Rabat -Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that women are not equal to men, adding that feminists do not understand the concept of motherhood.
Rabat –Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that women are not equal to men, adding that feminists do not understand the concept of motherhood.
Speaking in a women’s conference in Istanbul on Monday, the Turkish president said that certain work goes against women’s “delicate nature” and that “their characters, habits, and physiques are different” from those of men.
“In the workplace, you cannot treat a man and a pregnant woman in the same way,” he said, according to the Anatolia news agency.
Erdogan then went on to accuse feminists that they did not grasp the importance of motherhood in Islam.
“Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women: motherhood,” he said. “Feminists don’t understand that, they reject motherhood.”
He added that women needed equal respect rather than equality.
Erdogan has a thing for controversial comments. He lately stated that Muslims had discovered the Americas more than 300 years before Christopher Columbus.
He has previously urged women to have three children and proposed to limit abortion rights and access to birth control.