"Get Rid of Hidden Sexism in School Books"

On 1 May, Nimet Çubukçu, up to the State Minister responsible for Family and Women, was appointed the new Minister of Education, taking over from Hüseyin Çelik.

Assoc. Prof. Hülya Uğur Tanrıöver, a sociologist at Istanbul's Galatasaray University has expressed her approval of the new minister's order to take sexist expressions out of school textbooks, hoping that the implementation would go beyond tokenism.

Tanrıöver was one of the academics who took part in a project coordinated by the Turkey Human Rights Foundation (TİHV) and the Turkey Science Academy (TÜBA), scanning school books for violations of human rights.

Overt and hidden sexism

She believes that books also have to be scanned for more hidden sexist messages.

"'My mother cooks, my father repairs the tap' - these kind of overt sexist expressions are easily identified. However, other expressions are sexist in a much less obvious way."

She said there were many examples of the latter in mathematics questions:

"During our scan, we often found examples such as this: 'For breakfast, my mother cooked me two eggs, three for my older brother, and five for my father. How many eggs did she cook?' It is very important to deal with such subtleties."

Gender training for teachers

The academic further believes that teachers need to receive gender training:

"Of course it is very important to rid textbooks of such discriminatory expressions. However, what is also vital is to train teachers. The most important way in which to prevent the spread of such a mentality is to offer teachers gender training. I have heard that the esteemed Çubukçu is planning to take such steps, which has made me even happier."

Tanrıöver pointed out that many children faced sexism as a matter of course. "When we presented the results of the research, we said that we wanted to see a picture of a father cooking in the Social Studies book. However, when a child goes home and asks her/his father to cook, s/he may experience violence."

Tanrıöver expressed her willingness to support the Ministry if this was desired. (BÇ/AG)