POLITICAL PARTIES’ DISCOURSES AND POLICIES CONCERNING WOMAN (THE CASES OF AKP AND CHP)

In their struggle to rise to power or to be part of the power, political parties produce policies and develop discourses that would enable them to achieve their goal in a short time by using efficiently their political communication strategies. due to strategies that they follow with a view to influencing a larger amount of voters cause, it happens from time to time that policies that they come up with and promises they make concerning certain issues do not exactly correspond to real life. one of the areas in which to best observe such situations is the policies and discourses that political parties produce towards women. when it comes to women’s struggle to be visible in every part of social life, political parties, instead of being an important part of that struggle, look to attract more female votes through populist discourses. thus while women who are sidelined in much of public life are given appearance in the parties’ sexist ideologies, they are in fact being ignored. it is with these concerns that this study examines the discourses and policies concerning women of the akp (justice and development party), which came to power after the 2007 general elections, and of the chp (republican people’s party), the main opposition party. the topic at hand is analyzed by examining party programs, election campaign manifestos, newspaper political advertisements, major political practices and publications propagating policies. this study first examines especially the akp’s party program, which was published in 2001 and has not been modified since then, the chp party program last published in 2008, and finally both parties’ election declarations and newspaper political ads for the 2007 elections and then, based on these data, tries to make out what the both parties’ discourses and policies regarding women are.