On March 3rd we met with a vice-mayor for the Zeytinburnu Municipality in Istanbul. The current Istanbul mayor appoints the vice-mayor and both represent the AKP party. At the time of the meeting, we’d been in Istanbul for a little more than three days, so I already had some opinions based on my observations of women throughout the city. However, talking to the vice-mayor gave me an opportunity to compare my opinions to a somewhat major political actor’s opinion. However, when questioning the mayor about women’s role in politics and his views about women’s issues, the answers seemed rather generic. When questioned about women’s political role in the AKP party, he cited a party-wide sentiment of gratitude and credit for women’s aid in the party’s rise to power. However, when I expanded my questions to the current political and social issues faced by women in Turkey, I received a more generic answer that, although it acknowledged Turkey’s lag in certain gender equalities, failed to offer any hint at solutions.
My experience in Izmir on March 6th with mayor Aziz Kocaoglu provided an alternative outlook on the status of women’s issues. Given that Izmir’s culture differs greatly from Istanbul’s and mayor Kocaogul’s association with the CHP party, I expected different answers and opinions. On the day we visited the mayor, he also participated in an International Women’s Day activity involving the construction of a wall protesting acts of violence against women and memorializing those killed. 
Through his participation in the activity, sponsored by female mayor of the Konak district Sema Pekdas, the mayor already demonstrated acknowledgement of women’s issues in Turkey. Further, when we met with the mayor after the activity, he spoke to solutions for women’s issues rather than a simple identification of the issue’s existence. For example, he spoke of educating men and women about how to better cohabitate and the importance of giving women better educational and business opportunities. Overall, he emphasized Izmir as a place that is progressive, accepting and tolerant towards all groups.