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The first female president of the European Commission has vowed to defend women's rights after admitting to feeling "hurt" by a chair snub during a summit with male leaders in Turkey.

Ursula von der Leyen was left without a chair at a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on 6 April.

Turkey was criticised, as was EU Council President Charles Michel, who took the only chair next to Mr Erdoğan.

Turkey blamed the EU for the gaffe that saw Mrs von der Leyen sit on a sofa.

But in a speech to the European Parliament on Monday, Mrs von der Leyen suggested sexism was at the root of the seating blunder, known as "sofagate".

Mrs von der Leyen, 62, said she could see no reason why she should have been treated differently to Mr Michel, who has apologised for his role in the affair.

"I cannot find any justification for the way I was treated in the European Treaties. So, I have to conclude, it happened because I am a woman. Would this have happened if I had worn a suit and a tie? In the pictures of previous meetings, I did not see any shortage of chairs. But then again, I did not see any woman in these pictures, either," Mrs von der Leyen told EU lawmakers.

In her speech on Monday, Mrs von der Leyen do not publicly blame either Mr Erdoğan or Mr Michel for the incident.

But she did acknowledge to feeling "hurt and left alone", as "a woman and as a European".

"Because this is not about seating arrangements or protocol. This goes to the core of who we are. This goes to the values ​​our Union stands for. And this shows how far we still have to go before women are treated as equals," Mrs von der Leyen said.

She said she used the meeting to express her "deep concerns" about Turkey withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention, an international accord designed to protect women.