Open space to us: Female farmer to all-men protocol

AYDIN - Doğan News Agency

Front-row seats at a seminar reserved for men attract the scorn of a female farmer, who notes the irony that the event was geared toward female farmers.

A farmer attending a seminar organized for female farmers has spoken out about the lack of gender balance among the special guests invited to the event.

At the seminar, which took place in Aydın’s Kuşadası district, all but one of the occupants of the reserved front row seating area were male. The event was co-organized by the Family and Social Policies Ministry, the Agriculture and the Turkish Agricultural Chambers Union.

Safiye Güner, one of the farmers there, criticized the decision to seat the almost exclusively male guests in the front row seats of the conference hall, resulting in a visible disparity. Ayla Çelik, provincial deputy head of the Family and Social Policies Ministry in İzmir, was the only woman to be seen sitting among the guests in the reserved seating area at the opening of the seminar. “This meeting is about women. The hall is filled with women. The first seats are filled by men only. Do these gentlemen have more expertise that women possess? I hope these seats will be available to women at the next meeting,” said Güner.