkish minister

SAMSUN

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“Maybe their creations are different but the most important feature that God gave to women is motherhood,” Kılıç said during the representative opening ceremony of the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) in the Black Sea province of Samsun.



“When we say this, they tell us that we confine women. They say that we bring ‘boundaries to women, making them just mothers and confining them to their homes.’ That adjective that you perceive only as motherhood is the greatest honor and degree that can be given to a person. That is an obligation that men can’t feel,” he said.



Saying that women and men were not equal in all areas, Kılıç noted they were equal before the law.



“We are not saying, ‘women and men are equal in all issues.’ However, we are saying that they are equal before the law regarding their rights. They have the same rights in terms of contributing to society. They have equal opportunities,” he said.



During his speech, Kılıç also talked about the relationship between capitalism and women.



“Which rights are the ones who say, ‘Women and men are equal in all areas,’ and the ones who make capitalism live over a woman’s body in the cruelest way talking about? Of course every person has the freedom to choose how they live and in which way they will live. No one has anything to say about that. However, the perception that was presented by brutal capitalism regarding women is not accurate for us,” he added.



Kılıç also said that “women can never be creatures that can be used as a part of capitalism.”



President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had made similar comments previously, saying that a woman who abstained from maternity out of a desire to work was “deficient” and “in denial of her womanhood.”



“A woman who abstains from maternity by saying ‘I am working’ means that she is actually denying her femininity. This is my sincere thought. A woman who refuses maternity and gives up housekeeping faces the threats of losing her freedom. She is lacking and is a half [a person] no matter how successful she is in the business world. In conclusion, I absolutely do not accept business life as an alternative to motherhood,” Erdoğan said at KADEM’s opening ceremony in Istanbul on June 5.

Turkish Youth and Sports Minister Akif Çağatay Kılıç has said that women’s most significant trait was motherhood, adding that women and men “are not equal in all areas.”