Turkey witnessed the rise of feminist activism in the 1980s. But as many scholars argue, the roots of feminist activism go back to the first wave of women’s movement that emerged in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century (Arat 2008; Kandiyoti 1991; Tekeli 1995; Zihnioğlu 2003). Like the first wave women’s movements in the West, a group of women activists under the Ottoman rule demanded equality with men before the law and participation in public life (Kandiyoti, 1995; Zihnioğlu 2003). They in particular demanded women’s right to vote and claimed their right to education and employment. These women continued their activism, despite the end of the Ottoman rule, and succeeded to put the ‘woman question’ on the political agenda of the newly forming Turkish Republic. Although the state elite at the time made women’s emancipation a part of their modernization project and granted women equal rights in public life (cf. Chapter 5), they gradually marginalized women’s activism.80 The first wave of women’s movement accordingly ended in the mid-1930s, and women’s political silence continued until the 1980s (Diner and Toktaş 2010: 44).
After the military intervention in 1980, all kinds of political activism and activity, especially the political left and right, were prohibited (cf. Chapter 4). This political vacuum had the unintended consequence of mobilizing women. Urban, middle-class, and well-educated professional women, most of whom were politicized in the leftist organizations in the 1970s, gathered to read and translate feminist texts produced in the West. These women were inspired from the second wave feminism81 of the West and formed consciousness-raising groups to develop a feminist identity and to create new forms of interaction among women (Arat 2008;
80 For a thorough analysis of the women’s movement in the early years of the Turkish Republic, see: Bodur (2005) and Zihnioglu (2003).
81 The second wave feminism broadened the scope of the first wave feminist movement and politicized issues such as violence against women, women’s bodily rights, right to abortion, and combat against gender inequalities.
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Tekeli 1995). Like second wave feminist activists in the Western world, feminists in Turkey focused on issues such as patriarchy, gendered (in)equalities in economic, political, and social life, violence against women, sexual harassment, women’s sexuality, and women’s reproductive rights (Arat 1994; Diner and Toktaş 2010; Tekeli 1995; Timisi and Ağduk Gevrek 2007). In the first half of the 1980s, feminist women began to organize in groups and discussed women’s issues from a gender perspective.
In their gatherings, feminist activists addressed the secondary role of women in Turkish society. They stated that women in Turkey had equal rights with men before law, which were granted by the Kemalist reforms, but patriarchal norms and values were continued to be practiced (Arat 2005: 18). Feminists thus argued that Kemalist state feminism has been merely concerned with the symbolic equality of women and men in the public realm, but failed to improve women’s status in general. They discussed how to empower women and how to transform the patriarchal structures in Turkish society and culture (Timisi and Ağduk Gevrek 2007: 15). They also underlined the need for substantial changes in laws pertaining to women’s lives.
During the 1980s, feminist activists managed to put their demands on the political agenda. As noted in Chapter 5, Turkey had ratified the CEDAW agreement with some reservations. Accordingly, in 1986, feminists launched a petition for the full implementation of the CEDAW (Arat 2008: 397). In 1987, feminist activists in Istanbul organized the “Women’s Solidarity March against Violence”, involving around 3,000 women (Diner and Toktaş 2010: 45).
The reason behind this protest was that a judge in Çankırı82 ruled against an abused woman’s request for divorce on the grounds that women can be beaten (Arat 1994; Diner and Toktaş 2010).
This demonstration was the first public gathering for feminist activists as well as the first political protest after the military coup in 1980. Thanks to this demonstration, domestic violence against women became publicly visible and began to be considered as a serious social problem.
Feminist activists also addressed sexual harassment in women’s daily life and ran the “Purple Needle” campaigns to combat harassment by handing out needles on the streets in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. In 1989, feminists gathered in a conference in Ankara and publicly stated that
82 Çankaya is a province north of Ankara.
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the feminist movement is an independent movement, and that it cannot be reduced to any other political movement.83 As demonstrated in the Table 6.1, throughout the 1980s, feminist activists organized meetings, conferences, and exhibitions, formed study and action groups, and could establish a self-confident and autonomous feminist movement. They discussed and publicized women’s problems in various forms of publications. Between 1980 and 1990, feminists published 44 periodicals (Diner and Toktaş 2010: 46). Meanwhile, as a response to Turkey’s CEDAW obligations, the state’s women’s machinery KSSGM was established to improve women’s status in Turkey.
Table (6. 1.): MILESTONES OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN TURKEY (1980-1990) Years Events and Actions of Feminist Women
1980-1981 Formation of the first consciousness-raising groups in Istanbul
1982 Symposium held in Istanbul in which ‘feminism’ was discussed for the first time 1983 Feminists began to write a regular column in the literary magazine Somut 1984 Establishment of the “Women’s Circle” in Istanbul that translated and published
feminist texts produced in the West
1986 A petition campaign for the implementation of the CEDAW agreement 1987 . A protest demonstration against domestic violence in Istanbul
. Publishing the magazines Feminist and Kaktüs
1988 An exhibition on women’s subordination in daily life in Istanbul
1989 . “Purple Needle Campaign” (feminists handed out needles for women to protest against sexual harassment)
. The first “Feminist Congress” held in Ankara, which summarized ten years of feminism in Turkey
. The Feminist Congress organized by radical and socialist feminists in Istanbul concluded: “feminist activism needs to be independent, and will not be integrated into any other kind of collective activism”
1990 . Formation of first feminist CSOs
. Establishment of the KSSGM with the stated aim of achieving gender equality in all ranks of life
Sources: Arat (2008: 397-399); Işık (2007: 44-46); Tekeli (1995: 13-16)
83In this conference, feminists decided to carry out their activism independent of the leftist movement that was claimed to have an ‘anti-feminist’ perspective on women’s question (Tekeli 1995: 13). Feminists who pursued an independent political activism came to be known as ‘radical feminists’, whereas other feminists preferred to keep their link to the leftist movement and identified themselves as ‘socialist feminists’. For a comprehensive analysis of different discourses within the feminist movement, see: Bodur (2005), Bora (2007).
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