Whereas male suicides are much more common than female suicides in countries like the US, in Turkey about half of documented suicides are committed by females. Among Turkish teenagers, suicidal ideation is more common in females (29.5%) than in males (15.3%) (Eskin et al., 2007). Among Turkish people aged 15-24, more than half of those who think about attempting suicide or attempt it are female (Coskun 2012). These female suicides also occur at a younger age than the average male suicide.
Why is this difference in suicide rates between genders so large? It may have to do with the fact that gender equality has not been fully attained in Turkey, although efforts are being made. Many people, even within academia and other equality-based spaces, still practice traditional gender roles, under which the male is framed as the “protector” and the female as the morally pure “subordinate”. The family is also usually structured hierarchically, with the male as the leader and breadwinner, and there is a strict division of labor between men and women dictating that the wife should stay home and attend to the housework (Lease 2013, Sunar 1982). Turkish culture largely remains male-dominated, aggressive, and competitive, which inhibits female advancement in society (Lease 2013).
Negative stereotypes of females also impact the power dynamics between men and women in Turkish society and perpetuate the idea of the woman as subordinate. In a study where participants ranked their perceptions of women on a scale of opposites (e.g. lazy-industrious), Turkish men associated the following negative adjectives with women: childish, dependant, stupid, emotional, irrational, submissive, passive, ignorant, and weak. The two positive attributes men attributed to women, honesty and industriousness, are linked to the perception of women in the roles of the morally pure mother and faithful wife (Sunar 1982). Beyond this, because men are the dominant group in Turkish society, they impose their ‘construction of reality’ on the subordinate group (women), which may cause women to perform the stereotypes of inferiority that their patriarchal society dictates. While many surveyed women did not associate words linked with female stereotypes to themselves, social change regarding the position of women is slow because it is in the best interest of the men in power to continue perpetuating the stereotypes that afford them more power (Sunar 1982).