The struggle of women in the digital world was discussed at MAKÜ

A panel for graduate students was organized by Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Social Sciences Institute Department of Family Studies on the occasion of March 8 International Women's Day. In the panel titled “Women in the 21st Century: Digitalization, Inequality, and New Risks,” the social and digital issues women face today were discussed from different perspectives.

The opening speech of the panel was made by the Dean of the Faculty of Education and Director of the Women's Issues Application and Research Center, Prof. Dr. Firdevs Savi Çakar. In her speech, Çakar emphasized the significance of March 8 and used the following expressions:

“March 8 is not just a day of celebration. It is a symbol of women's long-standing struggle for rights and resistance. While celebrating a day, we need to know what it is about and correctly understand the historical significance of that day.”

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Lecturer Assoc. Dr. Canan Gönüllü, who spoke at the program, emphasized that violence against women should be correctly understood. Gönüllü stated that all forms of violence are problematic, but violence against women carries a different and deeper dimension, and said:

“A fight between two men is also violence, a fight between two women is also violence. However, the issue we call violence against women is different from this. The fact that women are physically weaker or, in some cases, socially and economically disadvantaged, takes this issue to a different point. When power is used against a woman by taking advantage of her disadvantaged situation, we speak of violence against women. Therefore, we cannot evaluate this situation as an ordinary fight. We sometimes see that violence is normalized in society with misconceptions like ‘it happens when deserved.’ However, this is an extremely serious social issue and should never be underestimated.”

After the speeches, graduate students from the Social Sciences Institute Family Studies program made their presentations. In the panel; Ayşenur Karakaya contributed with her presentation titled “Violence against women: scope, prevalence, and effects,” Ayşe Güllü with “Construction of female identity in social media,” Büşranur Ayhan with “Influencer culture and its effects on women,” Aydanur Çakmak with “Harassment and hate speech in social media,” Alperen Aydemir with “Being a woman in disasters,” Ceren Selen with “Digital media perception and beauty norms,” İlayda Nur Aksoy with “Digital burnout,” Meltem Ünal with “Social media use and anxiety in women,” Şengün Ercin with “Cyberbullying and women,” Şeref Hoyraz with “Constant connectivity and psychological effects,” Lawyer Gülben Başak Aslan with “Online security and protection of women,” and Aylin Gizem Ercan with “Women-friendly digital policies.”

The panel, where topics such as the risks women face in the digital world, the impact of social media on identity construction, and online security were comprehensively discussed, concluded with the distribution of certificates to the participants.