Mainstreaming the Headscarf: Islamist Politics and Women in the Turkish Media by Esra Özcan

Author:Esra Özcan [Özcan, Esra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838600822
Google: o8dGyQEACAAJ
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 2019-01-15T10:57:37+00:00

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Loss of Sisterhood: Challenges for the Progressive Feminist Movement in Turkey

The rise of conservative women in positions of power as role models presents a number of challenges for left-wing feminists. In this chapter, I interpret the implications of these transformations in the image of the headscarf and in the role of the conservative female journalists for the leftist feminist movements in Turkey. Progressive feminists in Turkey are increasingly wary of Islam and religion. How can they fight misogyny and Islamophobia at the same time? This chapter links the debates raised in the previous chapters to broader questions within feminism in Turkey. What are the connotations of the headscarf in relation to anti-Muslim racism, and how is an antiracist feminist response possible while resisting an authoritarian government legitimated by strong women seen as Islamic feminists?

In this chapter I argue that there is no ground for solidarity between conservative women and left-wing feminism so long as conservative women support authoritarianism. Conservatives and feminists are divided not just on the role of the AKP in Turkey but also on the kind of gender vision they want for the future. Here, I also introduce more complexity to the term “conservative women” by bringing in the more critical wing of conservative women into the picture, represented mainly by Hidayet Şefkatli Tuksal, Berrin Sönmez and Reçel blog, and look at the other shades of conservatism in search of potential allies for challenging authoritarianism in Turkey.

Conservative female journalists’ rise to positions of power accompanied the establishment of a conservative gender regime and the rise of antifeminism in Turkey. As I will show, the new gender regime supported by the AKP indeed gives more room to conservative women, and this goes hand in hand with the marginalization of feminism and feminists’ demands for women’s rights. Following Elifhan Köse’s suggestion, I tend to see this as a new chapter in the history of patriarchy in Turkey,1 wherein the misogynist conservative men have strengthened their alliance with conservative women by opening for them new areas of “freedom” that do not threaten the patriarchal establishment. The bad news for feminists is that conservative elite women have succeeded in mobilizing half of Turkish women around the AKP’s conservatism. The good news is that feminists are not alone in this struggle.

In this chapter, I trace the feminist arguments primarily by following Bianet Independent Communication Network, which is one of the main sources of alternative and feminist news in Turkey.2

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