Rethinking Political Citizenship: Women’s Activism and the Politics of Gender in Turkey

Political participation has been of crucial importance for women’s citizenship rights because it is the token of women’s inclusion in the public sphere, as well as the historical basis of the transformation from private to public forms of patriarchy (Cf. Walby 1990; 1994). A formal definition of politics that is limited to the institutional sphere of parties and the parliament, however, restrains our understanding of women’s political agenda. Therefore, feminist scholars called for a broader definition of politics so as to include politically motivated engagements outside the field of formal politics (Cf. Jones, 1990; Joseph, 2001). This paper examines women’s activism as a predominant practice of political citizenship and argues that, when the definition of the “political” comprises different forms of activism, women’s political participation in Turkey proves to be, historically as well as currently, more significant than generally thought by scholars of political science. In fact, women have been both influencing and participating in party and parliamentary politics through their initial or concurrent involvement in activism. Moreover, relations of power and systems of inequality that dominate the field of formal politics also infiltrate the field civil society and women’s activism thereof. In this sense, women’s activism, including their knowledge production, is always already marked by classed, national/ethnic, and cultural/religious struggles. As such, it is also an essential feature of the politics of gender in Turkey. The paper aims to discuss political citizenship and the issue of women’s political participation by looking at the relationship between women’s activism and the politics of gender in Turkey as a case study. Its findings are based on empirical research on Kemalist women’s activism; yet, the analysis made pertains to women’s activism of other (feminist, Islamist, Kurdish, etc.) political belongings as well.