Said like a true follower of Islam.
I’m sure that his wife will relay the good news to Mooch.
Erdogan: women are not equal to men
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan set off a new controversy on Monday, declaring that women are not equal to men and accusing feminists of not understanding the special status that Islam attributes to mothers.
Addressing a meeting in Istanbul on women and justice, Erdogan said men and women are created differently, that women cannot be expected to undertake the same work as men, and that mothers enjoy a high position that only they can reach.
“You cannot put women and men on an equal footing,” Erdogan said. “It is against nature. They were created differently. Their nature is different. Their constitution is different.”
Erdogan added: “Motherhood is the highest position … You cannot explain this to feminists. They don’t accept motherhood. They have no such concern.”
Lawyer and women’s rights activist Hulya Gulbahar said Erdogan’s comments were in violation of Turkey’s constitution, Turkish laws and international conventions on gender equality and didn’t help efforts to stem high incidences of violence against women in Turkey.
“Such comments by state officials which disregard equality between men and women play an important role in the rise of violence against women,” Gulbahar said. “Such comments aim to make women’s presence in public life — from politics to arts, from science to sports — debatable.”
“You cannot place a mother breastfeeding her baby on an equal footing with men.”
A man prays during Hoshana Raba as Palestinian women walk past.. (photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Erdogan set off controversy Monday when he said that men and women are not equal, adding that a woman’s job is to be a mother.
“Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women [in society]: motherhood,” Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News quoted Erdogan as saying to an audience of women, including his own daughter, at the Women and Justice Summit hosted by the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) in Istanbul.
“You cannot explain this to feminists because they don’t accept the concept of motherhood,” he said.
Using another example of mothers, Erdogan went on to say that “[Women’s] characters, habits and physiques are different… You cannot place a mother breastfeeding her baby on an equal footing with men,” Russia’s RTE news reported Erdogan as saying.
“You cannot bring women and men into equal positions; that is against nature because their nature is different.”
They’re not equal in the eyes of Allah either. He says they have half the value of a man.