Women's headscarves in news photographs: A comparison between the secular and Islamic press during the AKP government in Turkey (original) (raw)
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The Headscarf Issue, Women and the Public Sphere in Turkey
This study aims to investigate the right-based implications of the question of headscarf for the exercise of citizenship status in Turkey. In particular, I will reconsider the relationship between the discussions on the headscarf and the public sphere, by examining the identity claims of Islamic female students to new rights. This study argues that the question of the headscarf is part of the 'citizenship debate', seen as an issue of human right to articulate different cultural identities and forms.
Turkey’s Headscarf Issue Unveiled: Fashion, Politics and Religion
Tradition and modernity. Religion and secularism. Unwritten conventions and defiance. Change and continuity. Trends and anti-trends. Headscarves and mini-skirts. Competing identities that seemingly exclude themselves. Briefly, Turkey is a land of contrasts and these are reflected in almost every aspect of life, from politics to one’s spiritual and religious choices, including apparently neutral fields such as fashion. “Clothes do not make the man” is a generally accepted truth, yet in Turkey clothing can provide information not only about social status, but also about the religious thinking and political orientation of a person. Fashion, especially women’s clothing, plays a central role in Turkish politics. From Atatürk’s dress code, which encouraged Turks to adopt European clothing instead of the Ottoman fez and the Islamic veil—a measure supported by the state owned clothing industry—to the headscarf “revolution” and the controversial veil ban. From the emergence of Western-inspired shopping malls overloaded with European-style clothes to the opening of their Islamic counterparts that promote modern, fashionable ways of covering up—the so-called türban, available in many colors and various forms (unlike the traditional başörtüsü worn in rural areas or the black çarşaf worn by older women), as well as the recent lifting of the veil ban and the political debates focusing on the headscarf, we can notice that both politics and religion have exerted influence on Turkish fashion trends, challenging Turkish identity and belonging.
Contending Images in Turkey's Headscarf Debate: Framings of Equality, Nationalism, and Religion
The debate over the ban on women wearing headscarves in Turkey has served as a central symbol for Turkey’s soul, torn between secular and religious identities. This essay explores the multifaceted narratives of Turkish secular and religious groups that have supported and opposed the ban on women wearing headscarves on government property. Progressing from nationalism literature and image framing in public policy, the essay applies innovative quantitative and case study analysis to reveal how the reframing of the headscarf debate—via narratives of inequality, secularism, religious freedom, modernity, and education—evolved across political coalitions to redefine issues and alter policy outcomes.
E-Cadernos CES, 2012
This paper explores the production of violence against women through political discourses in Turkey. Since the foundation of the Republic (1923), women’s bodies have been on the agenda as the markers of secular Turkish modernity. With the rise of political Islam as of the 1970s, the image of the headscarved woman has challenged the construction of “modern Republican woman” and the association of women’s bodies with secularism. Especially after the 1980s with the introduction of bans, “the headscarf issue” has intensified and become the embodiment of the clash between political Islam and the official secularist ideology. By drawing on the sexualizing aspects of the headscarf and its significance in the construction of female honour, I will demonstrate how women’s bodies are turned into readily available topics for consumption in politics. I argue that headscarf debates have factored into patriarchal discourses, which inflict violence on women on both discursive and material levels. By analysing a few cases on media reflections and art projects on the “headscarf debate”, I aim to show how women’s bodies become vulnerable to violence through political discourses.
This thesis investigated the reactions to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) recent lift of the ban against the Islamic headscarf in the Turkish Parliament. The reactions by the oppositional party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), were analysed through Norman Fairclough’s understanding of critical discourse analysis, which aims to illuminate unequal power relations created or recreated by the production of discursive practises, which is believed to ultimately affect social practises. The method of critical discourse analysis was accompanied by the feminist critique of orientalism, intended to assess how headscarved women are stereotyped and homogenised through orientalist ideas. The analysis resulted in an understanding of the complex power relations between the ruling party and the main oppositional party, as well as the effect of using orientalist ideas in discourse, possibility contributing to an increasingly extensive polarisation and, thus, the risk of increased conflicts between the secular groups and the more religiously observant groups in the Turkish society.
2016
The debate over the ban on women wearing headscarves has been a hotly contested battleground in Turkey. This battle has served as a central symbol in the fight for Turkey’s soul between secular and religious groups. Both sides have employed various narratives in order to promote their positions, with narratives shifting and even sometimes overlapping over time. This article explores the multi-faceted narratives of secular and religious groups in Turkey that have supported and opposed the ban on women wearing the headscarf on government property. Progressing from the theoretical underpinnings of nationalism literature and the processes of image framing in public policy, this article applies quantitative and case study analysis to reveal how the reframing of the headscarf debate – including via narratives of inequality, secularism, religious freedom, modernity, and educational opportunities – has evolved across political coalitions to redefine issues and alter policy outcomes in Turkey. Ultimately, we propose several policy-relevant recommendations for Turkish and regional policymakers moving forward.
Good Headscarf, Bad Headscarf: Drawing the (Hair)lines of Turkishness
Focusing on images disseminated by the mainstream laicist press in the 1990s, this essay examines how Turkey’s headscarf bans were bolstered not just by negative images of veiling and positive images of unveiling, but also by images of women wearing what was deemed a good or acceptable type of headscarf or wear- ing the headscarf in contexts that were deemed appropriate. In other words, counter to prevailing opinion, Turkey’s “secularist” opinion leaders did not simply ban the headscarf, but also praised and promoted it, or at least versions of it and times and places for it, in the late twentieth century. These images of the “good” headscarf worn by the “good” female citizen were intimately connected to dominant constructions of Turkishness and related to gendered ideas about the citizen’s willing submission to the state. Studying the images and texts generated by mainstream laicist newspapers in support of the ban and revisiting the fractals of difference established around practices of head covering at this time helps highlight the ambiguities of Turkish laicism and the post-coup Turkish-Islamic synthesis.
e-cadernos CES, 2012
This paper explores the production of violence against women through political discourses in Turkey. Since the foundation of the Republic (1923), women's bodies have been on the agenda as the markers of secular Turkish modernity. With the rise of political Islam as of the 1970s, the image of the headscarved woman has challenged the construction of "modern Republican woman" and the association of women's bodies with secularism. Especially after the 1980s with the introduction of bans, "the headscarf issue" has intensified and become the embodiment of the clash between political Islam and the official secularist ideology. By drawing on the sexualizing aspects of the headscarf and its significance in the construction of female honour, I will demonstrate how women's bodies are turned into readily available topics for consumption in politics. I argue that headscarf debates have factored into patriarchal discourses, which inflict violence on women on both discursive and material levels. By analysing a few cases on media reflections and art projects on the "headscarf debate", I aim to show how women's bodies become vulnerable to violence through political discourses.