Leveling the gender playing field in Turkey

11 09 2009

Published on the website of the international news program Worldfocus on PBS.

Correspondent Gizem Yarbil, a native of Turkey, recently reported with producer Bryan Myers on the signature story Female soccer players shoot down Turkish taboos. Gizem shares how women are pioneering a place in traditionally male-dominated sports.

Turks are mad about football (soccer), but most of them are unaware of a new development in the field: A new professional women’s football league. Now, a group of brave girls is trying to challenge the gender divide in Turkey.

The new league has been met with resistance, and some boundaries have yet been broken down. Many in Turkey still believe that women should be confined to the home, and that the football field is no place for women.

Read the rest of the article on the Worldfocus website.





Female soccer players shoot down Turkish taboos

10 09 2009

This feature story aired as part of the “Women in Islam” series on the international news program Worldfocus on PBS.

In much of Turkey, playing soccer is something girls simply don’t do. But some women players are challenging the norms and taking to the field.

As Worldfocus correspondent Gizem Yarbil and producer Bryan Myers discovered, part of the resistance to women playing soccer is religious and part of it is cultural.





Coverage of the U.S. 2008 Elections in the Turkish Press

6 02 2008

Published: Global Press Watch

American politics has always been prominent in the Turkish press and most Turkish papers cover important U.S. news intensively. However, the run-up to the 2008 primary elections and caucuses has coincided with a very busy political period in Turkey. At the moment, the Turkish media is full of coverage of the incursion of the Turkish army into Northern Iraq and the ongoing armed conflict between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeast Turkey. Another event that is dominating the news agenda is the ruling conservative Islamist Justice and Development Party’s stubborn effort to change the law that bans the veil in Turkish universities. Thus, the elections in America have not yet become a prominent spectacle in the Turkish press. Read the rest of the article.








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