Do you think being a strong woman and being a woman are the same thing or different things?
Today, the definition of a “strong woman” is only about looking strong on the outside. We should not neglect the fact that all the gains that women have made are a real story of struggle, won by their own sweat and built by their own will.
Women are constantly told to “be strong” because if women are not “strong” they are only seen as women and unfortunately in today’s society this is not enough. But after a while this turns into suppression of emotion rather than emotional resilience. A woman cannot cry, cannot say she is tired, cannot ask for support. Otherwise she is not seen as strong in the eyes of society.
Women have more difficulty than men in finding a place for themselves in society. While women face many structural obstacles such as participation in business life, household responsibilities, social norms, disadvantages of the economic structure, the rate of men facing these obstacles is quite low.
Women in Home Life
“Unpaid care work” is the work that women do at home. Domestic responsibilities that are referred to as “work” are still considered women’s responsibility in our society today, and this unpaid care work significantly limits women’s participation in the labor force in Turkey. The proportion of women responsible for housework and childcare is very high. In particular, the employment rate for women with children under 3 years of age is 25.2%, while this rate rises to 50.7% for women without children.
Women in Business Life
There are many factors that create obstacles for women in business life. All of these not only hold women back from where they can reach, but also create psychological problems. The microaggressions that women face in business life damage their self-esteem in the long run and create anxiety and burnout. Women do not reach the level they can reach, not because they cannot do it, but because of the obstacles that stand in their way and because their opportunities are taken away from them.
According to 2023 TurkStat data, the labor force participation rate for women was only 35.8%, while for men it was 71.2%. These data show us how serious the labor force participation rate between men and women is.
We can use the “Glass Ceiling” and “Glass Elevator” theories to describe the invisible barriers women face in business life.
The glass ceiling refers to the fact that although women (and other disadvantaged groups) can rise to certain points in their careers, they cannot reach senior positions due to invisible and systematic barriers. Women are hired and promoted, but very few reach senior management positions (CEOs, general managers, board memberships, etc.). These barriers do not explicitly say “you can’t be a woman“, but are realized through implicit social norms, discriminatory evaluations and insufficient equal opportunities. This creates perfectionism, self-worth issues, and feelings of inadequacy in women. Even when they do succeed, there is an increase in low belief in competence (imposter syndrome), attributing their success to “luck”.
According to TurkStat 2023 data, the proportion of women in senior management positions in the private sector in Turkey is only 16.3%. The same rate is 83.7% for men.
The glass elevator (glass escalator) refers to the fact that men working in female-dominated professions are promoted more quickly and easily by the system. Men working in professions such as nursing and teaching are promoted to managerial positions more quickly than women. In these environments, men are seen as having “managerial potential” while women are positioned as “emotional support providers”.
Rewarding men while women remain stable in labor-intensive jobs creates a sense of injustice. This can reduce women’s motivation and job satisfaction.
US-based studies (Williams, 1992; Budig, 2002) have shown that male nurses are promoted 50% faster than their female counterparts and their salaries are 10% higher on average. Similar findings have been observed in the education and health sectors in Turkey.
Conclusion
Being a woman is a biological, social and identity reality. Being a strong woman, on the other hand, has become a role that society has imposed on women, especially in recent years. The woman who is up to everything, who does not cry, who is always productive, successful, a warrior… This can turn into a model of “the woman who is forced to appear strong” rather than a real inner strength.
So where is the psychological problem? Being a “strong woman” in society means suppressing your emotions, not asking for help, not showing weakness, always having to do things alone. Over time, this can lead to psychological problems such as emotional exhaustion, burnout, feelings of inadequacy and denial of one’s own fragility.
To be a woman is to be human. Being strong can be an option, a trait, but it should not be a necessity. Not every woman has to be strong. Being a strong woman sometimes means admitting your weakness, asking for help, crying and still being able to go on.