Struggling to Climb the Organizational Ladder in Turkey

Depending on twenty in-depth interviews with men and women who graduated from top universities of Turkey and who have been working in corporate jobs for more than ten years, this paper reflects on the impact of gender on prestigious white-collar jobs. It aims to answer the questions of to what extent gender has an influence on the experiences of a white-collar employee, what it means to be a white-collar employee for a woman, and what kind of factors prevent women from rising up in the corporate hierarchy. It points out that males talk about issues related to gender only when they are directly asked to respond on the impact of gender on work experience, whereas gender has a central role throughout the accounts of females, especially if they are married and have children. For married women with kids, it is not possible to talk about their jobs without talking about how they manage their domestic responsibilities. The paper demonstrates that organizational cultures that emphasize staying at the workplace for extended hours make it very hard for women with kids to climb the organizational ladder, as child care is still primarily considered as women’s responsibility. Women who have struggled to reach senior management positions give up, as they get exhausted because of the double shift of paid work and child care. Although these women have above average family incomes and can afford to hire domestic help, because of the traditional ideology that emphasizes the crucial role of mothers for socialization of kids, they give up their careers and shift to jobs that have regular work hours but no future prospects. Educated in the same way with their male colleagues to be successful and to have achievements, these women end up being unsatisfied with not only their jobs but also their lives.