Discussing women's representation in local politics in Turkey: The case of female mayorship

• Female mayorship opens up spatial and political accessibility for women.
• Accessible representation leads to better expression of women's interests.
• Female mayorship can prepare a ground for just representation.
• Female mayorship can provide a fertile ground for gender equality at the local level.

The purpose of this article is to explicate women's political representation in female mayorship in Turkey's local politics on the basis of the empirical data gathered from in-depth interviews with female mayors elected in 2004 and 2009 local elections. The objective is to construe women's representation in local politics with the concern that due to the “positional power” of a female mayor, women's representation in a municipality is not congenial to women's representation in the parliament. The contention of the article is that women's representation in female mayorship can be explicated by symbolic, accessible, and just representation.