So Much for Women's Lib

(Haberturk Newspaper, 4 January 2011)

Hayrünnisa Güneri, who wants to open a cafeteria with her daughter,
applied to the Bornova Social Assistance Fund for a 15,000 Turkish
Lira loan. Fund officials met with Güneri and prepared a report which
was submitted to a 12-person committe that included the district
governor. The committe returned this reponse to Güneri: 'denied'.

The reason given for the rejection was that 'since you are a woman
you cannot run a cafeteria'. Güneri then filed a petition with the district
governor, asking that the decision be reviewed.  However, the most
interesting explanation of the rejection came from the head of the
Bornova Social Assistance Fund, Hasan Özince, who asserted that
the denial of credit to Güneri had not been because she is a woman.
He stated that 'we had to reject Hayrünnisa Güneri's credit request
with appropriate language because it wasn't she who was going to
run the cafeteria but her boyfriend. He had come with her to all the
proceedings. Are we to provide credit to a boyfriend, to the person
you live with? Anyway, they sit in the park with their arms around
each other. How can we give them credit?  So in order not to hurt
her feelings we said that we won't give you credit because you're
a woman.'

The explanation of the Bornova district goveror, Hakkı Uzun, who
concurred in the original rejection, was interesting, as well. He said
after the denial was issued that Güneri had 'credibility', that the Fund's
leader's words were wrong and that such a pretext for rejection could
not be justified.