Democracy and Women in Turkey: In Defense of Liberalism (original) (raw)
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Turkey has been passing through another dark age of its political history. In this period, while secular middle classes, Alevis, leftists and definitely most of the Kurdish population have been feeling under real threat in different ways, feminist activists have also turned into a political target of the new power block. By considering this political context as the historical framework of the research on “Women’s movements in Turkey”, this paper aims to explore the question of how to analyse women’s movement(s) within this general socio-political context of Turkey; what we should concern about while conducting a research on such topic that as had been done by this team who work at the Faculty of Education, Intercultural Education Unit, Bremen University. In other words, the particular focus of my discussion here would be the relationship between the present political context with the issues concerning women’s movement(s) in Turkey. Within this framework, I want to question the effects of neoliberal regimes on our political life and on our feminist politics. I shall also remark on how to read the inner dynamics and diversity within women’s movement(s) from a political perspective which is sensitive to the present political crisis in Turkey.