(CNN) -- In my travels around the world I have noted how attitudes toward women are a pretty accurate weather vane indicating what is happening in the wider politics of a country. In visits to Turkey in the past three years I saw rising anxiety about razor-sharp divisions between the secular and those who want a society where women "breed" for their country and wear the hijab. In May, Turkish women's rights activist Efsa Kuraner e-mailed me from Istanbul, "Things are fast going down the plughole, it's pretty depressing. The Islamic twist is becoming suffocating with how the prime minister keeps trying to cajole women to stay home and have three to five children. They are offering early retirement to women for having upwards of three kids..!! Divorce is frowned upon. Abortion is all but banned. Only there in name. I am afraid darker days are yet to come." Her predictions were prescient.
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Lesley Abdela: Treatment of women a good weather vane for wider state of politics in Turkey
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She says Erdogan says women should reproduce more; he says he's secular, doesn't sound it
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She says Gezi Park tumult shows divisions between secular and hinted-at Islam state
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Abdela: Erdogan had success leading thriving nation, now out of touch, over-confident
@placeholder Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for some time been alienating his liberal supporters.