Politics of Space in The Context of The Right to the City and Gender: The Case of KYK Residences in Erzincan
Suat Tuysuz, Melek Eryentü Gürel, Recep GülmezIn Turkey “termination of a mixed university student residence” policy was put into practice by the Ministry of Youth and Sports in 2013. This policy has created an actual situation that proposes the placement of male students in the residences that are close to the center, and the female students in the student residences in locations that can be considered deserted and remote for women in Erzincan. The sample of this study is composed of 459 people, including both male and female students, who live in all Higher Education Student Loan and Housing Board (HESLHB) residences in the city. The surveys conducted on the sample form the data of the research. The data were analyzed with independent sample t-test and ANOVA test. The findings show that the policy on the termination of mixed residences, which may be referred to as the gendering of space, creates gender inequity. The results of the study show that the visibility of female students in public-urban areas has been limited in line with conservative and patriarchal policies which delimits their right to the city. However, it shows that this results in the fact that male students are pushed into a more financially disadvantaged position.
Kent Hakkı ve Toplumsal Cinsiyet Bağlamında Mekânın Siyaseti: Erzincan KYK Yurtları Örneği
Suat Tuysuz, Melek Eryentü Gürel, Recep GülmezTürkiye’de 2013 yılında Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığı tarafından “karma yurtların sonlandırılması” politikası uygulamaya konulmuştur. Söz konusu politika hareketli ve merkeze yakın yerlere kadın öğrencilerin; ıssız, sapa değerlendirilebilecek bölgelerdeki yurtlara ise erkek öğrencilerin yerleştirilmesini öneren ve mekânı cinsiyetlendiren fiili bir durum yaratmıştır. Mekan siyasetine işaret eden ve kentsel mekana dolaylı müdahale olarak ifade edilebilecek bu kararın yarattığı fiili durum kent hakkı, toplumsal cinsiyet, muhafazakarlık ve patriarkal politikalarla ilişkilendirilerek ele alınacaktır. Araştırmanın bulguları kentteki KYK yurtlarında kalan 459 kişilik bir örnekleme dayalıdır. Veriler SPSS programında kullanılan T testi ve ANOVA testleriyle analiz edilmiştir. Bulgular mekânın cinsiyetlendirilmesi olarak da ifade edilebilecek karma yurtların sonlandırılmasına ilişkin politikanın, toplumsal cinsiyet açısından eşitsizlik yarattığını göstermektedir. Araştırma, söz konusu politikanın muhafazakar ve patriarkal politikalarla uyumlu olacak şekilde kadın öğrencilerin kamusal-kentsel alandaki görünürlüğünü sınırlandıran ve kent hakkından faydalanmalarını kısıtlayan; erkek öğrencileri ise daha çok maddi açıdan dezavantajlı bir pozisyona iten bir durum yarattığını göstermektedir. Uygulanan politikanın kent hakkından yeterince yararlanamayan kitlesel bir boyut barındırdığı görülmektedir.
Although the number of researches on how the city and gender structure each other from the feminist perspective is limited, it has been witnessed in recent years that this topic has been increasingly addressed by urban planners, political scientists, sociologists and geographers. Within the context of the relationship between gender and space, it should be emphasized that the conceptualization of gender changes over time and space, and is closely linked to the city.
Gender categories based on the separation of public-private space in the 17th century were determinant in the questioning of urban and gender relations in space. The view that the city is considered to be the center of economic and political development in the 1950s focuses on the public and private space while identifying the public sphere with man and the city, and the private sphere with women with her place and roles in the household. Within this framework, man is defined as the person providing the resources and identified with the outside / public sphere; and the woman has been assigned a role identified with the private sphere, as the person who deals with the household.
In the 20th century cities, in the spatial pattern shaped according to gender, “women’s space” is limited to home and neighborhood units and women defined based on “motherhood and wife” were isolated from men’s public workspace and placed in a so-called private sphere. Although special areas such as rooms, houses, courtyards and inner gardens have been reserved for women, the public sphere has been limited for the use of women in modern times. While less rights and the control of resources is given to women in these places, the less material and moral valorization of their work causes women to lose power in the social, economic and political areas. The roles, reactions and qualities assigned to women have prepared the ground for the subordination, invisibility and intimidation of women in society. On the other hand, men find their place in cities from all aspects. Streets, barracks, mosques, stadiums, sports clubs, coffeehouses and taverns have emerged primarily and predominantly as male-dominated spaces.
Based on the problematic plotted above, in line with conservative and patriarchal policies, in 2013, upon the instruction of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, a policy was adopted to ensure that the male and female student residences of Yurtkur (Directorate of Residences) are not located in the same campus. It is therefore catchy that women are instrumentalized for politics. Thus, there were approximately seventeen mixed student residences in İstanbul, Erzurum, Trabzon, Ankara, Mersin, Balıkesir, Konya and Eskişehir, and it was determined that the female students moved to the residences in the campus while the male ones to older ones in the city.
In fact, with this decision, the residences, which are located in the campuses outside the live city centers, have been allocated to the female students. It was pointed out by the politicians that the residences in the “active and close” regions were allocated to male students, and positive discrimination was previewed for girls in every sense, as they are close to their schools in the campus outside the city.
However, considering the fact that university campuses are located in some cities quite outside the city and in an location isolated from the city, the spatial gendering of student residences has created the perception that students residing in the residence can create an environment that will be deprived of the right to the city.
The observations and experiences at the university where the research was conducted also strengthened the perception, and provided the basis for the reason for conducting this research. Another reason for the research is to make an empirical contribution to a discussion, which is mostly observed in theory, such as the right to the city.
In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the urban life of the students living in the student residences and urban space, to determine the practices that prevent this relationship in the urban-public sphere, and to evaluate these findings from the gender perspective. Thus, this masculine regulation on the student residences has analytically been discussed in terms of gender, right to the city and conservative ideology
As a result, it has been empirically revealed what kind of results the policy towards gendering the residences according to their location actually creates. In this respect, this research differs from very limited number of other studies in the literature in terms of concretizing a more abstract and theoretically discussed subject based on quantitative data on the right to the city and gender.
