The Woman's Program

In Turkey, ‘women’s program’ is the name given to a specific daytime television format that caters mainly to housewives and the terminally comatose.

Woman’s programs have a simple formula: A female host, light banter, and a studio audience picked for their ability to clap along with anything. Often ridiculed for their lack of substance, this doesn’t stop 84 percent of women from watching.

Which prompts a question: what exactly are these women learning from daytime television?

How to socialize with strangers, boringly

Women’s programs need guests to keep the host from talking about herself for three hours. But they do try to mix it up: the celebrity hosts of Sabahların Sultanı and Herşey Dahil get to sit on a couch to talk while the host of Mavi Şeker (links Turkish) makes up for her lack of fame by standing and being perky.

It doesn’t really matter what is being said, or if there is any conversation at all; most daytime television viewers are happy just seeing shiny movement on screen.

How to Cook/Clean/Furnish

Some shows like Deryalı Günler (link Turkish) focus on “home economics,” the nice way of saying “woman work.” Guests are interviewed while cooking or sharing decorating advice and typical comments include (really) “Coffee stains are a woman’s worst nightmare…” which explains why families spend more a year on detergent than on donations to UNICEF.

How to feign enthusiasm while B-list stars lip-synch

There is always at least one pop-star lip-synching terrible hits for the audience to clap at. A bad host will behave like this is the worst thing that has happened to her since that coffee-stain, the good ones like the first day they learned to remove one.

How to respect the disabled

Beside the singer, there has to also be one eccentric guest, which can be anyone from “astrologer/positive energy expert” to “man who claims he can fly, then literally flips when someone questions his credibility”:

How to look at the brighter side of life

For the dark, brooding housewives, Tatlısert (link Turkish) invites guests to share stories of how their loved ones were murdered or kidnapped or abandoned them, then cry into the cameras.

How to get married out of desperation

Many people in Turkey were not lucky enough to get married for the wrong reasons and as the subtitled clip from spinster dating program Dest-i İzdivaç shows, many of them are willing to share their public shame on television.

So, while each show teaches women different things, their common underlying theme is really the most important lesson of all: “How to maintain the low-standards needed for a happy marriage.”