Some turning points in human history have the power to change societies by deeply affecting them. While women have assumed different roles in the working phenomenon that has existed since the beginning of humanity, it was the beginning of a revolutionary process in which women began to participate in working life with the industrial revolution. Experienced economic developments, industrialization, rapid advancement of technology have enabled women to take their place not only in agricultural production conditions, but also in other fields such as finance, service, manufacturing, construction, etc. over the years. As an HR professional, my view in my business and private life is to be aware of the gender difference and follow a more transparent policy, instead of the idealization of that men and women are equal.The fact that there are both male and female employees in companies climbing the career ladder and in positions that shape the future of the companies leads to an increase in diversity in the workplace and the emergence of different opinions and ways of doing business. Looking at the event from this window seems to me more holistic and embracing everyone. Today, although the lowest female and male employment gap in our country is still the agricultural sector, we observe that women with a certain education level are very successful in the occupational groups in Turkey. However, the proportion of women in jobs such as technicians, plant and machine operators, which are not seen as a female profession, is quite low. While our company has left 30 years behind in the corrugated board industry, our couple of female employees have been working with us for more than 20 years in the production line. As a female manager, who has been continuing her career as a Human Resources professional for 15 years, I am proud to work at Onurcan Ambalaj. Our company's employees, regardless of whether they are men or women; considers them as agile, creative, solution and difference-making, innovative, changing-transforming people who push their limits. From this point of view, on behalf off all our employees, I would like to thank our General Manager Muratcan Kazanan and our Chairwoman of the Board Elif Cun. Again, according to TUIK data, 49.9% of our country's population is women and 50.1% is men, but while the employment rate is 26.3% for women, it is 59.8% for men. This figure stems from both the difficulties faced by women in working life, the inequality of opportunity and the unregistered employment of women in working life, which unfortunately appears as a cheap labor force. Although the place of women in business life has improved over the years, if we fail to improve this statistic in developing countries such as Turkey, we will unfortunately not be able to reach the level of development we aim for. Women's labor force participation rate should not only be considered as women's economic freedom, social prestige and productivity, but in fact, it is a necessity for the sustainability of economic and social life as a whole.While gender discrimination continues to be a global problem in this century, unfortunately, it continues to show itself from region to region, in fact, one of the main solutions to this problem is education. I think that we should take part in social responsibility projects as much as we can in order to empower women and girls and bring them into business life. As Onurcan Ambalaj, our top priority is to contribute to social development while providing scholarships to the children of our employees, regardless of gender, both within our organization and through foundations.

Unfortunately, the continuation of traditional values-based attitudes in recruitment in some areas brings along various problems for women. I would like to mention a little about these examples that we encounter in daily life.There are still many job postings seeking "male" employees, apologizing to female candidates and asking "Do you plan to get married?, Do you have any plans for children soon?" being asked questions, making job divisions, “This position may not be suitable for you!”, verbal/physical harassment of women in the workplace, high rate of female employees in informal employment, certain traditional patterns still being adopted in the roles of woman, mother, child at home outside of working hours women are promoted to certain positions on the pretext of being emotional, "We may cry if we give feedback, we better hand over this project to someone else", prenatal dismissal, "Postpartum performance may decrease", maternity leave, etc. behavioral patterns…

But on the other hand, how lucky we are that many male professionals from all professions, who do not think like that and work together, shoulder to shoulder, are increasing day by day in the business world. I would like to congratulate all women, who have the hope of making our world more sustainable, more peaceful and beautiful place, on March& International Women’s Day and wish them to lead a life full of equality, freedom and happiness.

GÖKÇE ÖZBEK

HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS MANAGER