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The political representation of Kurdish, Kemalist, and conservative Muslim women in Turkey (1990-2010)

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The political representation of Kurdish, Kemalist, and conservative Muslim women in Turkey (1990-2010)

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Content ii

THE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION OF KURDISH, KEMALIST, AND
CONSERVATIVE MUSLIM WOMEN IN TURKEY (1990-2010)

by

Zeynep Sahin

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

December 2011

Copyright 2011 Zeynep Sahin

ii
Dedication

To the memory of My Mother
iii
Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Professor Laurie
Brand. She spent hours reading, editing, and criticizing my writings with great care and
gave me valuable feedback from the early stages of writing proposals to the final stages
of completing the manuscript. She has always been incredibly accessible and excited
about the project. Her commitment to excellence in research and writing has always
inspired me. She will always remain a role model for me in the academia. I am very
thankful to Professor Ann J. Tickner, who provided me with invaluable support at every
stage of my graduate life not only with her academic input but also with her
understanding. I am grateful to Prof. Janelle Wong for her guidance and insightful
critiques, particularly in the proposal and grant-writing stages. I am indebted to Prof.
Azade-Ayse Rorlich for her support. At the University of Southern California (USC), I
am also thankful to Prof. Saori Katada, Prof. John Odell, Prof. Ange-Maria Hancock,
Linda Cole, Veridiana Chavarin, and Alex Venegas for their kindness and help. Prof.
Sharon Myers deserves special thanks for her editing and her challenging criticisms in the
initial stages of this manuscript.
My dissertation research would have been impossible without the generous
funding opportunities at the USC throughout my graduate studies. I am indebted to the
Politics and International Relations Ph.D. program and the School of International
Relations for awarding me with the Bannerman Fellowship and teaching/research
assistantships, as well as for summer funding, writing grants, and the last-semester
iv
dissertation completion fellowship. I thank the Center for Religion and Civic Culture for
awarding me with the Advanced Doctoral Research Award in 2010. I would like to thank
Zilpha R. and Joan A. Main Fellowship for the Fall 2010 Fellowship. These have
definitely accelerated the completion of this thesis.
My field research in Turkey would have been impossible without the help of
many individuals. Yasemin and Şehnaz facilitated my work in Ankara. Özlem Yasak
provided invaluable assistance for carrying out my fieldwork in Diyarbakır. I am grateful
to all the interviewees who contributed to this research.
My mentor, friends, and colleagues have collaborated with me in and enriched my
journey in many different ways. I am very grateful to my mentor Prof. Ahmet T. Kuru,
who read tirelessly every chapter and guided me. I am also thankful to Prof. Nancy
Gallagher, Zeynep Akbulut, Serap Türkmen, Ahmet Yükleyen, Nadia Marinova,
Ramazan Kılınç, Erzen Öncel, Betül Selimoğlu, Yeşim İnce, Sümeyye Kocaman, Deniz
Çiftçi, Elif Aydın, Betül Durmaz, Fatma Durak, Deniz Çakırer, Sinan Birdal, Denise
Gonzales, and Yasemin Çakırer for their intellectual input and friendship. I am indebted
to the Gülten and Nurettin Gündüz, Ayşin Koca, and İkbal Şencan for their warm
welcome and support during all trials and tribulations of writing this dissertation. I thank
Elena Chadova and Prof. Mary Ann Murphy for their help in editing this manuscript.
I would like to thank my father, my sister Behiye, my brother Ismail, and my
sister-in-law Mence for their infinite love, support, and for always being there throughout
the many years. I love you. Finally, I am thankful for the unending blessing of love of my
husband, Mahmut without him the last two years would not have been so happy.
v

Table of Contents

Dedication .................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................... iii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................. vii
List of Figures ........................................................................................................... viii
Abbreviations .............................................................................................................. ix
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... xi
Notes on Translation ................................................................................................. xiii

Chapter 1. Changes in Women‘s Representation: A Theoretical Model .........................1
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................1
1.2 Literature Review................................................................................................6
1.3 Theoretical Model ............................................................................................ 42
1.4 Method and Primary Evidence Collection .......................................................... 50
1.5 Manuscript Organization ................................................................................... 53

Chapter 2. Politics and Ideology in Turkey between 1923 and 2010 ............................ 55
2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 55
2.2 Kemalist Modernization and Secularism ............................................................ 56
2.3 Kemalist Modernization, Turkish Nationalism, and Kurdish Ethnicity ............... 63
2.4 Kemalist Modernization, Turkish Nationalism, and Women ............................... 67
2.5 Introduction of Multi-party Regime and Party Politics ........................................ 72
2.6 Political Islam and Pro-Islamic Parties ............................................................... 76
2.7 Kurdish Nationalism and Pro-Kurdish Parties .................................................... 82
2.8 Women‘s Political Activism between the 1950s and the 2000s ........................... 89

Chapter 3. The Political Representation of Kurdish Women ........................................ 99
3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 99
3.2 The Double Oppression of Kurdish Women in the 1980s ................................. 100
3.3 Women`s Participation into the Kurdish Nationalist Movement ....................... 103
3.4 Kurdish Women‘s Participation and Representation between 1990 and 2010 ... 115
3.5 Women`s Political Participation and Representation in the Pro-Kurdish Parties
in the 1990s ...................................................................................................... 124
3.6 Kurdish Women`s Political Participation and Representation in the 2000s ....... 133
3.7 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 145

vi

Chapter 4. The Political Representation of Conservative Muslim Women ................. 149
4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 149
4.2 Headscarf Issue and Intersectionality ............................................................... 152
4.3 Women‘s Political Involvement in the RP and the FP....................................... 159
4.4 Women‘s Political Engagement with the AKP ................................................. 170
4.5 Substantive Representation: Female Politicians‘ Attitudes towards Gender
Equality and Problems of Women .................................................................... 196
4.6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 200

Chapter 5. The Political Activism of Kemalist Women.............................................. 205
5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 205
5.2 Kemalist Women‘s Identity .............................................................................. 207
5.3 The Role of Women in the Kemalist Mobilization ............................................ 212
5.4 Kemalist Women‘s Engagement with the CHP................................................. 222
5.5 Kemalist Women‘s Descriptive Representation in the Elected Offices.............. 231
5.6 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 235

Chapter 6. Conclusions, Implications And Future Study ............................................ 238
6.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 238
6.2 Implications ..................................................................................................... 250
6.3 Avenues for Future Research ........................................................................... 258

Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 263

Appendix A: Interviews ............................................................................................ 289
Appendix B. Party Related Statistics ......................................................................... 294
vii
List of Tables

Table 1: The Positions of Secular and Islamic Groups in the Headscarf Debate… 155
Table 2: The Summary of Dissertation‘s Findings by Groups…………………… 242
Table 3: List of Interviews………………………………………………………... 289
Table 4: The Number and Ratio of Female Representatives by Election Years
(1935- 2011)……………………………………………………………...
294
Table 5: The Number and Ratio of Male and Female Candidates by Party in the
1995, 1999, 2002, 2007 National Elections……………………………...
295
Table 6: Gender Equality in the Political Parties at the 2007 General Elections…. 296
Table 7: Women‘s Representation in the Local Elected Offices (1984-2009)…… 297
Table 8: Female Ministers (1923- 2011)………………………………………….. 298
Table 9: Women in the High Decision Making Organs by Party (2007-2011)…... 299

viii
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Women‘s Representation by Party between 1990 and 2011………. 4

Figure 2: Changes in the Descriptive Representation of Women in Pro-Islamic
Parties…………………………………………………………………... 150
ix
Abbreviations

ADD Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği [Ataturkist Thought Association]

AKP Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [Justice and Development Party]

ANAP Anavatan Partisi [Motherland Party]
AP Adalet Partisi [Justice Party]

BDP Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi [Freedom and Democracy Party]

CDC Central Decision-Making and
Administrative Committee
[Merkez Karar ve Yönetim Kurulu]
CEC Central Executive Commite [Merkez Yürütme Kurulu]

CEDAW The Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women

CHP Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi [Republican People`s Party]
ÇYDD Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği [Association to Support Modern Life]
DDKO Dogu Devrimci Kültür Ocakları [Revolutionary Cultural Society of
the East]
DEHAP Demokratik Halk Partisi [Democratic People`s Party]
DP Demokrasi Partisi [Democracy Party]
DSP Demokratik Sol Parti [Demokratic Leftist Party]
DTP Demokratik Toplum Partisi [Democratic Society Party]
DYP Doğru Yol Partisi [True Path Party]
EU European Union
FP Fazilet Partisi [Virtue Party]
HADEP Halkın Demokrasi Partisi [People‘s Democracy Party]
x
HEP Halkın Emek Partisi [People‘s Labor Party]
KADEK Kongereye Gele Kurdistan
(Kurdish)
[Freedom and Democracy Congress]
KA-DER Kadın Adayları Destekleme Derneği [Foundation for Support to Female
Candidates]

LC Ladies Commission [Hanımlar Komisyonu]
MHP Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi [Nationalist Movement Party]
MNP Milli Nizam Partisi [National Order Party]
MSP Milli Selamet Partisi [National Salvation Party]
NC Nominated Candidate
NGO Non-Government Organization
PDC Party Discipline Committee [Parti Disiplin Kurulu]
PKK Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan
(Kurdish)
[Workers Party of Kurdistan]
RP Refah Partisi [Welfare Party]
SHP Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti [Social Democratic Populist Party]
UNC Unnominated Candidate
WB Woman's Branch [Parti Kadın Kolları]
WMEOC Parliamentary Women and Men
Equal Opportunities Commission
[Meclis Kadın Erkek Fırsat Eşitligi
Komisyonu]

xi

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women in political decision making and their weak
substantive representation continue in Turkey as of 2011. The dissertation examines the
timing, direction, and mechanisms of slight changes in the representation of three
women‘s groups in Turkey, namely Kurdish, conservative Muslim, and Kemalist women,
between 1990 and 2010. It seeks to answer two primary questions: why was there a
change in Kurdish and conservative Muslim women‘s political representation in the
parliamentary offices and parties‘ decision-making organs between 1990 and 2010, while
there was almost no change in the representation of Kemalist women; and why did the
change occur at different rates for Kurdish and conservative Muslim women.
This dissertation draws on political intersectionality, women and politics
literature, and studies on women‘s political activism in Turkey to suggest that identity-
based explanations, organization-based explanations, and elite-based explanations are
helpful in understanding the changes in the representation of women from multiply
subordinated groups, as well as the observed variations in these changes. More
specifically, three factors extracted from these sets of explanations: mobilization via
intersecting identities; the efforts of women‘s organizations; and the support of male
leaders must, this study suggests, be present for a significant change in representation to
occur.
xii
Three main conclusions emerge from this study. First, the ethnic and religious
identities of Kurdish and conservative Muslim women are important components in both
their political activism and representation. Second, intra-party organizations provide not
only the space for women to become active in political parties and opportunities to
demand further representation and present these demands to the party leadership. Third,
political leaders tend to take women‘s demands into consideration if they perceive a need
to promote women, regardless of these leaders‘ and parties‘ ideologies or attitudes about
women‘s political role.
This dissertation recommends that the scope of literature on women‘s
representation should be broadened by systematically examining relationships between
different actors and the institutional context. It also suggests that given the dearth of
studies based outside the U.S. and Western Europe, data collection at the subnational and
party levels in other contexts is important to enrich theories related to the gender and
politics. The contribution of the dissertation is broadly applicable to fields of women‘s
political representation, political change, party politics, political intersectionality, and
Turkish politics.

xiii

Notes on Translation

This study uses mainly Turkish-language documents and interviews conducted in
Turkish as its primary source material as well books and articles published in Turkish as
its secondary source material. Most of the quotations cited in the dissertation are
translated from the Turkish. I have chosen to use the English translations in the text.
All translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.
1

Chapter 1. Changes in Women’s Representation: A Theoretical
Model

1.1 Introduction
In 1991, Leyla Zana, a female parliamentarian in Turkey, not only wore the red,
yellow, and green colors of the Kurdish movement in her headband ribbons at the
swearing in ceremony in the parliament, but also illegally added Kurdish words to her
official oath. This was the first time an elected official had spoken Kurdish in the
National Parliament
1
. Her act caused a public outcry throughout Turkey, and she was
later sentenced to 14 years in prison. She was released in June 2004 and reelected to the
parliament in 2011. Zana is a Kurdish political activist who is seeking cultural and
political rights for her people. The Kurds are an identifiable ethnic and linguistic group,
constituting about 15 percent of Turkey‘s population, although the Turkish state
systematically disregarded their distinctiveness and denied their cultural and political
rights until the 2000s.
Eight years after the Zana affair, Merve Kavakçı was elected to the Turkish
parliament from the Islamist Fazilet Party (FP). She was denied the right to take the oath
of office because she attended the ceremony wearing a headscarf — the first such attempt
in the parliament. A month later, Turkey revoked Kavakçı‘s Turkish citizenship, claiming
that she had not informed the Turkish authorities that she held American citizenship. She

1
The National Parliament of Turkey is called Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi , TBMM [Turkish Grand
National Assembly].
2
has since lived in the U.S., employed as a lecturer of international relations. Kavakçı
represents those politically active conservative Muslim women of Turkey who prioritize
their Muslim identity and who choose to live in accordance with an Islamic life style.
These women often wear a headscarf, which has been banned in the universities and
public offices since the mid-1980s.
The Kavakçı and Zana affairs were controversial issues that illustrated not only
discriminative policies targeting Kurdish and conservative Muslim women, but also the
growth of these women‘s political activism. Until the 1990s, women who had
traditionally engaged in politics in Turkey had been members of the Turkish secular elite
who avoided manifesting either religious or ethnic identities publicly and
overwhelmingly joined leftist and secular political parties. The Zana and Kavakçı affairs
demonstrated the changes that were underway in the activism and representation of
conservative Muslim and Kurdish women, change that would continue in the 2000s.
Kurdish and conservative Muslim women had previously encountered state
oppression due to their ethnic and religious identities, respectively. They also belonged to
communities in which women had a subordinate status vis-à-vis men; thus, they
encountered familial and societal oppression owing to their gender identity. Islamist
women first became visible with the increase in the number of female university students
who claimed a public Muslim identity by wearing the headscarf in the mid-1980s. They
mobilized for the Islamist cause and organized protests against the headscarf ban.
Simultaneously, Kurdish nationalist women reasserted their distinct cultural and ethnic
3
identity; they have mobilized for the Kurdish nationalist cause and participated in protest
movements and in armed activism since the early 1990s.
Both these groups actively joined successive Islamist/conservative and Kurdish
nationalist political parties that had a poor record, not only in upholding egalitarian
values, but also in promoting women‘s inclusion in politics. Their representation in
parties changed numerically in the course of time. To present the variation across parties
and within the same parties over time, Table 1 displays the percentage of women pro-
Islamic, pro-Kurdish, and the Kemalist parties send to parliament and the percentage of
women in these parties‘ decision-making organs at two time periods, between 1991-1995
and 2007-2011
2
.

2
The percentage of women in these parties‘ decision-making organs is measured by taking the total
percentage of women in a party‘s central decision-making and administrative committee (CDAC), the
central executive committee (CEC), the party discipline committee (PDC), and party assembly.
4

Source: This figure is adopted from Talaslı (1996, p. 119) for data on 1991-1995 and from
official websites of the AKP, BDP, and CHP, which were accessed in June 2011, for data on
2007-2011.

The table shows that the representation of Kurdish and conservative Muslim
women increased in pro-Kurdish and pro-Islamic parties, respectively, from 1991 to
2011, while the representation of mainstream secular women in Kemalist parties
remained almost stable at the same period.
5
This dissertation seeks to explore why the political representation of both Kurdish
and conservative Muslim women in the parliament and in the parties‘ internal decision
making positions increased far more than did mainstream Turkish secular women‘s
representation between 1991 and 2011. Simply put, the questions I raise here are, why
was there a change and why did the change occur at different rates for Kurdish and
conservative Muslim women.
Turkey is a rich case study for examining factors and mechanisms influencing
women‘s representation, particularly women from previously marginalized groups.
Women‘s representation is a very important issue in Turkey‘s democratic process
because their representation has been dramatically low in the Turkish parliament. Women
constituted less than five percent of total members of the parliament (MPs) from 1935 to
2007. The percentage of women MPs increased to 9 and 14 percent respectively in the
2007 and 2011 national elections without the introduction of any positive discrimination
measure. However, this percentage remains lower than the world average of 19.4 (IPU,
2011). Thus, any change, regardless of its size, needs investigation, and makes Turkey a
fascinating case for scholars and practitioners. Moreover, such a within-case comparison
focusing on Turkey provides an opportunity to test some of the theories present in the
literature on women and political representation in general, and on political parties‘ roles
in representing women in particular. It may also offer important insights about under
which conditions women‘s intersecting identities affect their political representation; and
how institutions, actors, and their strategies interact in shaping women‘s representation in
6
political institutions as widely discussed in the political intersectionality and women‘s
representation literature.
1.2 Literature Review
This dissertation draws on three bodies of literature: the literature on women and
political representation, the literature on intersectionality, and the literature on women‘s
political representation in Turkey.
Three propositions, important for this dissertation, can be drawn from the
intersectionality scholarship in general and the political intersectionality scholarship in
particular. These propositions are: 1) some marginalized groups, such as women of
ethnic/religious/racial groups, may experience double oppression due to the power
relations in society and politics; 2) double oppression affects political participation of the
representatives from marginalized groups-- it may generate both disadvantages and
advantages; and 3) all identities and power relations are subject to change over time in
accordance with changes in institutional factors and collective efforts such as socio-
political movements.
It is important to note that this study does not aim at comparing the political
experiences of women living in Turkey with the political experiences of men living in
Turkey, although the intersectionality literature provides a framework for this type of
comparison. The goal is to look at variations in the political experiences of different
women‘s groups living in Turkey. Similarly, the study acknowledges variations in each
group: there are subgroups among Kurdish women, or conservative Muslim women.
7
Nevertheless, this study will treat them as a single group for the sake of analytical rigor.
The details of how political intersectionality is applied to examine Kurdish and
conservative Muslim women‘s political representation will be discussed in the theory
section of this chapter.
The literature on women and politics, particularly studies addressing the presence
of women in political institutions, known as descriptive representation, is also pertinent to
the research question of this dissertation. The descriptive representation of women is
important in providing legitimacy for the institutions and for women‘s fair representation.
I focus on the descriptive representation of women in two political institutions: the
parliament and political parties. Women‘s representation in parliament is of importance
because these are the legislative bodies in which issues are raised, policies are shaped,
and policy outcomes are finalized. The inclusion of marginalized groups in a legislative
body is considered significant because presence, ideas, and suggestions of representatives
from these groups can make changes in policies not only at the agenda-setting stage but
also at the final outcome stage (Kittilson, 2010). The representation of women in political
parties‘ decision- making is the second focus of this study, although few previous studies
have considered women‘s representation in parties as an indicator of their representation
(Kittilson, 2010). Political parties are the main gatekeepers for women representatives
because they decide how many women are on their lists, who the candidates are, and
where the candidates figure on the lists, which is a critical factor for being elected in
many political systems (Baldez, 2008; Saint-Germain & Metoyer, 2008; Sanbonmatsu,
2006). The number of women in the upper-levels of party organs is important because
8
these women become part of the party elites; they participate in the party‘s decision
making. Accordingly, they may challenge the dominance of male elites in issues pertinent
to women‘s inclusion.
In the following sections, the concepts and debates most relevant to the research
question will be examined. First, the literature on intersectionality will be briefly
addressed by focusing on political intersectionality. Second, the concepts and findings of
the literature on women‘s representation will be discussed, with a focus on the role of
parties, their leadership, and women‘s organizations within parties. Third, the literature
on women‘s political representation in Islamic and Kurdish parties of Turkey will be
examined. This overview will shed light on the limitations the existing studies and the
envisaged contributions of this dissertation.
1.2.1 Overview of Literature on Intersectionality
Since the early 1990s, the concept of intersectionality has attracted substantial
scholarly attention. However, intersectionality is rarely defined, and there has been no
consensus about whether it is a concept, paradigm, approach, theory, framework, or
analytical tool. Feminists of color first emphasized intersectionality by arguing that
feminist theory had highlighted gender differences but ignored differences among women
and, misleadingly, homogenized womanhood. Studies of feminists of color raised the
questions of how we understand systems of oppression and how we conceptualize race,
class, and gender as categories of analysis (Collins, 1993; Crenshaw, 1989;1995; Dill et
al., 2007; Jordan-Zachery, 2007). Intersectionality also has its roots in some other
9
intellectual traditions, such as race and ethnic studies, postmodernist theory, and
postcolonial feminism.
Before turning to the substance of this section, I first want to clarify that I am
using the terms identity and social categories interchangeably, following Shields‘s (2008)
definition: ―Identity refers to social categories in which an individual claims membership
as well as the personal meaning associated with those categories‖ (p. 301).
Two pioneering scholars of intersectionality are Kimberlee Crenshaw and Patricia
Hill Collins. Crenshaw (1989) coined the term intersectionality for the phenomenon of
the merging and mingling of multiple markers of difference, although individuals from
the Black feminist movement used terms such as double jeopardy and multiple jeopardy
in the 1970s and 1980s to refer to same phenomenon (Beale, 1970; King, 1988;
Crenshaw, 1991). Crenshaw (1991) discussed how domestic abuse and rape affected
women of color differently than White women, but that the law and support programs
overlooked the special needs of women of color. She also differentiated between
structural intersectionality and political intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1994). Structural
intersectionality posits that inequalities and their intersections are closely associated with
experiences of people in a society. Structural intersectionality helps to answer the
question of why a Black woman is not accepted for a job. The answer has two
dimensions. First, the norm female employee is a White woman. Second, the norm Black
employee is a Black man. Thus, in the job market, a Black woman may experience more
discrimination than a White woman and a Black man do owing to structural
intersectionality. Crenshaw‘s political intersectionality states that inequalities and their
10
intersections are relevant to political strategies. Political intersectionality helps to answer
such questions as how ethnic minorities or disabled women are marginalized by policies
addressing women as a group. These two types of intersectionality will be discussed in
detail below.
Another leading scholar of intersectionality, Patricia Collins (1990), introduced a
sociological theory of the matrix of domination, which posits that issues of oppression
deal with race, class, and gender, and these social classifications are all interconnected. In
her subsequent studies (1993, 1998, 2001), she suggested intersectionality as an approach
to delve into the matrix of domination. She stated that ―intersectionality examines how
gender, race, class, and nation mutually construct each other rather than examining them
as distinctive social hierarchies.‖ (Collins, 1998, p. 62)
Drawing on Collins‘s and Crenshaw‘s studies, intersectionality scholarship has
burgeoned. Although the main focus in the earlier studies was gender, class, and race
(ethnicity), later studies began addressing sexual orientation (Bowleg, 2008; Clay, 2008),
ability (Kobayashi, 2003), age (Hopkins & Pain, 2007; Søndergaard, 2005), religion
(Diehl et al., 2009; McDonnell & Cileinne de Lourence, 2009), and immigrant status
(Bergen et.al, 2009; Lutz & Crist, 2009; McDonnell & Cileinne de Lourence, 2009;
Mahalingam & Haritatos, 2008). Intersectionality has been applied to a diverse set of
practices, interpretations, methodologies, and political orientations as well as used by
many disciplines. Intersectionality studies have employed multiple data collection
methods, from qualitative methods such as narratives, case studies, oral history, and
interviews (Buitelaar, 2006; Cole, 2008; Ludving, 2006; Prins, 2006) to quantitative
11
methods such as surveys and statistical methods (McCall, 2005; Fraga et al., 2006;
Hughes, 2008; Steinbugler, 2006).
1.2.1.1 Structural Intersectionality
Structural intersectionality refers to ways in which individuals with intersecting
identities experience marginalization in society, labor market, education, and politics due
to the structural barriers (language barriers, poverty, citizenship status, etc.) (Manuel,
2006). Structural intersectionality is subject to change. Scholars focusing on structural
intersectionality can be divided into two major groups: those treating intersectionality as
an analytical approach and as a research paradigm. One major group of the
intersectionality scholars uses it as an analytical approach to examine specific topics
and/or social practices (Ackerly & True, 2008; Cole, 2008). These scholars agree on the
validity of gender as an analytical category but propose that it is impossible to understand
gender without taking other socially and culturally constructed categories into account
(McCall, 2005; Shields, 2008; Dill et al., 2007; Simien, 2007). They also suggest
studying the diversity within an identity group (Rogers & Lott, 1997). Such scholars
conceptualize various systems of power (interchangeably calling them systems of
oppression) via intersectional frameworks. They are interested in examining the
effects/manifestations of interactions among multiple social categories/identities on the
ground that these categories cannot be reduced to individual attributes, nor analyzed as
separate systems for two reasons (Dill et al., 2007; Simien, 2007; Shields, 2008). First,
people have multiple, layered identities, which mutually construct each other at
individual, interpersonal, and socially structured levels. Second, there are dynamic power
12
relations embedded in social identities, which lead to the dynamism of subjectivities
(Buitelaar, 2006; Cole, 2008; Ludving, 2006; Prins, 2006; Shields, 2008).
3
Elizabeth Cole
(2008) stated that practices of individuals, institutions, and cultures continuously
construct, reconstruct, and deconstruct social categories. She proposed that ―theorists
should focus on experiences, behaviors and attitudes related to membership in social
identity categories, such as experiences of discrimination, rather than focusing on
individual characteristics‖ (p. 451).
Another body of intersectional scholarship includes studies that consider
intersectionality as a research paradigm, which is claimed to reveal complex causality in
social phenomena (Hancock, 2007; Jordan-Zachery, 2007; Simien, 2007). As Brah and
Phoenix (2005) stated,
We (scholars) regard the concept of intersectionality as signifying the complex,
irreducible, varied, and variable effects which ensue when multiple axes of
differentiation – economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential
– intersect in historically specific contexts (p. 75).
Studies considering intersectionality as a research paradigm attempt to overcome
the complexity problem of social phenomena in a systematic way. Thus, they follow one
of three different methodological approaches: intercategorical, anticategorical, and
intracategorical (McCall, 2005; Ludvig, 2006). Those employing an intercategorical
approach affirm the existence of categories. Often employing quantitative research

3
Similarly, Marjo Buitelaar (2006) observed that religious, ethnic, and gender identities are formed
concomitantly and are in dialogue. According to Stephanie Shields (2008), social identities mutually
constitute, reinforce, and naturalize one another. By ―mutually constitute‖ she means that ―one category of
identity takes its meaning in relation to another category‖; by ―reinforce‖ she means identity categories are
continuously formed and maintained by individuals; by ―naturalize‖ she means that the existence of each
category makes the other category apparent (p. 302).
13
methods, they use categories to identify their subjects of analysis and the experiences of
those subjects. They may take a single social group, such as a group of working-class
women, and compare it with a ―standard‖ or a ―norm‖ group, such as a group of working-
class men. As a postmodern critique of categories, the anticategorical approach does not
affirm the existence of categories on the ground that all categories are artificial; they are
constructed and have suffered from homogenization. This approach denies the existence
of a category, such as working-class men, and, instead, suggests ―focusing on processes
in which such a category is produced, experienced, reproduced, and resisted‖ (p. 1783).
As a third approach, the intracategorical approach seeks to examine diversity within
given groups as well as differences across groups (Crenshaw, 1991). For instance, those
employing this category focus on diversity among working-class women.
It is worthwhile to note that intersectionality scholarship has a strong normative
commitment that aims at dealing with multiple inequalities through developing a more
inclusive identity approach (Hancock, 2007; Knapp, 2005; Shields, 2008; Verloo, 2006).
Risman (2004) explained how intersectionality makes this approach to identities more
inclusive: ―There is now considerable consensus growing that one must always take into
consideration multiple axes of oppression; to do otherwise presumes the whiteness of
women, the maleness of people of color, and the heterosexuality of everyone‖ (p. 442).
1.2.1.2 Political Intersectionality
Crenshaw first coined the category of political intersectionality in 1995. It refers
to ―being situated within at least two subordinated groups that frequently pursue
conflicting political agendas. The need to split one‘s political energies between two
14
sometimes- opposing groups is a dimension of intersectional disempowerment which
men of color and white women seldom confront (1995, p. 360). In her definition, political
intersectionality has a negative meaning.
Studies using the political intersectionality have extended Crenshaws‘s definition
by proposing: 1) intersecting identities shape and, in effect, determine political outcomes;
2) intersecting identities may generate both disadvantages and advantages in politics; 3)
the recognition of intersectionality is critical in policy-making processes and policies that
aim to struggle against sexism, racism, class exploitation, or homophobia. These studies
suggest that intersecting identities affect wide range of politically relevant issues from
public opinions, to political behaviors, election campaigns, legislative decisions, public
policy outcomes, and leadership (Berger, 2004; Manuel, 2006; Hancock, 2004, 2007;
Jordan-Zachery, 2003; Simien, 2007; Smooth, 2006).
Scholars of the political intersectionality approach not only emphasize the
important role of intersecting identities in political behavior but also value the context in
which political behaviors emerge. This approach proposes that across-group and within-
group interactions in different political institutions may result in variations in political
outcomes (Weldon, 2006). For instance, Hawkesworth (2003) observed that African
American women serving in the U.S. Congress are ―treated as less than equals during
floor debates, committee operations, and interpersonal interactions; more specifically,
they are silenced, excluded, and stereotyped by their colleagues‖ (p. 548). Like Crenshaw
(1995), Hawkesworth (2003) had given negative meaning to the political
intersectionality. Nevertheless, some other studies have suggested that intersecting
15
identities may also generate political advantages. For example, King‘s 1988 analysis of
Black women activists in the U.S. movements for civil rights, women‘s rights, and labor
rights pointed out that that intersecting identities of these women provided them with
opportunities enabling them to work across conventional boundaries of difference.
Subsequent studies have advanced this argument by stating that political intersectionality
can entail advantages as well as inequalities (Dill, 2007; Fraga et al., 2006; Hughes,
2007; Jordan-Zachery, 2007).
Three studies using the political intersectionality framework specifically provide
insights for this dissertation project, as they address both advantages and disadvantages
of identities operating in tandem. Each systematically examines the political experiences
of different groups living in different political contexts.
The first study is Wendy Smooth‘s 2006 study on African American women‘s
electoral participation in the U.S. She questioned two developments: 1) African
American women outpaced their male counterparts in running for and winning elected
offices at all levels since the voting rights struggle; 2) political strategists began to use
multiple identities as a resource in the election campaigns. She suggested using the
intersectionality framework to understand the diversity of women participating in
electoral politics and to understand election campaigns. Two examples from the 2004
elections were cited to illustrate that ―both voters and candidates capitalized on the
advantages of an intersectionality framework‖ (p. 410). One example is African
American candidate Gwen Moore‘s successful congressional bid in which she was able to
draw upon race-based resources and women-based resources by building coalitions with
16
African Americans, women, and progressive groups, thanks to her intersecting identities.
Another example is the get-out-the-vote campaign launched by 527 organizations in key
battleground states. These organizations targeted African American female heads of
households; they overwhelmingly used feminized campaign strategies such as crafting
campaign push cards and door hangers that may appeal to African American women
voters.
The second study is Fraga, Martinez-Ebers, Lopez, and R. Ramirez‘s 2006
research which examined the political incorporation of Latinos and Latinas who served
in U.S. state legislatures during 2004. They proposed that Latina elected officials become
more effective advocates for working-class communities of color relative to their co-
ethnic male counterparts due to the intersecting identities of the former. They found that
Latinas are able to leverage three primary resources: a substantive policy focus, a
multiple identity advantage, and a gender-inclusive advantage. They called the
combination of these resources strategic intersectionality.
4

The third study, conducted by Eren Tatari (2010), modified and tested Fraga et
al.‘s (2006) strategic intersectionality thesis to study female Muslim councilors in
London. The study is quite important because it adds religion to the analysis of the
intersection of race and gender and because it examines a case outside the U.S. By using
interview data from female Muslim councilors in three London boroughs, she found
strategic intersectionality thesis holds true in this case. She argued that these

4
The model was tested using statistical methods and drew data from the National Latina/o State Legislator
Survey (NLSLS) as well as an original data set of 30-minute telephone interviews with more than half of
all Latina/o legislators.

17
representatives ―emphasize one or more identities based on the policy arena and the
individual(s) they are interacting with such as other councilors, lobbyists, constituents,
etc.‖ (p. 20).
Clearly, researchers of gender and politics have come to understand that
women‘s intersecting identities are reflected in their political actions. Accordingly, the
influence of gender on politics must be understood in the context of power relations
embedded in both social identities and political institutions.
The intersectionality approach has enabled scholars to understand complex social
and political dynamics; it has also contributed to feminist theory. Nevertheless, the
approach has some drawbacks. Jennifer Nash (2008) summed up its limitations and
challenges as: ambiguity of definition
5
, the lack of a clearly defined intersectional
methodology, the use of Black women as prototypical intersectional subjects, and the
lack of coherence between intersectionality and lived experiences of people with multiple
identities.
Regarding the problem of ambiguity, as noted above, there is no standard
vocabulary among scholars of intersectionality. This limitation seems to stem from the
intermingling of vocabularies of intersectionality, identity politics, and critical race
theory as well as vocabulary coming from various disciplines. As a result, the
accumulation of knowledge has been difficult.

5
Scholars of intersectionality dispute the criticism regarding the concept of ambiguity. Leslie McCall
(2005) pointed out that complexity is inherent in intersectional studies, particularly those concerning
inequalities; however, she argues, it is not a problem. Kathy Davis (2008) suggested that such ambiguity, in
fact, is an advantage because the ambiguity and open-endedness of the concept have eased its adoption in
feminist studies.
18
1.2.2 Overview of Literature on Women and Political Representation
Political representation has multiple meanings and competing dimensions that
have generated an extensive literature in political science. In her oft-cited work, the
Concept of Representation (1972), Hanna Pitkin stated that political representation is the
activity of making citizens‘ voices, opinions, and perspectives ―present‖ in the public
policy-making processes. She argued that the paradoxical nature of political
representation leads to the emergence of four views of representation: formalistic
representation, symbolic representation, descriptive representation, and substantive
representation. Formalistic representation refers to the institutional arrangements that
precede and initiate representation. Symbolic representation means ways in which a
representative ―stands for‖ the represented — that is, the degree of acceptance by the
represented. Formalistic and symbolic representation have received less scholarly
attention than descriptive and substantive representation. Descriptive representation
refers to the degree to which all social groups in a population are represented in political
institutions.
6
The advocates of descriptive representation argue that minorities need to be
present through representatives elected from their groups in legislative institutions and
local political institutions. On the other hand, some scholars question the benefits of
descriptive representation on three related grounds: 1) over-emphasizing the composition
of political bodies prevents a proper focus on the activity of representation; 2)
representative activities in political institutions matter more than the composition of

6
Sarah Childs (2008) defines descriptive representation as ―a notion of correspondence between a
representative‘s characteristics and the represented‖ (p. 91). It means that the composition of a political
institution should reflect the composition of the society in which the institution exists.
19
political institutions; 3) there is no simple correlation between representatives‘
characteristics and their actions. Instead, substantive representation is suggested as a
more meaningful category for the group representation. Substantive representation posits
that that the political activity of representatives should be on behalf of, in the interest of,
as an agent of, and as a substitute for, the represented.
The categories of descriptive and substantive representation are broadly used by
feminist scholars examining women‘s political representation. Each of these categories as
well as the relationship between them define the different strands of debate within the
women‘s representation literature. The relationship between them is investigated on the
ground that descriptive representation does not automatically lead to substantive
representation, there have been different relationship patterns that are influenced by
various factors including political context, party control, women‘s institutional power,
presence of strong women‘s movements etc. (Celis & Childs, 2008; Mackay, 2004;
Reingold, 2008)
7
.
This dissertation‘s main focus is on the descriptive representation of women;
however, substantive representation is also related to many issues which will be
discussed in the empirical chapters. Thus, we review them both briefly below.

7
Recent scholarship tends to focus on the dynamics of a relationship between descriptive and substantive
representation; researchers have theorized the relationship using the critical mass thesis, the critical actors
thesis, and the contingency thesis of descriptive representation. The contingency theory of descriptive
representation posits that descriptive representation is a necessary yet not a sufficient condition for
substantive representation of minority interests, the former being contingent upon the presence of other
conditions.

20
1.2.2.1 Women and Descriptive Representation

In her seminal book ―Politics of Presence‖, Anne Phillips (1995) called gender
and ethnic/racial composition of elected political institutions an additional area of inquiry
in the theory of democratic representation. She wrote:
There are particular needs, interests, and concerns that arise from women‘s
experience, and these will be inadequately addressed in a politics that is
dominated by men. Equal rights to a vote have not proved strong enough to deal
with this problem; there must also be equality among those elected to office. (p.
66)

Similar to Phillips (1995), many scholars advocate descriptive representation of
women by stating that the presence of women from all social backgrounds in political
institutions is important for the political legitimacy of these institutions and for improving
the quality of democracy. Scholars have, therefore, questioned the roots of the gender gap
in political institutions, concentrating on the such questions as, What are the causes of
women‘s underrepresentation? And, under what conditions are women represented
better?
Some scholars have borrowed the analogy of the supply and demand model from
economics in examining factors that influence women‘s descriptive representation
(Mackay, 2004; Norris, 1997; Paxton, 2003; Paxton et al., 2007). Factors related to the
supply of female candidates include educational and employment attainment as well
social capital. Factors influencing the demand for candidates include cultural values,
attitudes toward women‘s political representation, the presence or absence of a gender
quota, and the characteristics of the electoral and political system.
21
i. The supply of women candidates
Studies stress that the size of the available/aspiring women candidate pool is
important for women‘s representation. They focus on women‘s socioeconomic resources
and women‘s personal characteristics that enable them to enter and survive in politics,
and argue that if women have access to educational and professional opportunities, they
will have the human and financial capital necessary to run for an elected office (Mackay,
2004). Certain careers such as law and business are regarded as pipeline career paths on
the way to entering politics (Hughes, 2007; McDonagh, 2009). Nevertheless, empirical
studies suggest that women‘s educational attainment and participation in the paid labor
force do not always translate into high rates of political participation; in some cases,
women‘s socioeconomic resources may have no effect on their political incorporation
(Paxton & Hughes, 2007; Paxton & Kunovich, 2003).
Similar to women‘s socioeconomic resources, their political ambition, interests,
knowledge, and experience are regarded as significant resources for political participation
(Burns, Schlozman, and Verba, 2001; Lawless & Fox, 2005). For example, Burns et al.
(2001) found that women are politically less active than men because they are less likely
to be politically interested, knowledgeable, and efficacious due to the differences in
men‘s and women‘s adult socialization in non-political institutions, such as workplaces
and non-political voluntary associations. These non-political institutions provide men
22
with more opportunities to exercise civil rights and build networks in which political
knowledge in circulation, and men can gain experience.
8

Supply factors can be influenced by women‘s socio-political movement
involvement. The bulk of previous empirical research on women‘s political activism has
focused on women‘s participation in social, national liberation, and political movements.
It suggests that women and men have unequal power in these movements, and thus
women benefit less than men from the political gains of the social movements (Basu,
2009; Bechwith, 1996; Henderson & Jeyder, 2009; Kuumba, 2001; Mayer, 1999;
Molyneux, 1985; Yuval-Davis, 1997). Women‘s activism in political movements does
not neatly translate into formal political participation. Women are rarely allowed to take
leadership positions through formal power mechanisms because autonomous women‘s
organizations are not trusted by the central organizations of the movement and hence
women‘s demands tend to be marginalized. Some scholars assert that ethnic/nationalist
and religious movements are the worst examples of movements in which women gain
politically less than men do; they undermine women‘s advances and reinforce traditional
gender roles (Henderson & Jeyder, 2009; Moghadam, 2009).
Nevertheless, single case studies suggest that movement participation generates
mixed results and indirectly facilitates women‘s political representation because
movements may lead to structural social changes by changing gender roles, enacting or
repealing gender-related laws, or changing the distribution of resources. Through

8
Research suggests that church and community associations may be more important for minority and
lower-class women than for upper-class White women (Burns, Schlozman, & Verba, 2001; Hardy-Fanta,
1993; Takash, 1997).
23
movement participation, women may become involved in organizations and networks
that facilitate communication, galvanize financial resources, coordinate their actions, and
bolster their self-confidence. They acquire resources to fight for increased benefits and
representation (Kuumba, 2001; Kumar, 2001; Muller, 2005; Robnett, 1997). Thus, the
number of women in the pool of applicants for political offices increases.
In sum, the findings of these studies suggest that although women are still
disadvantaged relative to men in terms of socioeconomic and political resources, supply-
side explanations alone do not explain women‘s underrepresentation in politics. The
supply-side reasoning places the responsibility of advancing women‘s representation
solely on the shoulders of women. However, the demand for women representatives in a
political environment is also a critical part of the story.
ii. The demand for women candidates
The demand for women‘s representation is influenced by the openness of the
political system, political parties, and leaders to women candidates as well as the
eagerness of voters to accept women candidates. Studies have pointed out that cultural
factors and attitudes, political and electoral systems, gender quotas, and features of
political parties are significant in shaping the demand for women candidates by political
institutions.

24
a. Cultural factors and political ideology
Feminist political theorists have noted that some negative assumptions are not
only part of culture and ideology
9
but also are embedded in political thought (Coole,
1988; Okin, 1979; Pateman, 1989; Squires, 1999). Some of these traditional assumptions
are: 1) that women belong in the private sphere; 2) that women do not have the capability
to participate in politics; 3) that women should not lead a political organization. These
negative assumptions have a detrimental impact on women‘s political participation
because they generate substantial differences in public attitudes toward women‘s
leadership and become major barriers to the election of women to political office even if
social structures and political institutions are supportive of women‘s inclusion in politics
(Lovenduski & Norris, 2003). Not only do aspiring women not feel comfortable
participating in politics, but political parties also become reluctant to recruit female
candidates (Matland & Mortgomery, 2003; McDonagh, 2009). Case studies and
qualitative studies support these arguments by indicating that ideology influences the
underrepresentation of women in many political institutions (Nelson & Chowdhury,
1994; Norris & Inglehart, 2001; Rule & Zimmerman, 1994). On the other hand, positive
attitudes regarding women‘s leadership, the heritage of equality of the sexes, and the

9
Studies examining the impact of ideology and culture on women‘s political activism have confronted a
methodological problem because concrete measures of these concepts are often unavailable to researchers.
Thus, religion is used as a proxy for measuring the impact of both culture and ideology due to the fact that
religious beliefs and practices are important sources of both (Paxton et al., 2007). In order to overcome this
problem, a more precise measure of gender ideology was developed by Paxton and Kunovich (2003) by
using data from the World Values Survey. The researchers suggested that national gender ideology may
have stronger effects on female parliamentary representation than political or structural forces have.
25
presence of egalitarian values in a given culture help constitute a conducive environment
for women‘s participation (Bystydzienski, 1995).
b. The political and electoral system
One of the most consistent findings in research on women‘s political
representation is that the type and features of the electoral system influence women‘s
representation. The electoral system of a country has rules for how voting is carried out,
and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result.
10
Many scholars using
cross-national empirical data have found that proportional representation systems (PR)
are more conducive to women‘s representation than plurality-majority and mixed
electoral systems are
11
(Leyenaar, 2004; Matland & Montgomery, 2003; Matland &
Taylor, 1997; Norris, 2004; Paxton et al., 2007; Rule, 1987; Rule & Zimmerman, 1994).
However, Matland and Studlar (1996) disputed the thesis positing that the type of

10
Most of the electoral systems fall into three categories: proportional representation system (PR),
plurality-majority system, and mixed system. In plurality-majority systems, voters cast a ballot for a single
representative, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins (example, the United States and the
United Kingdom). In contrast, in many PR electoral systems, political parties put up a list or slate of
candidates equal to the number of seats in a district. Independent candidates may also run, and they are
listed separately on the ballot as if they were their own party. The seats are divided according to the
proportion of votes received by the various parties or groups of running candidates. The proportional
representation system has two sub-categories: a closed-list system and an open-list system. In a closed-list
system, the party fixes the order in which the candidates are listed and elected, and the voter simply casts a
vote for the party as a whole. In an open-list system, which most European parties use, voters are presented
in unordered or random lists of candidates chosen in party primaries. Voters cannot vote for a party directly
but must cast a vote for an individual candidate. This vote counts for the specific candidate as well as for
the party. Therefore, the order of the final list completely depends on the number of votes won by each
candidate on the list. The most popular candidates rise to the top of the list and have a better chance of
being elected. Mixed systems combine majoritarian and proportional elements.

11
It was noted that women‘s chances of being elected are higher in the PR systems compared with other
systems because the PR systems send a larger number of representatives to the national legislature, and
parties seek to balance their candidate lists to attract support from different constituencies, which requires
the parties to place more women in their lists. The plurality-majority system provides a less conducive
environment for women‘s representation because parties nominate a single candidate per district and often
believe allocating this spot to a female candidate is a politically risky decision.

26
electoral systems determines the proportion of women in parliaments; instead, they
claimed that the type of electoral system is only one of a number of factors affecting
women‘s representation.
c. Gender quota
The research on gender quotas has been one of the fastest growing subfields of
research on women and representation in the past decade (Dahlerup, 2006; Krook, 2006,
2010; Norris & Lovenduski, 1995; Tremblay, 2008). More than a hundred countries have
adopted a type of quota
12
for the selection of female candidates in the past two decades.
Numerous cross-national studies (Benstead, 2010; Krook, 2006, 2009) and single case
studies (Baldez, 2004; Bush & Jamal, 2011; Gray, 2003; Opello, 2006) have been
conducted to examine the role of gender quotas in increasing women‘s representation.
Despite this growing literature, few studies look directly at the role of political parties in
quotas‘ introduction and implementation as well as the impact of quotas on parties.
Murray (2010) stated that parties are the critical actors that decide whether quotas will be
introduced, used properly, and succeed in increasing women‘s representation.
Meanwhile, quotas also affect party practices such as candidate selection, relationships
with party members, and the party‘s parliamentary composition.

12
There are mainly three types of gender quotas: statutory quota, voluntary party quotas, and reserved
seats. Statutory (legislative) quotas require that women make up at least a minimal proportion of the
legislature or of parliamentary candidates. In voluntary party quotas, one or more political parties in a
country voluntarily adopt gender quotas. In reserved seats quotas, a specific number of seats in the
legislature is reserved for women, and selected women fill those positions after the election
27
iii. Political Parties and Women’s Representation
A few scholars such as Kittilson (neé Caul; 1999, 2001, 2006, 2010),
Sanbonmatsu (2006), and Childs (2008) have written explicitly on parties‘ relationship
with women and questioned conditions under which parties are more likely to include
women in their ranks. Their influential works are referred to in the following subsections
and will also be used in framing the research question and theoretical framework of this
study.
a. The role of party ideology
Most studies have pointed out that party ideology is the major factor determining
the party‘s policies regarding women‘s representation. Parties that are further left in their
political leanings tend to support women‘s political representation because they embrace
more egalitarian ideals than rightist parties do (Caul, 1999; Leyenaar, 2004; Paxton et al.,
2007). Accordingly, feminist movements have traditionally felt a greater affinity to left-
wing and social democratic parties and have allied with them (Ray, 1999). Paxton and
Kunovich (2003) noted that it has generally been expected that political parties of ethnic
nationalist and religious movements would espouse conservative gender ideologies and
attitudes, and that as a result women will be dramatically underrepresented in those
parties.
However, some scholars disputed the assumption that there is a strong association
between having a left-wing ideology and supporting women‘s representation
(Lovenduski & Norris, 1993; Matland & Studlar, 1996). They suggest instead that the
impact of party ideology on women‘s representation must be examined over time and
28
across parties (Caul, 1999). In this context, some studies have developed theories to
explain how the participation of women in some marginalized conservative parties may
be as great as or greater than the degree of participation of secular ethnic nationalist
counterparts (Abdel Latif, 2008; Clark & Schwedler, 2003).
b. The role of women’s organizations
Case studies on political parties suggest that women party activists at the
grassroots level and parties‘ women‘s organizations advance women‘s representation
(Caul, 1999). European parties historically have had women‘s organizations (sections,
branches) which support the party, raise funds, recruit women as members, mobilize
women in election campaigns, and lobby for women‘s representation in the leadership
bodies.
13
These women‘s organizations act at the local, regional, and national levels.
They often have neither autonomous decision-making power nor representation in the
party‘s main decision-making bodies. They are considered subsidiary, auxiliary
organizations and, sometimes, advisory bodies (Kittilson, 2010; Lovenduski & Norris,
2003).
There are competing hypotheses over the benefits of women‘s organizations in
advancing women‘s representation in parties. Childs (2008) called the discussion a
―separation versus integration dilemma‖ (p. xxi). Scholars who are in favor of the
integration thesis argue that women‘s organizations within parties positively influence
women‘s descriptive representation on the ground that a party‘s women‘s organizations

13
European parties have either disbanded these organizations or replaced them with looser organizations
such as women‘s networks. The exceptions are Swedish Social Democrats and some Finnish parties
(Childs, 2008; Kittilson, 2010).
29
may negotiate with party leaders to gain clout within the party. Parties may allocate seats
for representatives from women‘s organizations, and these representatives use their
positions to advance women‘s status in the party (Caul, 1999; Lovenduski, 1997).
Furthermore, women‘s organizations contribute to developing a collective sense of
women‘s interests and to placing pressure on the party leadership to ensure women‘s
equality be included on the political agenda about women-related policies such as equal
pay, parental leave, and child care (Kittilson, 2006, 2010; Leyenaar, 2004; Lovenduski &
Norris, 1993). Kittilson (2010) stated that ―women‘s organizations within the party
structure improve attention to themes of social justice, which can include mentions of
gender equality‖ (p. 81). On the other hand, scholars who favor the separation thesis have
argued that women‘s organizations confine women to these organizations, isolate them
from party politics and party decision-making. The integration of women in mainstream
organizations of parties, not solely in women‘s organizations, seems necessary for power
sharing within the parties.
c. The role of party elites
Studies have suggested that parties with higher proportions of women activists in
their organizations and at the grassroots level may display correspondingly high
proportions of women MPs. Such an expected correlation generated a new hypothesis
that women‘s presence in high-ranking positions in party organizations increases the
likelihood of female candidates‘ being elected because these women advocate for
including more women in the party ranks and support female candidates running for
30
elected offices (Caul, 1999; Norris & Lovenduski, 1993; Paxton & Kunovich, 2005,
2007).
Less attention has been paid to the role of male elites in the promotion of
women‘s representation. Caul (1999) noted that ―when party leaders can effectively make
an effort to promote women candidates through the use of particular party policies,
women will be better represented‖ (p. 81). A few studies have shown that this expectation
was realized in cases where male party leaders sought the electoral support of women and
wanted their parties to be seen as progressive (particularly right-leaning parties) (Basu,
2009; Sanbonmatsu, 2006b; Young, 2000).
d. Process-Oriented Approach
While a vast literature on the representation of women and parties has highlighted
the role of single factors, some recent research has tended to consider women‘s
integration in parties using a process-oriented approach that emphasizes the presence of
multiple factors/mechanisms simultaneously and interactions among them. Kittilson‘s
pioneering study (2006) on women and political parties examined ten Western European
countries‘ parties by using this approach. She pointed out that women‘s integration in
parties is a dynamic process that is contingent upon the following mechanisms: a set of
rules, norms, and political conditions in which the party is embedded as well as the
structural opportunities provided for both parties and women. The parties‘ behaviors and
women‘s efforts as new contenders shape the extent to which women may substantially
be included in party politics. Another pioneering work is Sanbonmatsu‘s 2006 study
drawing on surveys and case studies of party leaders and legislators in six American
31
states. She exposed the mechanisms by which parties‘ informal recruitment practices in
which gendered social networks play a role in shaping women‘s candidacy and
representation.
The process-oriented perspectives on women‘s political incorporation help
researchers investigate whether there is an interaction among parties, and if so, what the
outcome of this interaction is. A number of scholars have found that there are notable
interactions among parties that influence women‘s inclusion in the parties (Baldez, 2004;
Matland & Studlar, 1996; Sarbonmatsu, 2008). For example, Lovenduski (1997) argued
that women‘s integration in parties increases when party competition intensifies in a
political system, which often occurs with the decline of established parties, the
establishment of new parties, and the formation of new coalitions. Similarly (focusing on
interaction among parties), contagion theory proposes that ―traditional parties will feel
pressure to nominate more women if one of their political rivals, usually a smaller party
farther to the left, starts to promote representation of women‖ (Matland & Studlar, 1996,
p.707; Kittilson, 2001).
An emphasis on interaction among parties enables researchers to reexamine the
widespread assumption that leftist political parties have historically been much more
likely to promote women‘s rights and women‘s political participation than rightist parties
have been. For example, Rebecca Howard Davis (1997) found that political parties,
regardless of their political ideology, are likely to appoint women to the government only
when their opponents are also likely to do so. She reached this conclusion through
32
examining quantitative data regarding the appointment of women to governments in
Western European countries between 1968 and 1992.
1.2.2.2 Women and Substantive Representation
The view stressing the descriptive representation of women is challenged by
raising the question of whether, if elected, women will make a difference in policy
making and political leadership (Carroll, 2001; Diamond, 1977; Thomas, 1994; Norris,
1996; Swers, 2001; Tremblay, 1998). A number of scholars argue that once present in
political institutions, women representatives will advocate for women‘s concerns, a
development that is considered more valuable than the mere descriptive representation of
women. The notion of substantive representation provides feminist political scientists
with broader research areas than descriptive representation does, the latter being limited
to elected offices. Substantive representation can take place at different and interacting
levels such as supra-national, national, regional, and local and at different sites such as
legislatures, executives, non-governmental organizations, and civil society (Celis &
Childs, 2008).
There are two common assumptions underpinning much of the work in this field.
The first is that women introduce a different set of values; thus, they contribute to
transforming political behaviors and institutional norms in a way that challenges
masculine political practices. For example, they introduce a consensual rather than a
confrontational style of politics (Childs, 2008; Mackay, 2004). The second assumption is
that female politicians represent women‘s interests better than male politicians do
because of women‘s shared experiences.
33
The concept of ―women‘s interests‖ on which the discussion on substantive
representation builds on is one of the most controversial concepts in feminist-oriented
political science (Celis & Childs, 2008; Wängnerud, 2000; Molyneux, 1985;
Bystydzienski, 1992, 1995; Waylen, 1994). Women‘s interests can be examined at both
the theoretical and empirical levels. On the theoretical level, it refers to the recognition of
women as a social category, acknowledgement of the power inequality between sexes,
and the development of policies to empower women. On the empirical level, it refers to
the differences between male and female MPs‘ attitudes and behaviors in issue areas such
as gender equality, social justice, and social welfare policy.
The hypothesis that women defend women‘s interests better than men do, and the
hypothesis that women‘s descriptive representation leads to substantive representation
have been tested in single-country cases and large-n studies (Curtin, 2008; Kittilson
2011; Wängnerud, 2000). Case studies have revealed multiple relationships between the
proportions of women in elected offices and substantive representation of women. For
example, in the case of the Swedish parliament, Wängnerud (2000) found that the
increase of the number of women in the parliament resulted in women‘s interests in such
issues as gender equality and social welfare were given importance and became more
central. In a cross-national study, Kittilson (2011) found that women‘s rising numbers in
party parliamentary delegations and leadership committees positively contributed to
agenda-setting about social justice, welfare state expansion, and the adoption of a gender
quota.
34
1.2.3 The Literature on Women and Politics in Turkey
Studies on women and politics in Turkey began burgeoning in the 1990s. Much
previous research has concentrated on the causes of women‘s underrepresentation in
politics, characteristics of women‘s political work, and the activism of
Islamist/conservative women as well as Kurdish women (Arat 1989; Talaslı 1996,
Kırkpınar 2001; TUSIAD 2000 Report; TUSIAD and KAGIDER 2008 Report).
A majority of the studies have pointed out that political parties are a major cause
of women‘s dramatic underrepresentation
14
. They have found a strong link between party
ideology and the promotion of women‘s inclusion in parties, similar to the findings of
global literature on political parties and women. The results of these studies showed that
parties of the left are more inclusive than parties of the right. For example, Talaslı (1996)
reported that among ten parties that were represented in the parliament between 1991 and
1995, right-wing parties had a worse record than left-wing parties in terms of the number
of women in positions of power, the inclusion of women in party platforms, and the
usage of positive discrimination measures such as women quotas. Among the parties of
the right, the Islamist Refah Party (RP, Welfare Party) was the least supportive of
women‘s inclusion in party decision-making organs despite the presence of a large
number of female members. Talaslı attributed the RP‘s reluctance regarding women‘s

14
These issues have been also been referred to in the following reports prepared by civil society
organizations: TUSIAD 2000 Report, Walking Towards Equality between Men and Women: Education,
Employment, and Politics (Kadın-Erkek Eşitliğine Doğru Yürüyüş: Egitim, Calısma Yaşamı ve Siyaset).
TUSIAD and KAGIDER‘s 2008 Report, Gender Inequality in Turkey: Problems, Priorities and
Suggestions for Solutions (Türkiye‘de Toplumsal Cinsiyet Eşitsizliği: Sorunlar, Öncelikler ve Çözüm
Önerileri). European Stability Initiative Report (ESIR) (2007). Sex and Power in Turkey: Feminism, Islam
and Maturing Turkish Democracy.

35
incorporation to the party‘s Islamist ideology, which subordinates women and views
women‘s leadership as inappropriate.
There have been a number of valuable single-case studies examining women‘s
engagement with Turkey‘s Islamist political parties and the Islamist movement which
have addressed the role of women‘s organization in parties (Arat, 2005; Güneş-Ayata,
2001; Saktanber, 2002; White, 2002
15
; Turam, 2008). Ayşe Saktanber (2002) examined
the Ankara Ladies Commission of the Islamist Fazilet Party (FP, Virtue Party) and
observed that women in the party viewed their activism as a matter of service to God, to
their community, and to men. Her study was limited to the case of the FP, exclusively to
its women‘s organization. Her argument used a political economy perspective to explain
women‘s mobilization in such commissions as resulting from the liberal economic
policies of the 1980s; she gave no attention to women‘s agency or any other possible
factors. Similarly, Yeşim Arat (2005), a prolific author studying women and politics in
Turkey, focused on the activities of female commissions of the Islamist Refah Party (RP)
and its successor, the FP. Arat noted that female activists who were party workers
mobilized other women through personal networks cultivated via neighborhood relations.
Like Saktanber (2002), Arat also found that the personal and individual satisfaction of
women appeared to be the main motivations behind their activism and success.

15
For example, White‘s (2002) anthropological study focused on everyday practices of Islamist and
secularist women in Ümraniye, a neighborhood in Istanbul, and found that women became politically
active through ―value-centered political processes rooted in local culture, interpersonal relations, and
community networks, yet connected through civil organizations to national party politics‖ (p. 27). She was
of the opinion that everyday politics among people, including Islamists and secularists, offered more
explanations of Islamists‘ political practices than did institutions, ideology, and the utterances of elites.
36
Two important shortcomings are notable in the literature on women‘s
representation in Turkey. The first is the lack of analysis of the change over time in
parties‘ treatment of women. The second is the lack of comparison across cases. The
majority of recent research has tended to focus on a particular period, but not change over
time. Given the fact that political movements and parties are dynamic entities that might
change their attitudes and strategies from one period to next according to the context,
such a short-term focus is obviously problematic. At the same time, there is an extensive
literature suggesting that Islamist parties underwent notable changes in the 2000s and
began to identify themselves as conservative parties as opposed to being identified as
religious parties, as exemplified by the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP, Justice and
Development Party), by moderating their discourses and party platforms and widening
the base of their voting support in the 2000s. In this regard, the inclusion of women in the
AKP has received much public and scholarly attention (Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008; Sözen,
2006; Turam, 2007; Tur & Çıtak, 2009). According to common arguments presented in
scholarly works and on printed media, the AKP increased the number of women in
positions of power in order to present a more moderate image in order to reduce/deflect
criticism, rather than as a reflection of sincere changes in its gender ideology. They also
claim that like previous Islamists parties, the AKP uses women to garner votes and
manipulate women‘s religious motivations, but that it does not value women‘s political
activism. Tütüncü and Ayata (2008) argued that the increase in the number of female
MPs elected from the AKP ticket has been representative but not substantive: it is mere
37
tokenism because elected women have been loyal to their party and have not urged
serious consideration of women‘s issues.
As Tütüncü and Ayata emphasized, it is important to examine whether there is a
change in the gender ideology of the conservative AKP by comparing with its
predecessor Islamist parties, such as the RP and FP. However, arguments regarding
changes can be more meaningful if longer periods are covered than those in Tütüncü and
Ayata‘s time coverage of 2002-2007. Changes in women‘s substantive representation
may be observed over time because they may strengthen their positions. At the same
time, in a country where women‘s representation had been less than five percent for
almost six decades, any increase in numbers is important for feminist scholarship.
Underestimating any increase may reproduce a perspective that underestimates
conservative Muslim women‘s agency.
As for the second short-coming, as noted above, much previous research has
tended to look at the political experience of women in a single party, or even in only a
women‘s organization in a single party. For example, scholars have been interested
primarily in women‘s branches (WBs) of the Islamist/conservative parties due to their
successful performance in election campaigns of the 1990s; however, there is almost no
study comparing Islamist/conservative parties‘ WBs with the WBs in other parties. Thus,
researchers seem to stake their arguments entirely on women‘s experience in the
Islamist/conservative parties without referencing other cases. Although specific case
studies provide depth on a single issue, systemic comparative analyses may contribute to
building theories. Since the literature addressing women‘s political representation has
38
overwhelmingly focused on only one group of women, it is difficult to know whether
causal inferences are specific to conservative Muslim women or are generalizable to
other women‘s groups. There is clearly a need to analyze: 1) similarities and differences
between motivations of women joining the Islamist/conservative parties‘ WBs and those
joining other parties‘ WBs; 2) variations in the forms of activities; and 3) variations in the
benefits of participation.
While there has been some academic research on the political experience of
Islamist women, much less academic scholarship addressing Kurdish women‘s political
activism is available. The notable exceptions are the studies of Bayrak (2002), Mojab
(2005), and Çaglayan (2007). Çaglayan‘s book is a pioneering study with a strong
theoretical framework and rich empirical data on Kurdish women‘s political activism. It
focuses on the changes in the Kurdish movement‘s gender ideology and women‘s role in
the movement between the early 1990s and 2003 by using social movement theory.
Çaglayan elaborated the contours of the transformation in the pro-Kurdish parties‘ gender
ideology by focusing on their platforms, their organizations, as well as the transformation
in ways in which women engaged in electoral politics. She argued that although the
parties had a limited emphasis on women the early 1990s, they gave special attention to
women‘s participation and a gender perspective in the early 2000s as a part of their
mobilization strategy and as a result of women‘s claim making, their struggle, and their
resistance.
Çaglayan‘s study provides important insights for this research; however, it has
two important drawbacks that will be dealt with in this dissertation. These drawbacks are
39
the brief reference to the role of intersectional identities and the political leadership in
political activism of the Kurdish women. In the dissertation, political intersectionality
combined with gender and politics literature will be used as theoretical framework in
order to understand the role of intersectional identities of Kurdish women in their
activism; second, the role of leadership that she only alluded in a footnote, will be
elaborated upon.
1.2.4 The Gaps in the Recent Research and Possible Contributions of the
Dissertation
The scholarship on both intersectionality and women‘s representation, while
voluminous, overwhelmingly relies on the experiences of Western post-industrial
countries, generating gaps in globalizing theories. It is critical to address other contexts in
order to investigate whether these theories are applicable to a non-Western country or a
region, if so, how and to what extent? These questions can be partially answered by
examining the change in Kurdish and conservative Muslim women‘s political
representation in Turkey while drawing on both the political intersectionality and
women‘s political representation literature.
Research on conservative Muslim and Kurdish women may also fill certain gaps
in each of the two bodies of scholarship. One gap in the political intersectionality
literature is that there has been far less focus on opportunities than oppression, although it
is widely agreed that intersections of identities generate both. (except Fraga et.al, 2006;
Tatari, 2011; Smooth, 2006) This point is critically important given that intersectionality
highlights the dynamism of social categories. More emphasis on exploring opportunities
40
can be a contribution to the literature on intersectionality, because such an emphasis will
better help in understanding the dynamism of these categories. For example, experiences
of discrimination at the intersection of gender and ethnicity, as in the case of Kurdish
women, or the intersection of gender and religion as in the case of conservative Muslim
women, at one time may turn into opportunities at another under different conditions.
Acknowledging the dynamism in social categories and their intersections, as this
dissertation seeks to do, may help intersectionality to avoid making essentialist and
ahistoric statements regarding the political influences of identities.
One gap of the existing literature on women‘s representation is that data are very
limited in some important areas, including subnational data on women‘s representation
and on women in political parties (Paxton et.al., 2007). This dissertation project attempts
to contribute to filling this empirical gap by collecting subnational and party level data in
Turkey. Another gap stems from the tendency to examine women‘s presence in
parliaments as the sole indicator of descriptive representation (except Kittilson‘s 2010
study). However, the presence of women in party decision-making organs and in local
governments is also important in understanding women‘s descriptive representation. This
dissertation will examine women‘s presence in party decision making organs as well as
their presence in parliament. Furthermore, the explanatory value of party related factors
such as party ideology, internal party organizations, and party elites as well as women‘s
identities have received little attention in the previous research on descriptive
representation. Given the importance of political parties as gatekeepers, a dialogue
between descriptive representation literature and party literature can be quite fruitful as
41
has been shown by recent studies on women in British (Kittilson, 2006), German
(Williarty, 2010), and French (Murray, 2010) party politics. Like these studies, this
dissertation project may extend the reach of descriptive representation by systematically
examining party-related factors with the lens of a process-oriented approach.
Furthermore, an emphasis on the influences of women‘s ethnic and religious identities
by using political intersectionality framework may also enrich not only descriptive
representation literature but also women and party literature.
Both the literature on political intersectionality and on women‘s representation
makes it clear that context matters. A full understanding requires both a deep knowledge
of individual cases and a broad knowledge comparing representation across groups, a
goal of this research. Finally, with regard specifically to Turkish politics, the literature
review above revealed that much previous research has concentrated on the causes of
women‘s underrepresentation in politics, the characteristics of women‘s political work,
and the activism of Islamist/conservative women as well as Kurdish women (Arat, 1989;
Caglayan, 2007; Kırkpınar, 2001; Talaslı, 1996; Güneş-Ayata, 2001; Saktanber, 2002;
Turam, 2008; White, 2002).
In general, studies on women and politics in Turkey remain descriptive and
theoretically limited. This dissertation seeks to conduct a theoretically informed within
case comparison. This may help in extending time-coverage of studies addressing either
conservative women or Kurdish women and revisiting their findings by focusing on
women‘s agency and interactions among actors and institutions. It may also facilitate
42
dialogue between scholarship on political intersectionality, women‘s representation and
women‘s political activism in Turkey.
In particular, the dissertation may help to fill two notable gaps in the literature on
Turkey. The first is that the majority of recent research has tended to focus on a particular
period, but not change over time. Given the fact that political movements and parties are
dynamic entities that might change their attitudes and strategies from one period to next
according to the context, such a short term focus is obviously problematic. The second
gap is the lack of comparison across cases. As elaborated before, much previous research
has tended to look at the political experience of women in a single party, or even in only
a women‘s organization in a single party. At the same time, studies have
overwhelmingly focused on only one group of women, such as Islamic women, Kemalist
women, or Kurdish women (sometimes do not acknowledge group differences at all).
Although case studies focusing on certain group provide a deep knowledge about an
issue, the lack of comparison make difficult to know whether causal inferences are
specific to a certain group or are generalizable to other women‘s groups. An emphasis on
cross time and across group comparisons are necessary to better understand individual
cases as well as reach an general understanding.
1.3 Theoretical Model
The question raised in this dissertation is why the political representation of both
Kurdish and conservative Muslim women in the parliament and in parties increased much
more rapidly than did that of dominant Turkish secular women between 1991 and 2010
43
and why did the change occur at different rates for Kurdish and conservative Muslim
women.
The common explanations generally are: first, women‘s educational and
professional attainment rises, thus they become more eligible to enter politics; second,
Turkey‘s European Union accession process (EU) urged successive Turkish
governments to adopt more women friendly policies; third, the increase in numbers is
mere tokenism. While there could be some indirect and broader influences of women‘s
educational and professional attainment, Turkey‘s EU accession process and tokenism,
the fact that, these mechanisms could have influenced women from all segments of
society, not solely Kurdish and conservative women, means that they are not sufficient to
explain the cases at hand. The situation requires further examination.
Three different bodies of literature, namely the literature on political
intersectionality, on political parties and women‘s representation, as well as on women
and politics in Turkey, can be used to help in understanding the changes in the
representation of women from multiply subordinated groups, as well as the observed
variations in these changes, i.e., the increase in the representation of both Kurdish and
conservative Muslim women as well as the variations in their representation. These
literatures correspond with three sets of explanations: identity-based explanations,
organization-based explanations, and elite-based explanations. More specifically, three
factors extracted from these sets of explanations mobilization via intersecting identities;
the efforts of women‘s organizations; and the support of male leaders must, this study
suggests, be present for a significant change in representation to occur. The first two
44
factors are both necessary but not individually sufficient factors to lead to the changes.
The third factor, the support of party leaders, is a sufficient condition because leaders
have the power to initiate a change in representation without women‘s mobilization or the
efforts of women‘s organizations. In other words, the mobilization of women by using
their intersecting identities may not directly lead to an increase in women‘s representation
in the parliament or parties. Nor may the efforts of women‘s organizations be adequate to
effect change if there is no support from the political leadership. That said, leaders are
more likely to make changes in the context of the influence of the other two factors.
Thus, the three are interconnected. Each may assume a different weight depending upon
political developments in each group or upon differences in group characteristics.
1.3.1 Identity-based Explanations: Mobilization via Intersecting Identities
Identity-based explanations are rooted in the view that an identity or identities of
individuals determine their political attitudes, behaviors, and acts. Factors related to
identities may provide a framework for understanding how the political representation of
women from multiply subordinated groups changes in a party or a political unit. The
significance of identities in political mobilization and representation is discussed in a
portion of the scholarship on political intersectionality which proposes that intersecting
identities shape and, in effect, determine political outcomes. King (1988) and Smooth
(2006) argue that intersecting identities of African American women in the U.S. provided
these women with gender-based and race-based resources for their political mobilization.
Smooth further suggests that the intersectional framework is critical to understanding
election campaigns run by women of color. In a similar line of thinking, Fraga et al.
45
(2006) and Tatari (2010) focus on the role of intersecting identities in the substantive
representation of women from minority groups. While Fraga et. al argue that Latina
women representatives with intersecting identities have more resources than their male
counterparts, Tatari notes that the influences of identities on the representation of Muslim
women in London boroughs are influential in their representation, and their policy
preferences and that these are contingent upon the policy arena and the individiuals with
whom these representatives have to work.
The existing literature on women and politics in Turkey emphasizes identity-
related issues, and finds that the ethnic and religious identities of Kurdish and Islamic
women are important components in their political activism. However, the literature has
paid less attention to the intersecting identities of these women and their influence on
representation. Yet, it would seem that arguments about intersecting identities are
relevant to the political experiences of the Kurdish and conservative Muslim women,
because they have intersecting identities due to their gender, ethnicity, and religiosity.
These women have experienced multiple forms of inequalities, discrimination, and
violence due to the patriarchal social practices in their respective communities and the
Turkish state‘s repressive nationalist and secularist policies. Such experiences have
motivated many of them to join the Kurdish nationalist movement and the Islamic
movement. Women have extensively mobilized in civil society organizations and
political parties affliated with these movements, using gender-based, ethnic-based, and
religious-based resources. The degree and types of mobilization as well as the degree of
46
using multiple resources vary across cases, and will be investigated in the subsequent
chapters.
It is reasonable to hypothesize that the mobilization of Kurdish and conservative
Muslim women may influence their numerical political representation in parties and the
parliament. The question is, to what extent has such mobilization via intersecting
identities affected the changes in their representation. In both cases, the mobilization via
identities chronologically preceded the efforts of women‘s organizations; however, the
women‘s organizations subsequently turned into important venues for women‘s electoral
mobilization and for putting pressure on the top party leadership regarding representation.
Political leaders have also been influential in the continuation of women‘s mobilization.
1.3.2 Organization-based Explanations: the Efforts of Intra-Party and
Party-Affliated Women’s Organizations
The literature on political parties and women‘s representation focuses on the role
of various aspects of parties on women‘s representation, providing organization-based
explanations. These explanations build on the idea that the characteristics of political
parties including their ideologies, structures, platforms, internal organizations, and the
power relations among different party organizations have the strongest influence on
parties‘ policies towards the integration of new groups. Among these factors, the
influence of women‘s organizations has received a great deal of attention in the literature,
and it is closely related to women‘s political activism in Turkey. Some studies, including
those addressing women‘s branches of Islamist parties, have found that these
organizations do help to improve representation because they are only auxiliary
47
organizations and isolate women from party politics and party decision-making
(Lovenduski & Norris, 2003; Arat, 2005; Saktanber, 2002). However, a few scholars, like
Caul (1999, 2010), argue that women‘s organizations contribute to the advancement of
women‘s representation because they are able to set an agenda about women friendly
policies at the party level and lobby for women‘s representation in the leadership bodies.
In relation to the women‘s organizations, Caul states that ―women‘s mobilization has
been a necessary component in gaining formal and effective concessions from the party
organizations to promote women through the party hierarcy (p.115).
The issue of women‘s organizations is important in examining women‘s political
activism in Turkey because almost all parties have women‘s sections or branches that
have been considered main venues for women‘s participation in electoral politics. The
Islamist/conservative parties have structured non-autonomous women‘s organizations at
the national and local levels, called women‘s branches (WBs) within the party. Since the
1990s, they have been widely regarded as effective organizations in mobilizing women
and as a backbone of the parties‘ electoral victories. Kurdish parties had women‘s
sections until the mid-1990s, and they have been known as the organizations in which the
current female elites of parties trained. Women‘s sections of Kurdish parties became part
of a loose network of like-minded organizations which coalesced in civil society, in local
governments, and in parties in the 2000s. These organizations have played important
roles in the ongoing Kurdish mobilization at the civil society level and in electoral
campaigns.
48
It is clear that in Turkey women‘s organizations are effective in recruiting women
as party members, mobilizing them in election campaigns, and training them. They
appear to contribute to advancing representation by building a collective sense of
women‘s interests, setting an agenda about these interests, lobbying for women‘s
representation in the leadership bodies, and even placing pressure on the party leadership
concerning introducing a gender quota. Women‘s organizations outside the party at the
grassroots level may be influential through collaborating with party activists, lobbying for
change, and scrutinizing the party‘s gender policies. In general, women‘s organizations
tend to concentrate the full force of their representation-related demands on party elites.
Thus, the support of elites emerges as a very salient factor that affects the changes.
1.3.3 Elite-based Explanations: The Support of Male Leaders
The literature on political parties and women‘s representation also focuses on the
role of elites, stating that changes in parties‘ policies toward women‘s representation are
a result of pressure from the top ranks inside the party. Party elites‘ attitudes, decisions,
and policies about women‘s representation determine whether a party would promote
more women running for elected offices as well as when and how this might occur. The
literature on gender and political parties tends to focus on the role of female party elites
in advancing women‘s representation and theorizes that these women advocate for better
representation of women, because their power, resources, and opportunities to lobby for
representation increase with their ascendacy to higher party ranks (Caul, 1999; Norris &
Lovenduski, 1993; Paxton & Kunovich, 2005, 2007).
49
The role of male elites in changes has received less scholarly attention. A number
of studies suggests that male party leaders endorse the increase in the number of female
candidates in order to get electoral support and to be seen as progressive (Basu, 2009;
Sanbonmatsu, 2006b; Young, 2000). The issue of male leaders‘ support appears to be a
very important factor in women‘s representation in Turkey for three reasons. First, party
leaders are the most influential actors in selecting candidates regardless of gender,
placing them in higher ranks in the party list, and finally deciding the proportion of men
and women in the party‘s parliamentary delegation. Second, historically, male leaders
have been the main actors who have invited women into parties to recruit them to run for
office. Third, the number of female elites in parties has been very low, thus limiting their
influence. In addition, male leaders have the power to introduce a voluntary party quota
and enforce its usage in countries where there is no national quota system, resulting in
dramatic increases in women‘s representation in a short time period. Thus, in the context
of Turkey, the support of male leaders appears as perhaps the most salient factor in the
changes regarding the representation of women; however, it is still critical to explore how
it works in the cases of Kurdish and conservative Muslim women and to what extent the
degree of this support is influenced by the mobilization of women with intersecting
identities and the efforts of women‘s organizations.
I argue that Islamist/conservative and Kurdish nationalist political leaders tend to
play a significant role in mobilizing women, drawing women into parties, selecting
female candidates, and easing a possible backlash of male party. Party leaders constitute
a central target at which women‘s party organizations prefer to aim their demands.
50
Leaders may be responsive to women‘s demands for representation if they consider it
politically beneficial for them and for the parties they lead. The leaders of both
Islamist/conservative and Kurdish parties have tended to promote women‘s participation
since they regard it as important in gaining electoral benefits for party and in
consolidating their leadership position. A number of pragmatic political considerations of
the leaders that are contingent upon the party characteristics and women‘s activism drive
them into this process. These considerations include the attempt to increase movements‘
human capital and motivation, the desire to present the movements/parties as moderate
and inclusive, and the recognition of women‘s high performance in mobilization and vote
garnering.
1.4 Method and Primary Evidence Collection
This study employs least similar case comparison, which is originally defined as
the ―cases that are similar in their outcomes but differ on all but one independent
variable.‖ (George & Bennett, 2005, p. 253). This same method can be used in a
comparison of sub-cases in a single political unit, as is done that is aimed at in this
dissertation. The increase in political representation is the similar outcome observed in
both sub-cases of Kurdish women and conservative Muslim women and is not observed
in the sub-case of Kemalist women during the same time period.
The study uses a form of within case analysis, called process tracing to test
whether similar outcomes among Kurdish and conservative Muslim women owe
independent variables that they have in common, and independent variables that Kemalist
women lack. Process tracing also helps in ―identifying the causal processes –the causal
51
chain and causal mechanism – between independent variables and the outcome‖ (George
& Bennett, 2005, p. 206). Each sub-case in the dissertation is traced separately to map
out key actors, interactions among actors, key institutions, and sequence of events that all
may lead to change. Each case discusses what are thought to be particularly important
parts instead of including a fully detailed narrative. The possibility of path dependency is
considered to construct a valid and parsimonious explanation, because timing and
sequences of events help us understanding causes and consequences of particular course
of action, which introduced by individual actors and institutions. Events also influence
the capacity of actors and institutions in designing and implementing their course of
action.
In sum, since the main goal of this study is to contribute to the efforts to theorize
processes of change in women‘s representation, process tracing as a method of within
case analysis and comparison across sub-cases seems appropriate. The three women
groups in the case, namely Kurdish, conservative Muslim, and Kemalist, offer the
possibility of exploring proposed causal relationships, enabling me not only to test
existing theories provided by political intersectionality and women‘s representation
scholarship but also to refine insights for theory development.
1.4.1 Data Collection
Primary and secondary sources concerning the political situation in Turkey have
been consulted and collected for this study: academic books and articles, biographies of
politicians, novels, women‘s journals, newspaper articles, government publications,
parties‘ and elected officials websites. Various pamphlets, documents, and reports
52
published by political parties and NGOs have been also used. While some of these
documents are online, many of them were obtained from libraries in Ankara, Istanbul,
and Diyarbakir during fieldwork.
The fieldwork for this dissertation was conducted in the summer and winter
breaks of 2009 and 2010 in Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir, the largest Turkish cities, as well
as Diyarbakir, Batman, Mardin and Şanlıurfa which are overwhelmingly Kurdish
populated cities. Fieldwork included participant observations in weekly meetings of
woman‘s branches and activities organized by parties such as picnics, congresses, and
gatherings where women took in charge or simply participated in.
A significant part of the fieldwork involved conducting interviews. I conducted a
series of semi-structured interviews with female and male politicians, including members
of Parliament who were in office between 2007 and 2011, female senior MPs, mayors,
members of municipality councils who were elected in the 2009 local elections, president
and members of provincial women‘s branches, party activists, and the the representatives
of women‘s NGOs affiliated with parties (For details see Appendix A.). In total, I
conducted 61 interviews with politicians. I also conducted interviews with journalists,
the politicians‘ assistants, the directors of women‘s NGOs not affiliated with parties, as
well as scholars studying similar issues in order to confirm information that had already
been collected from other sources. I had also an opportunity to observe parties‘ 2011
general elections campaigns and female candidates campaign activities between April
and July, 2011.
53
One methodological limitation of this research was the quality of information
from interviews conducted with elected officials. I did not have a chance to push my
interviewees on the most controversial issues. First, there was a hierarchical power
relations between me and them, given that I was a graduate student. Second, they were
extremely busy, at least their advisors tend to present them in such a way, and a
researcher I could not provide any benefit to either secretaries or politicians. Third, they
were extremely guarded in their comments for a number of reasons. They were members
of parties which are always under close state scrutiny. They were well aware that their
comments could be used in party closure trials. So they rarely voiced their opinions on
controversial issues. Another reason for their caution may have been feelings of
insecurity. For example, MPs elected from the AKP ticket failed to comment about the
headscarf ban, while the MPs elected from the DTP (active pro-Kurdish party at the time
of fieldwork) rarely commented about the PKK and its leader Öcalan. I had to be satisfied
with the narratives they offered, but then either investigate further details in the print
media or triangulate data by conducting interviews with scholars and representatives of
NGOs that are not affiliated with parties. Another limitation is that the number of
interviews conducted with the Kemalist politicians remained limited due to the serious
difficulties in contacting with them. Thus, I carried out extensive search in printed media
and scholarly works.
1.5 Manuscript Organization
The dissertation proceeds in the following way. Chapter 2 provides the historical
context by mapping the characteristics of the Kemalist nation-state building process,
54
Islamic politics, the Kurdish nationalist movement, and women‘s movements. Chapter 3
maps the characteristics of Kurdish women‘s political activism. It consists of four
sections: an explanation of the double oppression of Kurdish women experienced
severely in the 1980s; their participation in the Kurdish nationalist movement as
sympathizers, activists, organizers, and even militant members; the collective action of
women on the basis of a woman cause; and women`s inclusion in pro-Kurdish ethnic
nationalist parties between 1990 and 2009 and the changes in their representation.
Chapter 4 explores the experiences of conservative Muslim women. It begins with
a discussion of women‘s double oppression by focusing on the headscarf ban. It then
details women‘s engagement with Islamic politics in the mid-1980s and the 1990s.
Following that, it examines ways in which women were integrated into the politics of the
pro-Islamist parties. The final section discusses women‘s political representation
transformed in the 2000s and mechanisms that led to such a transformation. Chapter 5
offers an analysis of the Kemalist women‘s political activism in the 1990s and the 2000s.
It addresses political manifestations of Kemalist women‘s social positioning and identity
restructuring as a response to rise in the political activism of conservative Muslim women
and Kurdish women. Then, it moves to discuss women‘s integration into electoral politics
through participation and representation. Chapter 6 contains the conclusions drawn from
the case studies and discusses avenues for future research.

55

Chapter 2. Politics and Ideology in Turkey between 1923-2010

2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a historical background of politics and ideology in the
Turkish Republic between 1923 and 2010. To understand the growing political activism
of Kurdish, conservative Muslim, and Kemalist women in the 1990s and 2000s, it is
important to address the social and political landscape that shaped and transformed it. A
discussion of politics and women in Turkey requires an examination of nation-state
building and Kemalist modernization, which were closely intertwined processes. State
elites constructed roles for nationalism, gender, and religion in the modern Turkish state
as they determined the parameters of the relationships among them.
The following section begins with a brief overview of the Kemalist modernization
project. It then proceeds to discuss nationalism and the Kurdish population‘s treatment
within the context of the Kemalist nation-building process. The narrative then addresses
women‘s agency and advances in women‘s rights, which were placed at the center of
Turkish modernization and nation-building. Following that is an analysis of the political
landscape of the 1950s and a brief account of the main characteristics of party politics in
Turkey. The subsequent section examines some aspects of Islamist politics and the
emergence of Islamist political parties. Next, the transformation of Kurdish nationalism
from a nascent movement in the 1970s to an armed struggle against the Turkish state in
the 1980s and the emergence of pro-Kurdish political parties in the 1990s are analyzed.
56
The chapter concludes with an examination of the main patterns of women‘s political
activism after the 1950s.
2.2 Kemalist Modernization and Secularism
The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on October 29, 1923. It was the political,
cultural, and social successor of the Ottoman Empire. Modernization attempts can be
traced back to the 19
th
century, when a new generation of reformist bureaucrats, officers,
and intellectuals carried out administrative, social, and political reforms. Among these
reformists, a group called the Young Turks took power in 1908, and proceeded to
introduce a constitution, reform the military and secularize the justice and educational
systems (Ünüvar, 2001; Zürcher, 2004). Kayalı (1997) noted that the ―Young Turks
envisaged the creation of a civic-territorial, indeed revolutionary-democratic, Ottoman
political community by promoting an identification with the state and the country through
the sultan and instituting representative government‖ (p. 9). They promoted Turkish
nationalism, but did not adopt a clearly defined political or cultural Turkish nationalist
program due to the domestic and international context (Kayalı, 1997).
16

The idea of a Turkish nation had emerged in those years owing to the emergence
of nationalist-separatist movements in the Ottoman territories (particularly among the
Balkan-Christian communities), serious economic crises, and the rise of the mass print
media (Findley, 2010; Hale, 2002; Kayalı, 1997; Zürcher, 2004). According to Benedict
Anderson (2006), the rise of the print media, which he called ―print capitalism,‖ is a
central channel for nationalism. The rise of the print media in the Ottoman state helped

16
For further discussion regarding the Young Turks see Ünüvar (2001); Zürcher ( 2004).
57
accumulate knowledge and experience regarding modernization. Many social and
political issues including Westernism, Ottomanism, Islamism, Turkish and Kurdish
nationalism
17
were widely discussed after 1908; accordingly, many newly established
journals were involved in discussions, and some associations were formed to take action
(Zürcher, 2004).
The modernization attempts and the idea of Turkish nationalism reached their
institutional and ideological peak after the Turkish War of Independence and the Ottoman
Sultanate was abolished in 1922. Mustafa Kemal, an army officer during World War
One, led the Turkish National Resistance Movement and the Independence War (1920-
1922). He became the founder of the Turkish Republic, when the Republic was
proclaimed on October 23, 1923, then, he became its first president and the chairman of
the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP Republican People‘s Party, originally called as
Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası), and remained so until his death in 1938. Mustafa Kemal and
the CHP aimed at building a nation-state from the remnants of the multi-ethnic and multi-
religious Ottoman Empire. The new nation-state was imagined as a secular and modern
Turkish Republic. Modeling European institutions and imitating Western ideas, they
introduced a wide range of political, economic, and legal reforms. The overall
modernization program became part of the Turkish state ideology called Kemalism,
18

17
Kurdish nationalist tendencies emerged in the 1900s. Kurds living in Istanbul established the Society for
Support and Progress for the Kurds (Kurt Teavun ve Terakki Cemiyeti ) in 1908. It was closed down in
1927. Kurdish students formed a journal called Hevi (Hope) in 1912. Kurdistan Teali Cemiyeti (Society for
the Elevation of Kurdistan) was established in 1918. (Zürcher, 2004). Kurdish women in Istanbul
established the Society for Elevation of the Kurdish Women (Kurt Kadinlari Teali Cemiyeti ) in 1919 .
18
According to Haldun Gulalp (1997), ―nationalist statist developmentalism in Turkey was identified with
Kemalism‖ (p.54). It was a reflection of contemporary universal developmentalist models in the 1930s.
58
which has six guiding principles: republicanism, laicism, nationalism, populism, statism,
and reformism. These principles were included in the program of the CHP in 1931 and
incorporated into the Turkish constitution in 1937. Taha Parla and Andrew Davison
(2004) described Kemalism as ―Mustafa Kemal Ataturk‘s and the CHP‘s political
thought and practice, it is also the persistent official and semiofficial hegemonic ideology
of the Turkish Republic‖ (Parla & Davison, 2004, p. viii). In general, Kemalism remained
a very flexible concept that has not been fully defined since then. Often, people who had
different worldviews identified themselves as Kemalists.
Secularism is the main pillar of Kemalist modernization and ―the most
characteristic element of Kemalist reform‖ (Zürcher, 2004, p. 186). However, the
Kemalist modernization project adopted a particular version of secularism, laicism,
(laiklik), which prevailed in Turkey between 1923 and the late 1930s. Turkish laicism has
been identified as authoritarian, militant, and assertive (Azak, 2010; Karasipahi, 2009;
Kılınc, 2009; Kuru, 2009). Even though state and society had been interwoven with
religion in the Ottoman era, the Kemalist modernization project aimed at secularizing
them both. To that end, the institution of the caliphate that the Ottoman Empire had
hosted since 1517 and that gave the state the authority over all Muslims, even those
beyond its geographic borders, was abolished in 1924. The office of Şeyh-ül Islam, which
was the highest religious authority, as well as the Ministry of Shari'a and Religious
Foundations and the shari'a courts were all eliminated. The legal system was entirely

Nationalism enhanced the state‘s protective and developmentalist roles. For further discussion see Tuncay
(1981), Zürcher (2004).
59
secularized by enforcing a combination of the Swiss Civil Code, Italian Penal Code, and
German Commercial Law. In 1928, the second article of the 1924 constitution
designated Islam as the state religion was annulled, and in 1937 the principle of
secularism was inserted into the constitution as a non-amendable article.
To curb the power of the ulema and to secularize education, a unified school
system and a standardized curriculum were introduced in 1924. Such a system using a
Western style model which allowed neither religious education outside of state control
nor religion in the regular school curriculum was regarded as crucial to convey the
messages of Kemalist secular nationalism to the masses (Azak, 2010; Kilinc, 2009; Kuru,
2009). State education became accessible to all citizens regardless of their gender and
socio economic class. A Directorate of Religious Affairs, known as Diyanet, attached to
the Office of the Prime Ministry, began to govern religious affairs, including religious
education. This institution was charged with supervising theology schools, appointing
imams to mosques, and issuing decrees on Islamic knowledge and practice (Çınar, 2008).
The modernizing elites introduced further socio-cultural reforms which lessened
religion‘s sphere of influence among all segments of the society, for they believed that
modernization of the polity would be possible only if secularization and Westernization
could penetrate ―the life styles, manners, behaviors, and daily customs of the people‖
(Gole, 1997a, p. 83). These reforms were important in shifting the core of a citizen‘s
identity from religion to nation. In this regard, all Sufi orders (tarikat), their lodges
(tekke), and religious sanctuaries (türbe) were banned, and religious titles such as molla
(student of Islamic religion), seyyid (descendant of the prophet Muhammad, and hacı
60
(who visited to Hajj) were forbidden in 1924. The Arabic script was replaced by the Latin
script for writing modern Turkish; the European calendar, measures, and weights were
introduced between 1926 and 1931. The reforms further banned the fez, a traditional red
hat worn by men, which was believed to symbolize the ―ignorance, hatred of progress
and civilization,‖ and promoted the adoption of Western clothing, such as hats and ties,
which symbolized ―modernism and progress‖ (Kasaba, 1997, p. 25). The founding
fathers enforced neither veiling nor unveiling for women (Heper, 2009). Urban women
who actively participated in public life often preferred unveiling as a sign of
emancipation and modernization. While the reform package targeted all layers of society,
women, who received special attention in the modernization period, will be discussed in a
separate section below.
State–religious relations were mainly structured in the formative years of the
Turkish Republic. The fundamentals of these remained relevant since then. These
fundamentals may be characterized in the following terms. First the relationship is
complicated and dynamic (Sakallıoğlu, 1996). The state developed two competing
discourses. On the one hand, it promoted a rigid separation of political and religious
affairs; on the other, it incorporated a particular conception of religion--an ―enlightened,
rational/scientific‖ national version of Islam as opposed to ―backward, superstitious,
Arab, and political Islam‖ into state ideology. (Azak, 2010; Gurbey, 2009). As Umut
Azak (2010) notes, more specifically, ―the state conceived Sunnism as the default
religion of the nation and fought reactionary Islam by the means of the nationalization of
Sunnism‖ (p. 144). State institutions, particularly the Directorate of Religious Affairs,
61
aimed at producing knowledge for the promotion of the version that might create ―good
Muslims‖ who understood the ―rational essence of Islam.‖
19
In fact, the rational essence
of Islam was implied to a national, namely, the Turkish version of Islam. The attempts at
nationalizing Islam had begun in the late Ottoman Empire. However, such an
incorporation and accommodation of Sunni and rational Islam through a state institution
became the tool of controlling and steering religious activities in the republican era. All
religious activities out of state control were deemed dangerous (Azak, 2010).
Second, the state instrumentalized Islam in its struggle to consolidate national
identity and secure legitimacy (Azak, 2010; Sakallıoğlu, 1996). In the formative years,
the Kemalist elites attempted to transform Islam into national, Turkish Islam. As part of
this nationalist modernization project, religious rituals including Friday sermons and calls
to prayer (ezan) were Turkified and the Koran was translated into Turkish (Azak, 2010).
Moreover, the state often used religious discourse for tactical purposes. For example,
religious themes were used to inspire men regarding their compulsory military service
20
,
to homogenize society, and even to fight against opposition movements, including
Communism and the Kurdish separatist movement (Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008; Gurbey,
2009; Warhola & Bezci, 2010; Tütüncü, 2010).

19
The State's Directorate of Religious Affairs never recognized Alevism as a religious practice; nor did it
incorporate Sufism into its teachings.
20
For example, obligatory military service is closely associated with religious motives and themes. Turkish
soldiers are traditionally called Mehmetcik, referring to Prophet Muhammed. Martyrdom and veteran status
both have religious connotations. Also see Fatma Tutuncu (2010) for current implications of relationship
between religion and nationalism in the case of women preachers serving in Kurdish populated regions.
62
The secular modernization process encountered limited opposition based in
religion, and the state repressed the opposition by using authoritarian means.
21
For
example, the Free Republican Party and the Progressive Republican Party were
established as official opposition parties in 1924 and 1930, respectively, with more liberal
platforms regarding the state‘s secularist policies. However, these parties were closed
down within their first year on the basis that they carried strong religious elements,
although their founders were adherents of secularism. Few violent opposition movements
appeared in these years.
22
The Seyh Sait uprising began in Eastern provinces in 1925. It
was a nationalist Kurdish rebellion with, also, religious strands (Tunçay, 1981). In the
second biggest uprising, members of the Nakşibendi Brotherhood attacked a young
reserve officer in 1930, in Menemen, a town in Western Turkey, in 1930. Both these
uprisings were violently suppressed by the state, which introduced more repressive
policies as a consequence. After these episodes, few social and ethnic groups found an
opportunity to challenge the state absolutism. Reactionary opposition remained very
limited.
23

Although many scholars criticize Kemalist secularism for being imposed from
above and for its authoritarian approach, some scholars who favor it believe that such

21
Çaglar Keyder (1997) claimed that ―Turkish nationalism is an extreme example of a situation in which
the masses remained silent partners and the modernizing elites did not attempt to accommodate the popular
resentment‖ (p. 43). Keyder (1997) proposed that nationalist elites did not confront any serious opposition
due to the continuity between Ottoman bureaucratic elites (reformers) and Republican nationalist elites as
well as the absence of a strong landlord class that might claim rights.
22
Umut Azak (2010) examined some of the resistance episodes against secular reforms initiated by
Kemalist elites.
23
Azak (2010) noted the the Malatya incident (1952) and the secularist reactions to Said Nursi (1959-60).
63
measures paved the way for liberal democracy. A second group argues that democratic
intent existed in Kemalist reforms, as observed in the formation of the two parties noted
above (Lewis, 1961; Ozbudun, 1988). This school holds that domestic and international
conditions made it difficult/impossible to maintain the democratic mechanisms such as
introducing multi-party system or accommodating religious and ethnic pluralism.
2.3 Kemalist Modernization, Turkish Nationalism, and
Kurdish Ethnicity
A nation-state building necessitates a process in which a diverse group of people
are united within the same community, called a nation. In his pioneering work, Nations
and Nationalism Ernest Gellner (1983) wrote that ―nationalism is a primarily political
principle that holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent‖ (1983, p.
1). Creating a sense of nationalism and nation as well as developing national-projects are
mutually constructed processes. Juan R.I. Cole and Deniz Kandiyoti (2002) noted that
while nationalism tends to create a homogenous nation, it ―defines itself against other and
sets of other, within and without‖ (2002, p. 186).
24
Similarly, Carter V. Findely (2010)
pointed out striking characteristics of nationalist project. He stated ―not everyone and
everything can be included in the nationalist project, or not without reform and
reeducation. As true as this is of social groups that do not fit into the nationalist identity
construct, so it is also true of culture‖ (2010, p. 13). The Turkish nationalist project,

24
Cole and Kandiyoti (2001) provide good definitions for nation, nationalism, nation-state. They noted that
―Nationalism and nation-state mean a set of changing discursive and institutional practices that differ from
pre-modern self-conceptions and political arrangements. The modern nation is made up of citizens with an
affective and imaginative commitment to identity with co-citizens. ‖ (p. 191).
64
which was promoted in the 1920s and the 1930s and continued its influence until the
1990s, demonstrates how some sets of people within and outside the Turkish Republic
were defined as others, just as it shows how some groups were reformed and reeducated
in order to be included in the Turkish Republic.
According to the Turkish nationalist project, the new nation was defined as a
―homogenous uni-ethnic (Turkish), uni-linguistic (Turkish), and uni-sectarian (Sunni)
entity‖ (Sakallıoğlu, 1996, p. 234). The adoption of the project exemplified how an
imagined community was gradually envisioned and constructed by utilizing liberal and
illiberal means. Zürcher (2004) defined this process as the reflection of ―extreme
nationalism‖ (p. 190). The founding elites developed a national history in which the
Ottoman era was depicted as other, as well as backward, dark, and chaotic, thus aiming to
achieve a radical rupture with the Ottomans.
In a narrowly defined national community, ethnic, religious, and ideological
differences have been viewed as potential threats, not only to the homogeneity of the
nation but also to the stability of the country (Gole, 1997a, p. 86). The Turkish Republic
partially inherited the minority policies of the Ottoman Empire, which recognized only
non-Muslim groups as minorities, making religion the basis for minority status. The
Ottomans had allowed different religious groups, called millets, to establish their own
forms of self-government. As a nation-state, the Turkish Republic chose not to follow
such a religiously pluralistic policy. Thus, non-Muslims were defined as the second other,
after non-Turks. Compulsory population exchanges with Greece were carried out (when
Christians were sent to Greece, and Muslims in Greece were brought to Turkey) between
65
1923 and 1930 (Gurbey, 2009), thereby decreased the number of non-Muslims in the
Turkish Republic. The Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from
this population exchange as well as the Greeks of Istanbul, and Aegean Islands of Imbros
(Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada). The remaining non-Muslim groups, including Jews
mainly living in Istanbul and Greeks in Istanbul and small Christian communities in the
southern Turkey were recognized as minorities and provided with group rights. Non-
Turkish Muslim groups, who were not recognized as minorities, faced assimilative
policies of the state, because they were identified as the other to Turks.
Kurds, who are overwhelmingly Muslim and have a distinct ethnic-cultural
identity and those who do not speak Turkish, constituted the largest non-Turkish
population within the borders of Turkey.
25
According to Zürcher (2004), 20 percent of
the population was Kurdish in 1923. Although Kurds actively joined in the Independence
War, the relations between Kurds and the recently established government deteriorated in
1924. Denying the distinctness of this group, the founding government expected Kurds to
identify themselves as Turks. Mesut Yeğen (2009) noted that Kurds were considered as
―prospective Turks‖ or ―potential members of the Turkish ethno-cultural community‖
with no group rights (Yeğen, 2009, p. 597). Due to the centralization attempts of the new
nation state, Kurdish groups lost the regional autonomy and power that they had enjoyed
under Ottoman rule. This loss of power triggered outrage among Kurdish tribal leaders,
religious sheiks, and large landowners (Romano, 2006). Ete and Özhan (2009) reported

25
Other groups include Albanians, Arabs, Bosnians, Circassians, Laz, Pomaks, and Tatars.
66
that 17 Kurdish uprisings occurred between 1925 and 1938, with the Seyh Sait uprising
of 1925 the first and largest one.
The Turkish state crushed each of these uprisings very brutally, became extremely
suspicious about the activities of Kurdish leaders, and imposed repressive Turkish
nationalist policies (Gunter, 2004; Zürcher, 2004). For example, everything that signaled
the existence of a distinct Kurdish identity was abolished or outlawed, including the
Kurdish language, Kurdish names, songs, and even Kurdish clothes. Kurdish schools,
associations, and publications as well as religious fraternities were all banned, and in
Kurdish areas, even village names were changed (Sarıgil, 2007). The Resettlement Law
of 1934 systematically forced non-Turkish-speaking groups to relocate into areas
inhabited by ethnic and cultural Turks, although similar practices targeting influential
Kurdish landowners and tribal chiefs had taken place since 1924. This process of
―Turkification‖ had a profound influence on the Kurdish population (Günel, 2006;
Yeğen, 2009). The state also developed a discourse in which the Kurdish tribal structure
was defined as reactionary, backward, and dangerous (Yavuz, 2001; Yeğen, 1996).
All of these repressive policies based on the denial of a distinct Kurdish identity
planted the seeds of Kurdish nationalism in the early years of the republic. Successive
Turkish governments between the 1930s and 1960s continued to repress any
manifestation of Kurdish identity. The 1960s provided Kurds opportunities to express
their nationalist feelings, but in order to preserve the chronology in this presentation, I
will return to discuss the development of Kurdish nationalism between the 1960s and the
2000s later in this chapter.
67
2.4 Kemalist Modernization, Turkish Nationalism, and Women
Modernization projects often integrate women as symbols of modernity, while
nationalist projects regard women as reproducers of the nation through their roles as
mothers and bearers of tradition (Chatterjee, 1993; Kandiyoti, 1987,1991; Yuval-Davis,
1993). Women are seen as cultural transmitters as well as cultural signifiers of a nation.
Not only femininity and masculinity but also gender relations are reconstructed according
to the nation-state ideology.
Nation-state building experiences often define an ideal man, but for the Kemalist
experience, the image of the ideal woman became the symbol of the modernization
reforms. Altınay (2006) accurately pointed out that in the formative years the Kemalist
elites had ambivalent perspectives regarding women‘s liberation and new gender roles.
They envisioned a woman who was modern, emancipated, and westernized. On the other
hand, women were also expected to keep their domestic roles as mothers and
homemakers to maintain the traditional norms such as feminine modesty and to
reproduce the nation biologically and culturally. Therefore, the founding elites wanted to
raise ideal Turkish women who would serve their family, their people, and their nation.
26

Such idealized women could show, not only the success of Turkish modernization and
secularism, but also the strength of the Turkish nation (Arat, 1989; Gole, 1997b).
According to the Kemalist elites, women‘s emancipation would be achieved
through reforms that provided women with a better legal and social status compared to

26
For further discussion, see Arat (2005), Azak (2010), Gokariksel and Mitchell (2005), Gole (1997) and
Kadıoğlu (1994).
68
that in the Ottoman era, in which women had been under the authority of state, shari‘a
system, society, and family. The shari‘a system had treated women as unequal subjects in
the legal domain; the state had regulated women‘s behavior outside of their homes by
issuing decrees; and women had been treated as inferior subjects in social and family
domains (Tekeli, 1990). Some feminist movements had appeared in the last decades of
the Ottoman Empire as well as in the early years of the Turkish Republic, but these
feminist attempts were not taken into account in the Kemalist elites‘ discourse on
women‘s emancipation (Altınay, 2004; Saktanber, 2004).
27

During World War One and then following the Turkish Independence War (1919-
1922), dramatic changes occurred in women‘s everyday lives. Women became involved
in the wars by participating on the battlefield in performing tasks consistent with their
gender roles such as nursing, cooking, and sewing clothes for soldiers. They also filled in
for the lost men‘s workforce in cities and formed associations aiming at supporting
soldiers. However, as observed in many national struggles, when the war ended, women
were asked to return to their homes and to resume their traditional roles (Tekeli, 1990).
When the Turkish Republic was founded, the state elites addressed women‘s
status and the question of their rights. The first step toward achieving the mission of
women‘s emancipation was the reform that made elementary education mandatory for
both sexes. The second step was the adoption of a new secular civil code in 1926 which

27
For further discussion on state feminism see Cakır (1994), Çaha (1996, pp.74-94) . In the period 1908–
1923, there were at least 40 women‘s organizations and 27 women‘s journals, some of which had 3,000
readers (Caha 1996, pp. 98-101). A number of these journals discussed feminism openly and asked for
universal suffrage.
69
dismantled the influence of Islamic law on family matters. The new civil code entailed
advances in women‘s rights, abolishing polygamy, men‘s unilateral divorce right, and
women‘s unequal share in inheritance. The new code also established equality in child
custody and recognized women‘s testimony in courts. Gole (1997b) observed that the
Kemalist modernist elites did not enforce unveiling; however, they considered that the
participation of women in the public sphere through education, employment, and practice
of political rights necessitated the social mixing of women and men as well as the
unveiling of women.
Urban women benefited from the new educational and legal reforms of the
Turkish state, by having access to public institutions (Z. Arat, 1994; Erturk, 1994). They
could work in prestigious professions, gaining economic independence and higher status.
The Kemalists did not adopt a comprehensive project for the economic development of
rural areas (Tunçay, 1981; Zürcher, 2004), and hence the reforms hardly touched these
areas, where most of the population lived. Traditional social structures, particularly
feudal and strong patriarchal structures, persisted in Southeastern Turkey. While men
living in rural areas were able to learn at least writing and reading during their
compulsory military service, women did not have such an opportunity. Zehra Arat
(1994) writes that Islamic tradition and conservative groups impeded the diffusion of the
influence of reforms on women living in rural areas. Yakin Ertürk (1994) argues that the
reforms were ineffective among women who lived in rural areas, overwhelmingly
Kurdish women, because they could not access institutions of the modern state without
men‘s help due to the language barrier. Indeed, Ertürk argues that rural women were
70
isolated and marginalized much more than in the past because of their lack of access to
the state.
As the number of urban women attending schools in the reform years increased,
such women tended to identify the period between 1923 and the late 1930s as the period
of ―state feminism‖ and themselves as not only the representatives of Kemalism but also
as pioneers of modernization/civilization, even feminism (S. Tekeli, 1990). Most of the
literature agrees that the period could be called one of ―state feminism‖ because women‘s
rights were substantially advanced, women‘s status was elevated, and women were
―emancipated‖ from the pressure of religion and tradition, all by the state‘s efforts
(Kadıoğlu, 1994; Tekeli, 1986).
Arat (1997) notes that ―until the 1980s, there was a consensus in society that
Kemalist reforms had emancipated women and that this ‗fact‘ could not be contested‖ (p.
103). However, feminist activists and scholars questioned this widespread idea after the
1980s. For example, Zehra Arat (1994) and Ömer Çaha (1996) disagree with the
characterization of state feminism. They note that the reforms regarding women‘s rights
launched by the state aimed primarily at socioeconomic development, but these reforms
were not for the feminist cause. Similarly, Arat (1994) asserts that the rhetoric, legal
policies, and administrative policies of the period were shaped by patriarchal concerns
rather than feminist ones. Kandiyoti (1987) states that the reforms did not liberate women
because, they did not questioned the gender relations, specifically those in a family,.
28

28
Corporate control of female sexuality, referring state‘s control on women‘s bodies, was given as an
example for how the republican elites provided limited freedom to women, although they could provide
more.
71
2.4.1 Women’s Engagement in Politics between 1935 and the 1950s
Whatever one‘s position on the question of state feminism and the Turkish state,
there is no question that Kemalist reforms increased women‘s engagement in the public
realm. It is interesting that male ruling elites dominated the process, although a women‘s
movement was quite active at that time (S. Cakır, 1994). A leading feminist, Nezihe
Muhittin, attempted to establish a women‘s party, the Republican Women‘s Party
(Kadınlar Halk Fırkası) on 16 June 1923, but it was rejected by the nationalist
government. The party was then organized as a union, Turkish Women‘s Union (Türk
Kadın Birliği), in 1924. The union ran activities aimed at securing the right to vote and to
be elected, and finally, in 1934, political rights were fully granted to women, formally
making women equal citizens. The Union also organized an International Feminist
Congress in Istanbul in 1935. However, after the suffrage was granted in 1934, the union
was asked to dissolve itself in 1934 on the grounds that equality between sexes had been
achieved. It, therefore, had to terminate its activities (Altınay, 2004). This incident, along
with the restriction on many women‘s associations, was regarded as an attempt to silence
feminist voices (Altınay, 2004; Zihnioğlu, 2003).
In the 1935 general election, 12 women from the CHP won seats in the Turkish
parliament, called Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi,
TBMM). The first generation of female parliamentarians was chosen by the founding
elites. Neither Nezihe Muhiddin, a leading feminist, nor any members of the Turkish
Women‘s Union was among these selected women. At the party level, that same year, the
CHP established a separate section to deal with ―women‘s issues‖ (Kaplan, 1998).
72
It seems that granting rights by the state had long-term negative consequences on
women‘s political participation in Turkey. Altınay (2004) argued that the nationalist
elites accorded agency only to those whom they invited to become candidate for elected
offices. The political culture of inviting women into politics by men has continued since
then. From a different perspective, Tekeli (1995) criticized state-sponsored women‘s
rights, since this practice accustomed women to expect everything from male elites. As a
result, female politicians were drawn into politics by men, particularly husbands, fathers,
or other relatives (Arat, 1989).
2.5 Introduction of Multi-party Regime and Party Politics
Parties are the main venues of political participation and representation in Turkey,
and the history of the Turkish party system shows many continuities and changes.
Chernov-Hwang (2009) aptly summarized this history, noting that ―the party system has
metamorphosed from uni-partyism (1923-1950) to bipartyism (1950-1960) to moderate
multipartyism (1960-1980) to moderate multipartism with a dominant party (1983-1991)
to extreme multipartyism with no dominant party (1991-2002) to multipartysim with one
dominant party (2002-2011)‖ (2009, p. 24).
The characteristics of the Turkish party system have been shaped by the political
environment. First, parties tend to serve as platforms for emerging social movements that
seek organizational support and political voice. Thus, new parties keep emerging,
fragmenting, and dissolving (Kumbaracıbaşı, 2009). Second, parties are accustomed to
interventions in electoral politics by either the military or the judiciary. Many parties
have been closed down, their leaders and political activities banned, or had funding
73
provided by the state delayed by the Constitutional Court or military rule. Third, despite
these interventions, new parties have been quickly formed to replace their predecessors.
The organizational structure and the leadership of the banned parties continued,
sometimes under different names. In particular, a significant number of pro-Islamic and
pro-Kurdish parties have been closed down due to their alleged anti-secular and separatist
activities, respectively, because the Party Law and the Constitution strictly prohibit the
use of religious and ethnic terms in parties‘ activities, campaigns, and politicians‘
speeches (Bale, 2007; Kogacıoğlu, 2004).
The multi-party system emerged in 1946 as a result of a plethora of forces,
including socio-economic pressures for change, external pressures for democratization,
and the CHP‘s willingness to support a multi-party regime (Zürcher, 2004). Twenty-four
new parties were formed between 1946 and 1950, most of which tried to reach the rural
population that had barely been touched by the modernization reforms. During the
single-party era between 1923 and 1946, a gap had developed between the political elite
and a large number of ordinary people who believed their voices had not been heard. The
new parties developed a discourse centered on this gap by emphasizing the traditionalist
and Islamic values of the masses (Altunışık & Tür, 2005; Tunçay, 1981).
Among the newly established parties of 1946, the Demokrat Parti (DP,
Democratic Party), which claimed to represent the periphery against the secular
bureaucratic intelligentsia and to be against the CHP‘s ―authoritarian rule,‖ received
considerable public support, particularly from the emerging middle class (Sakallıoğlu,
74
1996, p. 237; Tunçay, 1981). Some of the new parties, including the DP, were able to
participate in the first multi-party election in July 1946, which the CHP won. The DP
came to power for the first time in May 1950, thus ending the CHP‘s 27 years of single-
party rule. Although many argue that popular support for the DP in the 1950s signaled the
revival or resurgence of Islam in Turkish politics, Sakallıoğlu (1996) claims that the
1950s posed neither a major nor a political challenge to the system with respect to the
relationship between religion and the state. After 10 years, the DP government was
overthrown in 1960 in a coup d‘état launched by the military in order to protect the
nationalist secular character of the state.
The Turkish military played a significant role in the institutionalization of
Kemalism as a state ideology in the founding years and was regarded as a key institution,
as the idea that the ―Turkish nation is a military nation‖ became widespread. Until the
2000s, the military became involved in politics by claiming the role of the guardian of
both secularism and stability (Cınar & Duran, 2008; Warhola & Bezci, 2010). Three
subsequent military interventions interrupted the multi-party regime: in 1971, 1980, and
1997. Warhola and Bezci (2010) note that ―the question of religion, society and state
manifested itself to a greater or lesser degree in each of the four military coups d‘état
undertaken in the Republic‖ (p. 431). On the other hand, the Turkish military‘s
involvement differed from that of militaries in other Middle East countries, because the
Turkish military quickly transferred the power to civilians after each involvement.
29

29
Since 2002, the military‘s influence on civil governments has been lessened by the AKP governments
that took some measures within the context of the EU accession reforms. For example, the state security
courts were abolished, the National Security Council was taken under civilian authority. Many
75
After the 1960 coup d‘état, the Adalet Partisi (AP, Justice Party) dominated
Turkish political life between 1965 and 1980, either as the government party or as a
partner in the ruling coalition. For a long time, the JP represented the center-right as the
DP had in the 1950s. Between 1980 and 1983, the military again ruled the country.
Thereafter, the Anavatan Partisi (ANAP, Motherland Party) came to power in the first
election in 1983. It profoundly restructured politics and the economy through the
neoliberal policies implemented and political liberalization began in the mid-1980s and
the early 1990s. Accordingly, the public sphere expanded; state-religion relations
moderated; identity movements flourished. Religious groups often supported the ANAP,
which utilized religion pragmatically.
The 1990s saw changes in electoral politics that paralleled significant changes in
politics and the economy. Güneş-Ayata and Ayata (2002) listed the following changes in
voting behavior during this period: an increasing political fragmentation and voter
volatility; declining strength of the center-right parties; decreasing salience of ideological
divisions between the left and the right, and a growing regionalization of political party
support. In addition to these changes, religious and ethnic cleavages became important as,
pro-Islamic and Kurdish nationalist parties in particular received increased voter support
(Hazama, 2007).

investigations and trials have taken place to curtail alleged plots aiming at overthrow government by coup
d‘états.
76
2.6 Political Islam and Pro-Islamic Parties
Between the 1950s and 1990s, Islamic groups became involved in politics as part
of center-right and right-wing political parties, such as the JP and the DP. The first
religious party, the Milli Nizam Partisi (MNP, National Order Party), which had an
explicit Islamist orientation, was established by Necmettin Erbakan in 1970. After its
closure by the Constitutional Court on the basis of its alleged anti-secular activities in
1971 immediately after the military coup, it was succeeded by the Milli Selamet Partisi
(MSP, National Salvation Party), which was formed in 1972. The MSP won about 10
percent of the votes in the 1973 and the 1977 general elections; and it participated in
three coalition governments between 1974 and 1975 with the parties of the left and the
right. It was banned following the military coup of 1980 along with all other political
parties.
Both the MNP and the MSP adhered to the political project of the Milli Görüş
(National Outlook) ideology, which mainly promoted a non-Western route for economic
development, Islamic social values for restructuring society, and a rapprochement with
Muslim countries in order to weaken Western domination (Atasoy, 2009). They viewed
Turkey‘s secularism as anti-Islamic and authoritarian, although governments gradually
adopted more liberal policies toward religious practices and religious groups after the
1950s. These parties demanded much more freedom of religion. The Milli Görüş
ideology also contained elements of Turkish nationalism, envisioning Turkey as a leader
in the Islamic world. Economically, it promoted a model called the ―just order,‖ in which
development based on heavy industrialization, interest-free economic instruments, a
77
private enterprise regime, and social welfare constituted the building blocks (Hale &
Özbudun, 2010). According to Jenny White (2002), the Milli Görüş ideology built upon
―a populist recognition of class, status, and in some respects, gender cleavages; the desire
to situate itself as champion of the poor and disadvantaged; and the attempt to reclassify
Islamic symbols as separate cultural markers of superior lifestyle‖ (p. 233). It aimed at
creating and safeguarding an authentic Islamic identity in the societal domain, and not at
creating an Islamic political system (Yavuz, 2004). After 1997, the Milli Görüş ideology
was reconstructed by emphasizing democracy, human rights, and multiculturalism. The
reasons behind such a shift in discourse will be analyzed later.
30

In the post-1980 period, Islamic groups flourished in the public sphere with the
influence of political and economic developments. It is important to clarify two
characteristics of Islamic groups in Turkey. First, they embraced modernity, rather than
rejecting it, and, thus created ―alternative modernities‖ by reinventing tradition and
focusing on religiosity (Gole, 2000). Second, many Islamic groups avoided not only
using violent strategies but also destabilizing the order, except a few groups such as
Turkish Hizbullah in the Southeast in the 1990s. In this context, a fragmented and
complex Islamic sector emerged which included intellectuals, Islamic movements,
voluntary associations, social welfare organizations, businesses, and the media apparatus.
Islamic groups were overwhelmingly interested in civic, political, and economic
participation using institutionalized channels. The political system provided Islamic
groups with access to and opportunities for political participation. Among the various

30
For further discussion, see R. Çakır (2004).
78
Islamic groups, the supporters of the Milli Görüş ideology had a political project: to
compete for power, the Refah Partisi (RP, Welfare Party) was established in 1983, and
developed a discourse based on religious themes. The party secured only a modest
number of votes in the 1984 and 1989 local elections; it also failed to pass the 10 percent
threshold required to secure seats in the 1987 parliamentary elections in which religious
voters mainly supported the ANAP.
However, in the early 1990s the RP developed effective mobilization strategies by
reaching out to economically marginalized classes, providing social welfare to those in
need, and building strong social and political networks (White, 2002). Although women‘s
political activism had been very limited in both the MNP and the MSP, women began to
join the RP (Çakır, 2004). A women‘s organization with the RP played a significant role
in mobilization and following electoral victories (Arat, 2005; Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008).
The party showed a spectacular rise in its vote share in both local and general elections.
In the 1994 local elections, the party received 19.1 percent of the vote, thus winning 28
mayoral races, six major metropolitan centers, and the leadership of 327 local
governments (Chernov-Hwang, 2009; Güneş-Ayata & Ayata, 2002). In the 1995 general
elections, it received 21 percent of the vote, and secured 158 out of the 550 seats in the
parliament, thus becoming the strongest party (Hale & Özbudun, 2010). It formed a
coalition government with the center-right Dogru Yol Partisi (DYP, True Path Party) and
the RP‘s chairman Necmettin Erbakan became the prime minister.
The RP‘s unprecedented rise made Kemalist military and bureaucratic cadres
worry about the future of secularism in the country. Such a rise was viewed as the proof
79
of Islamic reactionism threat (irtica in Turkish). Although the RP attempted to soften its
discourse by joining the European Customs Union and improving relations with Israel, it
implemented some popular religious policies that increased the concerns of the secular
establishment (Chernov-Hwang, 2009). On February 28, 1997, the National Security
Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, NSC) decided to impose a program including laws and
regulations to fight against Islamic reactionism, which was deemed to be the most
pressing national security threat at that time. The military hinted that it might use military
force (Kuru, 2009), while the secular establishment, composed of the CHP, the
Demokratik Sol Parti (DSP, Democratic Left Party), the media, the judiciary, and some
civil society associations, supported the military against the RP. This process was called
the ―February 28 Process‖ and was identified as a soft coup d‘état. Islamic groups
suddenly encountered serious limitations in their economic, cultural, and political
activities. Religious education provided by Islamic groups and the activities of Islamist
businesses were restricted (Hale & Özbudun, 2010; Kuru, 2009); the RP had to resign
from the coalition government; and in 1998, the RP was closed down by the
Constitutional Court on the account of the party‘s alleged anti-secular activities.
The RP parliamentarians proceeded to join the Fazilet Partisi (FP, Virtue Party),
which was established in 1997 to succeed the RP, but which sought to become a mass
party instead of a religious one (Cakır, 2004). The military involvement of February 28,
1997 taught the VP to moderate its discourse on religion and to embrace more democratic
views compared to its predecessors, so that on the rhetorical level, the FP emphasized
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law (Çakır, 2004). In this regard, the VP
80
provided some opportunities for women‘s representation in the party. However, it was
also closed down by the Constitutional Court in 2001 because its activities were regarded
as anti-secular.
The closure of the RP led to the emergence of two parties. While reformists
(modernists) of the RP established the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP, Justice and
Development Party), the traditionalists (also called ―Erbakan‘s loyalists‖) established the
Saadet Partisi, (SP, Felicity Party). The SP became a small party whose vote share has
remained around two percent since the 2002 elections. On the other hand, the AKP
became the ruling party in 2002 when it received 34.2 percent of the vote and secured
363 of the 550 parliamentary seats. In that election, only the AKP, the CHP and
independent candidates, mainly candidates from a pro-Kurdish party, the Demokratik
Toplum Partisi (DTP, Democratic Society Party) were able to enter the parliament
because of the 10 percent threshold. The AKP increased its votes to 46.7 percent and 50
percent in 2007 and 2011, respectively. In addition to the CHP, the Milliyetçi Hareket
Partisi (MHP, Nationalist Action Party) secured seats in both elections. The AKP was
able to form a single-party government in 2007 and in 2011.
Since its establishment, the AKP has presented itself as ―a centrist conservative
democratic party,‖ thus referring to European Christian democratic parties. However,
such a political characterization has been deemed by some to be problematic, a form of
manipulation aimed at political legitimacy (Yıldız, 2008). The AKP has disassociated
itself from the Milli Görüş ideology in part by supporting neo-liberal economic policies.
Its leaders consistently emphasize that they are trying to forge a new understanding of
81
politics that is free from the politicization of religion but tolerate manifestation of Islamic
life styles (Cınar & Duran, 2008). Despite ongoing suspicions, many scholars agreed that
the AKP cannot be defined as an Islamic religious party like the RP and the FP because
its policies and political discourse show that it seeks neither to institute Islamic law in
state and society nor run state affairs in an anti-secular manner (Dağı, 2004; Heper,
2009; Yavuz, 2004). It has differed from the RP and the FP in its foreign policy as well.
It has not only avoided identifying the West as an enemy; but has built a close
relationship with the West (Yılmaz, 2004). It has been committed to the cause of the
European Union membership and introduced many reforms required by the EU accession
process.
The AKP can be defined as a conservative centrist party, with Islamic roots or a
post-Islamist centrist party, not an Islamist party (Akdogan, 2006; Çakır, 2004; Dağı,
2004; Yılmaz, 2004). First, its leadership cadres and a substantial part of its electorate
are pious or religious people. Second, despite abandoning Islam as a political program,
the AKP maintains its Islamic credentials when it comes to social issues such as women
and family planning, headscarf, adultery, and consumption of alcohol in public places
(Yıldız, 2008). The first and second-term AKP governments (2002-2007 and 2007-2011)
have tried not only to be sensitive about religious values and practices but also to comply
with the demands of its religious electorate. Thus, it attempted launching some reforms to
satisfying the religious electorate‘s demands, as observed in the attempts to lift the
headscarf ban (Atasoy, 2009; Cınar & Duran, 2008; Yıldız, 2008). However, in so doing,
82
it has confronted the opposition of the Kemalist establishment, which believes such
attempts challenge the very core of the Kemalist state structure.
2.7 Kurdish Nationalism and Pro-Kurdish Parties
The somewhat liberalizing political context, sociopolitical pluralism, the growth
of civil society, and the rise of leftist movements in the 1960s created opportunities for
the expression of Kurdish ethno-nationalist sentiments (Güneş, 2007; Romano, 2006).
Urbanization, rising levels of education, and population movements including rural-to-
urban migration within Turkey and emigration to European countries began in the mid-
1960s and have dramatically influenced the Kurdish population, resulting in not only
social transformation of the Kurdish society but also the politicization of Kurdish
identity. Romano (2006) notes that, while the strength of tribal affiliations declined,
affiliations with many left-wing and Kurdish nationalist movements increased. For
example, socialism was considered a solution to the regional economic inequalities
suffered overwhelmingly by the Kurdish population as well as a solution to the state‘s
repression of Kurdish political and cultural rights (Gunes, 2009; Romano, 2006; Sarigil,
2007; Yavuz, 2005).
Although Kurds participated in leftist socialist movements, they were ultimately
dissatisfied with their treatment of the Kurdish question, and hence attempted to start
their own organizations. In this context, the Revolutionary Cultural Society of the East
(RCSE), established in 1969, aimed at raising the ethno-nationalist consciousness of the
Kurdish population. However, the nascent Kurdish nationalist movement lost momentum
with the 1971 military coup, which left the country under the leadership of a supra-party
83
cabinet until the 1973 election. Leftist movements in Turkey were hampered and the
RSCE was outlawed during this period. Moreover, due to divisions between political
parties, from 1973 until 1980 the country was governed by ten successive government
coalitions. Like other radical leftist groups, Kurdish nationalist groups fragmented and
multiplied under these conditions. The Kurdistan Revolutionaries, led by Abdullah
Ocalan, formally became an armed rebel group, later called the Partiya Karkeren
Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party), known as the PKK, in 1978. This group claimed to
be a Kurdish liberation organization which would establish an independent socialist
Kurdish state within borders of the areas where Kurds live such Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and
Syria.
The 1980 coup opened a new phase for both the Kurdish nationalist movement
and the PKK. During the military rule between 1980 and 1983, the Kurdish population
faced severe repression. David McDowall (1996) reported that ―no fewer than 81,000
Kurds were detained between September 1980 and September 1982. Two thirds of the
army was deployed in the heavily Kurdish-populated part of Turkey in order to guarantee
the region‘s tranquility.‖(McDowall, 1996, p. 14). A new constitution prepared by the
military dominated Constituent Assembly forbad any manifestation of the Kurdish
identity, while the Law Concerning Publications and Broadcasting (1983) banned the use
of the Kurdish language in dissemination of thought and information (Sarıgil, 2007). To
avoid being crushed by the state, the PKK moved to Syria and Syria-controlled Lebanon.
Although the military regime wanted to put an end to Kurdish ethno-nationalism
by increasing restrictions on Kurds, its brutal methods produced the opposite effect: the
84
consolidation of the Kurdish ethnic nationalist identity. Many Kurdish youth were
radicalized in this atmosphere and began to join in the PKK, which enjoyed sanctuary as
well as logistical and intelligence support from Syria, Iraq, and Iran. It began guerilla-
style attacks against Turkish security forces in 1984, and as its power gradually
increased, it began to use terrorist methods, attacking Turkish and Kurdish civilians,
educational infrastructure, and tourist sites, using suicide bombings, kidnapping and
assassination of government officers and Kurdish tribal leaders whom the PKK
considered puppets of the Turkish state. This armed struggle took on the proportions of a
mass uprising, with an estimated number of militant members around 15,000-17,000
(Güneş 2007; Uslu, 2009). Özcan (2007) claimed that 30 percent of 17,000 armed
militants in the early 1990s and 1,000 of 4,500-5,000 armed militants in 2007 were
women.
After the emergence of the PKK and until the 2000s, the Turkish state addressed
issues concerning Kurds within a security framework (Ete & Özhan, 2009). The
authorities overwhelmingly believed that the state had no problems with its Kurdish
population in general: the only problem was the presence of the PKK, which it defined as
a terrorist group. Between 1984 and 2007, the armed conflict between the PKK and the
security forces claimed more than 35,000 lives, including PKK militia members,
government soldiers, Turkish paramilitary forces, and civilians. During the same period,
the conflict led to the destruction of some 3,000 villages and the internal displacement of
three million Kurds (Ahmed & Gunter, 2007).
85
The PKK is regarded as having been the most influential actor in bringing the
Kurdish issues to the attention of the Turkish public and state (Romano, 2006; Sarıgil,
2007. After the capture of the PKK leader Öcalan in 1999, the armed struggle between
the state forces and the PKK became a low-intensity conflict, and the PKK in effect
transformed itself by renouncing its separatist claims, and adopting a discourse of
democracy. The PKK renamed itself the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress
(KADEK) in 2002; it renounced its unilateral ceasefire in 2004 and renamed itself the
People‘s Congress (Kontra-Gel) in 2005. However, none of these new names was used
and it has been still referred as the PKK by its members, supporters, and Turkish
authorities. The low intensity armed struggle and some terrorist acts of the PKK have
continued since then.
While the PKK has used armed struggle, mass mobilization, and propaganda to
attract attention to Kurdish issues, other representatives of the Kurdish nationalist
movement have engaged in electoral politics to the same end. Almost all parties
including leftist, Islamic, and centralist parties represented in Turkey‘s parliament have
had deputies of Kurdish origin. Barkey (1998) noted that ―as many as one-third of the
members of any parliament may have been of Kurdish origin‖ (p.74). However these
politicians of Kurdish origin rarely expressed themselves as Kurds or articulated Kurdish
concerns (Bruinessen, 1996). On the other hand, Kurdish nationalists who established
and participated in pro-Kurdish parties such as the Halkın Emek Partisi (HEP, People‘s
Labor Party, 1990-1993), Demokrasi Partisi (DP, Democracy Party, 1993-1994), Halkın
Demokrasi Partisi (HADEP, People‘s Democratic Party, 1994-2004), Demokratih Halk
86
Partisi (HADEP, Democratic People`s Party, 1997-2005), Demokratik Toplum Partisi
(DTP, Democratic Society Party, 2005-2009), and Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi (BDP,
Peace and Democracy Party, 2009-present) have aimed to articulate the concerns of the
Kurdish population, to influence the state‘s policies about the rights of Kurds, and to
represent Kurds on the national political stage by working within the state legal
framework. In general elections, the candidates of these parties have run as independents
or made coalitions with leftist parties in order to surpass the 10 percent threshold to
secure nation-wide representation because they often gained five percent of the national
vote, representation in the parliament, securing, depending upon year, between 20 and 30
seats in the parliament (Çarkoğlu, 2009).
Since the founding of the first legal Kurdish nationalist party, the Turkish
Constitutional Court has banned many other pro-Kurdish parties for two main reasons:
their involvement in activities ―against the indivisible unity of the state, its territory, and
the nation‖ by promoting Kurdish separatism and ―supporting and promoting terrorism‖
by allegedly sheltering or assisting members of the PKK (Koğacıoglu, 2004). These acts
violate Article 3 of the 1982 Turkish Constitution, Articles 25 and 169 of the Penal Code,
and the Article 8 of 1991 the Anti-Terror Law. Most problematically, pro-Kurdish parties
are widely viewed as the political arm of the PKK.
31
Henri Barkey (1998) stated:
The one issue that has bedeviled the legal Kurdish parties has been their links to
the PKK…The absence of overt criticism of the PKK and its actions was
sufficient to doom all these parties in the eyes of the Turkish public and media. It
was also difficult for any of these parties to distance themselves too much from

31
For further discussion, see Tan (2009), Bishku (2007), Bruinesses (1996), Ete (2009), White (2000),
Yavuz ( 2005), Yildiz (2005) and Uslu (2009).
87
the PKK given the extensive support from the organization within the politicized
Kurdish population of Turkey (p. 2).
Indeed, the results of the 2009 Public Perception of the Kurdish Question Survey
conducted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) reveal
that 78.7 percent of respondents believed that there is an organic relationship between the
PKK and the DTP, a legal Kurdish party. Only 7.1 percent of respondents did not believe
in the existence of such a relationship (SETA Report, 2009, p. 20). Although pro-
Kurdish parties have often discussed ways in which they distance themselves from the
PKK, it has been a quite challenging task because of overlapping ideologies, causes, and
the constituency.
Scholars of Kurdish nationalism such as Gunter (2007), Romano (2007), and
Yeğen (2006) argue that repeated party closures and restrictions on the Kurdish
nationalist political parties resulted in missed opportunities to achieve peace and justice
in the Southeast region of Turkey. According to pro-Kurdish parties, governments have
to make cultural concessions and to recognize group rights of the Kurdish population
such as by allowing educational and political activities in Kurdish to reduce the
confrontation with the Kurdish population. Kurdish people have tended to believe that if
democratic means could work for them to gain rights, there would no longer be a need for
the violent means used by the PKK. They have also believed that legal pro-Kurdish
political parties could become the interlocutor between the PKK and the Turkish
government in peace talks (Barkey & Fuller, 2008; Ölmez, 1996). However, until the late
2000s, none of these hopes were realized, and the Kurdish population was left shocked by
88
the state oppression of legal Kurdish parties and their members. Kurdish parties have not
yet played an active role in ending the fighting between the Turkish state forces and the
PKK.
In 2009, the AKP government tried to articulate a plan for reforms in response to
the demands of the Kurdish population. This process was called the ―Kurdish opening‖; it
later, evolved into the ―democratic opening‖ and then a ―national unity project‖ in
response to the reactions of Turkish nationalists. The reforms included allowing private
Kurdish broadcasting, reinstating the original Kurdish names of the ―Turkified‖ villages,
establishing Kurdish language and literature departments in universities, lifting a ban on
using Kurdish in political materials, and modifying the definition of Turkish nationality
in the constitution. The bans on educational rights regarding the usage of Kurdish have
not yet been eliminated; the constitutional amendment is on the agenda of the parliament
as of 2011. The government also reviewed ways to end the fighting between the outlawed
PKK and Turkish security forces, declaring partial or full amnesty for PKK members was
considered unfeasible. On the other hand, as of 2011, the Kurdish nationalist party, the
BDP and representatives of the PKK were demanding autonomy for Kurdish-populated
territories in the framework of a federation or confederation.
The landmarks in the politics of Islamic groups and Kurds between the 1950s and
2010 have been briefly summarized so far. The following section will summarize politics
among women during this period.
89
2.8 Women’s Political Activism between the 1950s and the 2000s
Until the 1960s, there was limited women‘s activism and few women‘s
organizations. The determinant role of state elites in women‘s issues, restrictions on
women‘s political organizations, and a tendency to directing women to philanthropic
organizations in the 1930s had hampered women‘s aspirations for political organizing
(Arat, 1989; Sancar-Üşür, 2008). Existing organizations were often led by women who
made ideological references to Republicanism, secularism and Kemalism, not feminism
(Özçürümez & Sayan-Cengiz, 2011).
32

In the 1960s and 1970s, women became involved in leftist groups. However, their
promotion of egalitarian values, justice, and equality, did not include restructuring gender
relations, as they, too, expected women to become self-sacrificing sisters and mothers.
Indeed, these leftists often viewed feminism as a prospective threat to class solidarity and
leftist political causes: women‘s issues could wait until a classless society had been
created (Tekeli, 1990). On the other hand, participation in leftist groups gave women
political experience. They questioned women‘s status in the leftist movement, and were
influenced by the Western feminism (Diner & Toktaş, 2010; Aldıkaçtı-Marshall, 2009).
The 1970s also saw a small number of students who wore headscarves at universities, a
few professional women who wanted to work with their headscarves, some activism of

32
These women‘s organizations included Üniversiteli Kadınlar Birliği (the Turkish Association of
University Women, 1949), Kadın Haklarını Koruma Derneği (the Society for the Protection of the Rights
of Women,1967), and Anneler Derneği (the Society of Mothers,1953).
90
conservative women and the establishment of a few non-governmental organizations led
by conservative Muslim women
33
(Senler & Eraslan, 2011; Keskin-Kozat, 2003).
Women‘s branches of political parties also became more active in the 1960s,
although the first women‘s branch of a party had been established by the CHP in 1954.
These branches were not autonomous women‘s organizations; however, because all they
did was serve the parties by garnering votes and supporting men. The party‘s male elites
accepted the women‘s branches because they served their electoral interests and
reinforced acceptance of male hegemony in the parties (Güneş-Ayata, 1994).
The 1980 military coup changed the political landscape of Turkey dramatically
with the introduction of neoliberal economic policies and political liberalization as
discussed above. After the military transferred power to a civilian government in 1983,
The ANAP became the ruling party and remained so until the mid-1990s. The party had a
very active women‘s section, led by Semra Özal, the wife of party chairman Turgut
Özal. This section, however, worked as a voluntary organization, rather than as a section
organically attached to the party, due to a ban on women‘s sections with the 1983 Party
Law, which was in force until 1995. Right-wing parties holding conservative values
regarding both gender relations and women‘s roles were reluctant to promote or support
women‘s political participation in the 1980 and 1990s.

33
Some organizations led by conservative Muslim women included the Ladies‘ Society of the Arts and
Sciences (Hanımlar İlim ve Sanat Derneği), the Society of Idealist Ladies (İdealist Hanımlar Derneği) and
the Society of Ladies (Hanımlar Derneği). These organizations used the word hanım intentionally. The
word in Turkish connotes elegance, modesty, respectability, and expectation of good manners. Secular
feminists used the word kadın, which basically refers to an individual of female sex. In this line of thinking,
religious Welfare Party called its women‘s branch the ―Ladies Commission,‖ while other parties called it
the ―Women‘s Branch.‖ The conservative AKP preferred the name Women‘s Branch. Some male leaders
of the AKP still address women as ladies in their speeches and written statements.
91
The 1980s and the 1990s saw the emergence of a feminist movement along with
the emergence of other identity-based movements including the Kurdish and Islamic
movement. Unlike its view of leftist and rightist activism, the government party at that
time did not view women‘s activism as a threat to national security. This political
opening provided fertile ground for a feminist movement to grow (Tekeli 1986; Arat
1994, 2005; Özçürümez & Cengiz-Sayan, 2011). Women formed consciousness-raising
groups, published women‘s journals, and organized campaigns and demonstrations to
protest domestic violence. They began their activism by addressing inequalities in the
private sphere, which had barely been addressed until the 1980s (Tütüncü & Ayata,
2011). This feminist activism was transformed into more structured forms with the
establishment of associations that made claims about women‘s rights and developed
projects to improve women‘s low status. The establishment of women‘s studies
departments that conducted research on women‘s problems soon followed. Women‘s
groups raised issues such as domestic violence, psychological and sexual abuse, virginity
tests, as well as the misrepresentation of women in the media and legal discrimination
against women.
In addition to raising consciousness about these issues on the societal level, they
also succeeded in placing such issues on the government‘s agenda. General Directorate of
the Status of Women, which is attached to the office of Prime Ministry and the State
Ministry Responsible for Women and Family Affairs were established in 1990 and 1991,
respectively. National governments also ratified international documents such as the
Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
92
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1989 (with several reservations) and the
Beijing Declaration in 1995. As a result of feminist groups‘ pressures, governments had
to take some steps to meet international standards (Diner & Toktaş, 2001; Güneş-Ayata,
2001).
The 1990s also saw the first female prime minister of Turkey, Tansu Çiller,
(1993-96) who had been the chairwoman of the right-wing DYP. Her rise to power was
totally independent from the feminist movement. Analysts argue that, given her lack of
experience, she could not have obtained her political positions without the direct support
of senior politicians, in particular, Süleyman Demirel, the DYP‘s former chairman (Cizre,
2002). During her tenure, in fact, she never contacted women‘s organizations nor
advocated for any women‘s cause (Aguk-Gevrek, 2000). In fact, Çiller was harshly
criticized not only for being a political opportunist, but also for following aggressive
national security policies and undermining democracy (Arat, 1998; Cizre, 2002).
Since the beginning of the feminist movement in Turkey, women‘s groups have
been very fragmented and polarized (Bora & Günal, 2002; Diner & Toktas, 2010). They
have been heavily influenced by the political environment, which defined political Islam
and Kurdish nationalism as serious threats, making the women‘s movement reluctant to
address specific problems of Islamic and Kurdish women (Bora & Günal, 2002). Arat
(1994) states that the ―women`s movement (feminist movement) was a conscious
challenge to Kemalist reforms of women‘s status but that it unwillingly helped promote
the Kemalist vision of a Westernized (namely, liberal, democratic, and secular) Turkey‖
(p. 101).
93
The extensive literature on feminism in Turkey tends to categorize women‘s
movements
34
into four different groups: Kurdish, Islamic, Kemalist movements, and
feminist movement.
35
Islamic, Kurdish, and Kemalist women‘s movements differed from
the feminist movement with respect to their perspectives on the origins of women‘s
problems and ways in which these problems could be addressed.
36
A survey of Islamic
women‘s and Kurdish women‘s publications, organizations, and various types of
activities suggests that the Islamic women‘s movement has emphasized such issues as
women‘s role in Islam, the headscarf issue, modernization, education, Islamic ways of

34
In the literature on women in Turkey, scholars use terms such as women movement(s), feminist
movement(s), women‘s groups, and women‘s organizations interchangeably. This led a conceptual mixing.
In this study, I follow Amy Mazur and Dorothy Bride‘s deliberate clarification of these concepts in their
seminal dataset work on gender politics and state. They state that women‘s movement refers to the ideas,
aspirations, and identities developed from gender consciousness in relation to actors who articulate them in
public arenas, while feminist movements are types of women‘s movements which express feminist
discourse. Feminist discourse must include all of the following core ideas:1) It expresses explicit identity
with women as a group, a form of explicit gender consciousness. 2) The language is explicitly gendered,
referring to women as distinct from men. 3) The ideas are expressed in terms of representing women as
women in public life. 4) Because there is something wrong with the treatment and status of women, goals
are presented that will advance the status of women. 5) Views expressed explicitly or implicitly challenge
gender hierarchies and forms of women‘s subordination. The women‘s movement discourse includes first
three core ideas and does not necessarily advocate the rest‖ (pp.190-191). Actors in women‘s and feminist
movements are the individuals, collective organizations, formal, and informal organizations. In this regard,
Kemalist, Kurdish, and Islamist women‘s groups, formal-informal organizations, and individuals often
adhere to the first three core ideas of feminist discourse. Thus, they can be identified as women‘s
movements. There has been also a feminist movement in Turkey that follows all five core ideas of the
feminist discourse that has been already discussed above.
35
Aldikacti-Marshall (2005), noted that secular feminists could be divided into two groups: socialist
feminists and radical feminists. She also noted that Islamist feminist could be divided into two groups:
reformist and orthodox Islamist feminists. Similarly Kurdish women groups could be divided into two:
Kurdish nationalist women‘s groups and Kurdish women groups. While KA-MER could be included in the
second group, the Democratic Free Women‘s Movement could represent the first group.
36
For a detailed account of differences among Kemalist, Kurdish and Islamist women‘s movements see
Diner and Toktas (2010). For a discussion on secular feminist and Islamic women‘s groups‘ different
perspectives on issues of headcovering, paid and unpaid work, see Aldikacti-Marshall (2005). For a
discussion on Islamic, Kurdish and Kemalist feminists‘ different perspectives on the issue of honor killings
see Kavaklı-Birdal (2010). For a discussion on Islamic and secular groups different perspectives on
women‘s quotas in the representation see Marshall (2010).
94
life, and feminism,
37
while the Kurdish women‘s movement has highlighted issues
including patriarchy in the family, ethnic identity, language barriers that uneducated
Kurdish women faced in state offices, and the Turkish state apparatus‘s repressive and
brutal treatment of Kurdish women in the South-east. Kemalist women, the dominant
group since the 1920s, reconstructed their discourse in reaction to Islamic and Kurdish
women‘s groups. They consistently pointed out the need to uphold Kemalism to
safeguard secularism, the unity of Turkey, and women‘s rights.
On the other hand, the feminist movement believed both Kurdish and Islamic
women groups prioritized causes other than feminist ones. Kurdish women‘s groups
criticized feminists for upholding the official state ideology regarding Kurdish ethnicity,
while Islamic women‘s groups criticized the feminist movement for supporting official
state ideology regarding secularism. The political activities of specific women‘s groups
will be discussed in detail in the separate chapters of this study. The following section
discusses how Turkish feminists‘ have engaged in politics to improve women‘s status and
what their engagements have achieved.

37
Islamic women‘s groups avoided referring to themselves as feminist Islamists mainly due to the fact that
word ―feminism‖ has a negative connation among Islamic groups in particular and in Turkish society in
general. Feminism is equated with the hatred of men, family, and motherhood. Kurdish women‘s groups
tended to identify themselves first as Kurdish rather than as feminist. Similarly, Kemalist women‘s groups
either prioritized their Kemalist identity over feminism or equated Kemalism with feminism by recounting
that women‘s rights reforms took place in the early republican era.
95
2.8.1 Women’s Engagement with Political Parties, National, and
Supranational Governmental Bodies
Although feminists tried to keep their distance from political parties and MPs for
a long time, in the 1990s they realized that engagement in politics was critical for
achieving their goals. In the early 2000s, feminist groups began to work together with
women in political parties and a number of male MPs to amend laws and regulations
regarding women‘s rights. The Association for Supporting Woman Candidates (KA-
DER), which was established in 1997 with the aim of increasing the political
participation and representation of women, emphasizes women‘s political training and
uses lobbying activities to advocate for that goal. It has also been trying to convince the
government to adopt a national quota for women.
In the 2000s, the feminist movement was made up overwhelmingly of women‘s
NGOs.
38
National women‘s NGOs have tended to build relations with international
organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and various international
NGOs, which provide funding, expertise, and networks for development programs
targeting women. The upward trend in women‘s NGOs project-based activism continued
when Turkey was accepted as a candidate state for membership in the European Union
(EU) in 1999.
The EU has focused on the expansion of civil society in Turkey, and has regarded
NGOs as partners in developing projects. At the same time, the EU accession talks urged

38
For a detailed account of women‘s organizations in Turkey, see Esim & Cindoğlu (1999), Yelsali-
Parmaksiz (2003) and Kadıoğlu (2005).
96
governments to finalize legislative changes regarding gender equality. Women‘s NGOs
and activists had organized national and international campaigns and presented their draft
laws to the government. Despite serious opposition from nationalist and conservative
parties, they continued their campaigns during parliamentary discussions.
39
The demands
of feminist groups were finally met with the finalization of two major legal reforms: the
adoption of a new civil code in 2001 and a new penal code in 2004. These legal reforms
granted women a range of rights, from economic independence to sexual freedom,
minimum marriage age, matrimonial property rights, etc. (Ilkkaracan, 2005).
40

In addition to carrying out legal reforms, the Turkish parliament also took a
relatively more active stance in some debates on women‘s problems under the influence
of the EU accession process in the 2000s. However, its stance has failed to meet the
demands of women‘s groups. For example, on October 18, 2005, a parliamentary
investigation commission consisting of 11 MPs was formed to examine the reasons
behind honor killings and violence against women and children as well as to take
necessary measures to prevent them. Building upon the report of the investigation
commission, the Prime Ministry issued a decree outlining official measures that would be
enforced on July 4, 2006. Another demand of the feminists groups from the government
was the establishment of Gender Equality Commission like that exists in other EU
countries.

39
For a more comprehensive analytical discussion on the dynamics of the feminist groups‘ pressure on
Turkish governments by referring to supranational organs such as the European Union and the United
Nations see Aldıkaçtı-Marshall (2009).
40
See Eray (2008) and Ilkkaracan (2005).
97
The parliamentary Women‘s and Men‘s Equal Opportunities Commission
(WMEOC) was established in February 2009. It collects and evaluates petitions for all
kinds of discrimination and violence against women as well as petitions addressing
instances of gender inequalities; it also determines the necessary measures for
overcoming problems affecting mainly women and enforces ministries and state
institutions to adopt of the determined measures. Although the WMEOC had originally
been planned as a Gender Equality Commission, and feminist organization had lobbied
for its establishment for almost a decade, the government changed its name, replacing it
with the WMEOC. Leading feminist Pınar Ilkkaracan (2009) explained that she thought
this name change was problematic ―because ‗equal opportunity‘ does not aim to eliminate
already present inequalities but prescribes ‗equal treatment‘ policies to all sides, it
protects present inequalities.‖
41
At least eight female MPs from various parties
interviewed for this dissertation recounted this episode, not only as a proof of the ruling
party‘s insincerity about gender equality, but also as a perfect example of its conservative
attitudes regarding gender relations. As of 2011, a similar episode was unfolding
regarding the establishment of a Women‘s Ministry, an indication that relations between
the government and feminist NGOs and women‘s groups have turned sour.
This chapter has mapped the historical context in which Kemalist, Islamist, and
Kurdish nationalist movements emerged and it has also outlined the main characteristics
of women‘s political activism in Turkey. The discussion in Chapter 3 provides the

41
Cited in Nigar Goksel, Retrieved from
http://www.todayszaman.com/tzweb/mobile.do?load=wapDetay&link=185775. Accessed 27.5.2010.

98
specifics of how Kurdish women became actively involved in politics in the 1990s. The
chapter will examine the women‘s engagement with Kurdish nationalist movement by
focusing on the conditions and key actors which both influence women as well as the
means and the results of it in terms women‘s political representation. Chapter 4 proceeds
to investigate the case of conservative Muslim women‘s political representation by taking
political developments into account. Chapter 5 examines the Kemalist women‘s political
engagement with a specific emphasis on its relationship with Kurdish and conservative
Muslim women‘s activism. Chapter‘s analysis empirically test the theoretical framework
for factors influencing women‘s representation, by examining how the political
intersectionality, woman‘s organizations within parties and party leaders influence
women‘s representation.

99
Chapter 3. The Political Representation of Kurdish Women

3.1 Introduction
Kurdish women‘s representation increased significantly between 1991 and 2010.
While there were very few female party members and female candidates for elected
office in 1991, by the 2000s, Kurdish women occupied positions of power in the pro-
Kurdish Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP, Democratic Society Party) and its successor
Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi (BDP, Peace and Democracy Party), even the co-chair
position, and held many more public offices in the parliament and local governments, and
more women were placed in the highest places in the election lists.
This chapter attempts to examine the conditions, actors, and mechanisms that
influenced such a change in Kurdish women‘s representation at the upper level of party
organs and in elected offices in the 1990s and the 2000s. Identity-based explanations,
organization-based explanations, and elite-based explanations may help in understanding
this change. More specifically, the chapter will examine extent to which the mobilization
of Kurdish women via their gender and ethnic identities, the efforts of women‘s
organizations, and the stance of Kurdish nationalist leader Abdullah Öcalan have
determined the change in their representation. It will try to explore whether there are
interacting or additional factors influencing the changes.
The chapter begins with an examination of the double oppression that Kurdish
women experienced in the 1980s and the 1990s; then, it outlines women‘s participation in
the Kurdish ethnic nationalist movement as sympathizers, activists, organizers, and even
100
militant members, in which the momentum for the women‘s political activism emerged.
Such an examination is critical to understanding whether Kurdish women‘s mobilization
via their intersecting identities was the driving force behind the recent increase in
women‘s representation. The chapter proceeds to investigate the collective action of
Kurdish women at the civil society level, and then at the party level. The central part of
the chapter examines the specifics of the women‘s inclusion and representation in pro-
Kurdish parties by focusing on the women‘s organizations and party elites‘ attitudes
towards them. The conclusion focuses on how each set of explanations contributes to
explaining the increase in the representation of Kurdish women, which has outpaced that
of both conservative Muslim and Kemalist women since the 1990s.
3.2 The Double Oppression of Kurdish Women in the 1980s
Kurdish women experienced multiple inequalities and discriminations based on
their gender and their ethnicity, which is identified structural intersectionality. Kurdish
women encountered patriarchal customs, systematic economic inequalities, political
violence, and the detrimental effects of living at sites of conflict between the PKK and
the Turkish security forces.
Many Kurdish women suffer from patriarchal customs like Turkish women do, in
some instances more dramatically than Turkish women. For example, domestic violence
has been a significant problem for Kurdish women. Honor killings and suicide among
women are dramatically higher in Kurdish populated regions. (Kurdish Human Rights
Project, 2009). Early marriage and polygamy are also common practices in these regions.
101
Since the great majority of Kurdish women live in the rural areas of the
underdeveloped Southeastern region of Turkey, they have been subjected to the
systematic inequalities resulting from lack of access to education, legal services, and
health services. Worsened by language barriers, low levels of education as well as low
levels of employment outside of their homes among adult women in Southeastern Turkey
leave Kurdish women more vulnerable than other women in Turkey.
The Kurdish population in Turkey was subjected to the repressive policies of
martial law between 1980 and 1987, and state of emergency legislation in force between
1987 and 2002. Although women rarely got involved in armed resistance against the
state, they confronted state violence aiming at repressing any form of opposition. Forms
of state violence against women have included sexual assault, rape, and torture exercised
by state agents such as security forces, police, and village guards. Sometimes, women
were forced to witness the torture or murder of male relatives. Ill treatment of women by
state agents was used as a strategy of demoralizing the Kurdish community.
Some Kurdish women were even further burdened, when their husbands were
imprisoned, exiled, joined the PKK ranks, or died. Cihan Ahmetbeyzade (1999) noted
that women became powerful in peasant communities in the Kurdish populated regions
because of the absence of men. The violent conflict between the PKK and Turkish
military forces produced many internally displaced Kurdish families. Internal
displacements have overwhelmingly affected women and girls who have had to cope with
social, political, cultural, and economic hardships. These many challenges forced women
to be assertive within the family and in their communities.
102
The double oppression experienced between 1981 and the 1990s forms a
substantial part of the narratives of Kurdish women about why they became involved in
the Kurdish nationalist movement, and pro-Kurdish parties. In other words, structural
intersectionality of Kurdish women began to be politically salient during their
engagement with Kurdish nationalist movement. Elected representatives of pro-Kurdish
parties whom I interviewed in the summer of 2009 stated that the state`s violence affected
them. They often recalled their experiences during military rule between 1980 and 1983.
For example, Hafize Ipek, a member of the Municipal Council of Yenisehir, Diyarbakir,
was a university student in the 1980s and was detained for 36 days. ―I was humiliated
because of my gender and my ethnic identity. I was tortured with beating and electric
shocks. I was abused psychologically‖ she said (July 21, 2009).
The issue of double oppression became an ideational basis in framing their
experiences and in legitimizing Kurdish ethnic nationalism. Women portray themselves
not only victims of armed conflict, but also as assertive agents who challenge double
oppression. Kurdish women believed that they would emancipate themselves through
collective action and mass mobilization in the context of the Kurdish nationalist
movement, such that, the Kurdish nation and women would be liberated simultaneously.
Although some women were concerned that the entry into the nationalist movement
might delay women`s claim to their rights, most Kurdish women seemed convinced that
the nationalist movement would result in establishing their rights (Geyik, 1993).
However, in the actual practice and discourse of Kurdish women, the nationalist cause
has usually been given priority over women`s concerns. It is worthwhile investigating
103
how women`s participation into the nationalist movement became vital in their political
activism.
3.3 Women`s Participation into the Kurdish Nationalist
Movement
In Gender and Social Movements (2001), Bahati Kuumba points out that
movements structure and their ideology regarding gender equality influence the scope,
type, and content of women‘s involvement in national liberation movements. Earlier
scholarship on women and political movements (Moghadam, 1994; Yuval-Davis, 1997)
notes that political movements may be categorized on the basis of their attitudes towards
the role of women: the first type of movement uses women as a symbol of liberation and
modernization, while the second type of movement uses women as a symbol of national
culture and tradition. The first type of movement is more likely to allow women into their
armed wings. Scholars agreed that neither the first type nor the second type advances
women`s rights in the post-conflict era. Later scholarship (Bernal, 2001; Hamilton, 2007;
Muller, 2005) has proposed that life cycles of movements differentiate their attitudes
towards the role of women as has happened in the national liberation struggle of Eritrea
and in the radical Basque nationalist movement of Spain. Women`s engagement with
nationalist movements differed on the basis of the cycle of armed activism and the cycle
non-violent activism. Thus, movement‘s gender ideology and women‘s role in the
movements is subject to change.
The Kurdish nationalist movement echoes findings of the later scholarship of
nationalist movements. Kurdish women`s emancipation was framed as the symbol of the
104
emancipation of the people as a whole in the Kurdish nationalist movement‘s first cycle
in the 1990s by encouraging women`s participation in the armed struggle. During its
second cycle in which the discourse of democratic rights of Kurds replaced national
liberation discourse, women‘s role in civil society and political organizations was
emphasized. Since its post-conflict era did not result in national liberation as has
happened in many cases, it is difficult to claim that the Kurdish nationalist movement
belies theories which propose that nationalist movements harm women‘s rights. It is
clear that context matters, and it is notable that women`s inclusion in the Kurdish
nationalist movement transformed gender roles to some extent and enhanced women`s
activism in the movement and within the politics of Turkey in the 2000s.
3.3.1 The Role of Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK in Kurdish Women`s
Political Activism
Leaders of political movements play important roles regarding women`s inclusion
in movements. Leaders may determine the forms of women`s activities. Leaders also
have power and control in manipulating norms, rules, and organizational structures which
either enhance or limit the ability of women to promote their own interests. Often these
leaders are men. When male members of movements may be reluctant to have women in
movement, male leaders may mediate the relationship between female and male
members.
Abdullah Öcalan has been the leader of Kurdish nationalist movement since the
early 1980s. It is important to examine his role in Kurdish women`s participation in
nationalist movements, and then women`s participation in pro-Kurdish party politics. The
105
founder and chairman of the PKK, an outlawed terrorist organization that aimed at
creating independent Kurdish state in the territorial boundaries of Turkey, Öcalan
developed the fundamental ideological basis of the Kurdish nationalist movement and has
been a source of motivation for PKK cadres and Kurdish nationalists in Turkey. As Ali
Kemal Özcan (2007) noted, a considerable proportion of the Kurdish masses and the
whole structure of the PKK have recognized Abdullah Öcalan as a charismatic leader,
who blended Kurdish nationalism with certain Marxist Leninist goals, such as equality
and communal ownership of property. Since the establishment of the PKK, not only has it
fought against the Turkish state, but it has aimed for a social revolution in Kurdish
society in keeping with Marxist Leninist ideals. As the leader and main ideologue of the
PKK, Öcalan pointed to issues of women and family as the most important components
of the party`s social project that would be achieved through a revolution.
42
The project
advocated egalitarian values, even proposing that revolution would be possible not only
through armed struggle, but also through the women`s liberation struggle, called ―double
liberation‖ by Öcalan (Bruinessen, 2001). In addition to developing a discourse
supporting women`s empowerment, Öcalan formulated an anti-family and anti-sex/love

42
The first part of the collections of Öcalan`s writings, verbal lectures, dialogues and interviews was edited
by Selahattin Erdem in 1992 and were titled as Kadın ve Aile Sorunu [Women and Family Problem]. The
book consisted of twelve speeches which Öcalan presented between 1987 and 1992, including speeches
delivered on the eve of Women`s Day of 8 March addresses to women conferences organized by the PKK,
and prepared for the training sections of the PKK. The second book, titled Sosyal Devrim and Yeni Hayat
(Social Revolution and New Life ) was published by Abdullah Öcalan in 2005. It includes twenty-four
works including interviews, speeches, and articles published between 1992 and 1998 which address the role
of women`s liberation in the national liberation of Kurdish population. The content of articles in each
volume is similar, centering on what he calls the ―women problem in Kurdish society and its influences on
the PKK‖.
106
discourse
43
. These two discourses were very strategic, because family ties and concerns
of militants about their families hampered PKK recruitment and demoralized existing
cadres. The PKK wanted to end other, individual loyalties that might distract militants‘
attention from fighting (Erdem 1992, p. 67). The anti-sex/love discourse aimed at
assuring Kurdish families that female militants in the PKK were in a ‗secure
environment,‘ implying that the PKK would be responsible to protecting their honor
(Marcus, 2007). It was also known that many militant members left the PKK due to the
marriage ban, sexual restraints, and lack of social life.
Many Kurdish nationalists pointed to Öcalan as the main supporter of Kurdish
women‘s activism. They also regarded the entry of women into the PKK as a turning
point for women`s political activism. His ideas about gender equality have been widely
circulated among Kurdish nationalists through various channels, including his published
books, his articles published in pro-Kurdish journals, political gatherings, training
programs within the PKK, and broadcasting on Med TV and Roj TV which are pro-
Kurdish TV channels broadcasting in Europe.
Kurdish women began to join the PKK in the 1990s. The recruitment of women
strengthened the PKK through increasing the number of militants and varying PKK`s

43
Love and sexual relations were subjects of much concern to Ocalan. He argued that male and female
militants who joined the PKK tended to live unbalanced relationships because of the influence of traditional
Kurdish family values. So, there had to be limited relations between the sexes until the achievement of
double liberation. There could be no time and energy for sex and love affairs in the war situation in which
the Kurdish nation found itself. Development of the social and individual lives of the Kurdish people would
be possible only after the end of armed struggle. For those seeking love, Ocalan (2005) suggested that
―politics is love, organization (refers to the PKK) is love, propaganda is love, and militarization is love.‖
Sexual contact was reason to be arrested and put on trial, resulting sometimes in the penalty of death. There
were of course rumors of exceptions particularly those involving high commanders and Ocalan (See N.
Buldan, 2004).
107
armed strategies (Çaglayan, 2007). Women accounted for one thirds of all PKK armed
militants in the 1990s. Some women worked in various front organizations of the PKK
such as the ERNK (the Kurdistan People`s Liberation Front), the PKK`s political
network, and the Kurdish Parliament in Exile military activities, while others took part in
armed struggle. Women in the front organizations commonly worked in European
countries and urban centers in Turkey such as Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Mersin, and
Diyarbakır. They carried on propaganda and intelligence activities, organized street
demonstrations, and provided media and logistical support (Buldan, 2004; Özcan 2007).
Some women militants directly became involved in armed struggle. As for their
involvement in armed struggle, Ali Kemal Özcan (2007) observed, female militants often
have better access to certain targets, such as police control points, public gatherings, and
parades. Women launched suicide attacks more easily than men. During the 1990s, the
PKK launched 15 suicide attacks, 11 of them by women.
It is crucial to examine whether women`s militancy led to women`s empowerment
in the Kurdish society or not. The entry of women in the armed struggle also raises
questions of to what extent women`s militancy has influenced gender relations in Kurdish
society and the Kurdish women`s political activities. It appears that women`s militancy
in the PKK strongly affects Kurdish women and gender relations in the Kurdish
nationalist movement, challenging some patriarchal practices. In one of my unofficial
meetings with Kurdish activists in Diyarbakir, one activist told me that ―After Kurdish
peasants first saw female guerrillas in their villages, they began to believe that if women
could live in the mountains as militants, they could play any role in a society. This was a
108
kind of turning point for us‖ (July 12, 2009). A woman who was the Kurdish mayor of a
town said that
Kurdish female guerrillas proved that women are capable of doing everything as
men; they struggled against living conditions in the mountains, male comrades,
and the system [the Turkish state and security forces]. These women gave us
confidence and a legacy to build on (July 14, 2009).

A Kurdish female member of a municipal council also said, ―I got involved in the
Kurdish nationalist movement because I owe those who died for the Kurdish cause a lot.
They sacrificed themselves for Kurdish nation‖ (July 20, 2009).
Women militants are highly respected by Kurdish nationalists, both women and
men. Those who died in the struggle against the Turkish state have become national
heroes. In Diyarbakır and Batman in 2009, I observed pictures of female militants on the
walls of pro-Kurdish NGOs and also displayed in street protests organized by women
political activists. An activist who is working in a pro-Kurdish NGO, members of city
councils in Diyarbakır, and also town mayors spoke of well known female militants such
as Beritan (Gülnaz Karataş) who allegedly threw herself over a cliff in order to escape
when her PKK unit had been surrounded by the Turkish security forces in 1992 and Zilan
(Zeynep Kınacı) who carried out a suicide attack against a Turkish military parade in
1996, claiming the lives of ten Turkish soldiers.
The presence of women militants, the organizational structure, and the ideology
of the PKK supporting the struggle for women`s freedom have been widely discussed in
Kurdish women`s journals. Informed by their discussions and my own research, I
propose that the militancy of women in the PKK led to the extraordinarily rapid political
socialization of Kurdish women in Turkey broadly. The women developed self-
109
confidence and built women`s solidarity through their participation in fighting in the
armed struggle, resulting in empowerment. Their experience has influenced perceptions
about women and gender relations in Kurdish society.
3.3.2 Collective Action and Political Mobilization of Kurdish Women in the
1990s
In the early 1990s, the Kurdish nationalist movement widely organized public
events such as marches, sit-ins, and writing petitioning to protest the Turkish state as well
as to show the mobilization capacity of the movement despite the state`s repressive
policies. Women played substantial roles in these activities. One group of Kurdish
women, mothers and wives of imprisoned Kurdish men, became advocating on behalf of
their imprisoned family members, particularly visible in the early 1990s. These activities
contributed to a building of a collective identity on the basis of simultaneously
emphasizing their gender and their Kurdish identity. A review of Özgür Gündem
[Independent Agenda], a pro-Kurdish newspaper, between 1989 and 1993, shows that the
term ―Kurdish women‖ began to be used in 1993, although there was much news about
women before. This turn was indicating that Kurdish women began to be perceived as a
group since then.
Organizing women around the traditional gender roles of wife and mother has
been common during civil wars and the revolutionary movements across the world since
the 1960s particularly those in Latin America.
44
Private searches for justice on behalf of

44
Prominent examples are the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in
Argentina; Association of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared in Chile, in 1975; the Committee of
110
disappeared/abducted/imprisoned/tortured sons, daughters, and husbands gradually
evolved into collective public and political demands for peace and democracy (Baldez,
2002; Dandavatti, 2005; Dore 1997; Shayne, 2004; Bonner, 2007). Women assumed that
their status as wives and mothers would protect them from violence, and that they had
nothing to lose. Later, in many cases, the women cooperated with human rights
organizations.
Marches, sit-ins, protests, hunger strikes, petitioning international organizations
for help, appealing to the international community to intervene on behalf of the regime`s
victims and calling for international investigation were used as methods to defend the
rights of prisoners. Demands were usually framed in terms of human rights, peace, and
democracy. Building on Chile`s example, Lisa Baldez (2002) observed that female
activists did not initially frame their activism in gendered terms. Despite their
predominance in human rights organizations, only later did they identify themselves with
the women`s movements. Drawing from the examples of Mothers and Grandmothers of
the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, Michelle Bonner (2007) considered gender was central
in these organizations, in their framing of demands for human rights, distinguishing them
from other human rights organizations. Examining the same women`s organization in

the Mothers of the Disappeared and Assassinated of El Salvador. In all these groups, women came together
to support political prisoners and their families, find their children and grandchildren who had abducted by
agents government, and locate the disappeared. Aiming to mobilize in defense of human rights in Chile,
women established the Association of Democratic Women in 1973. Similarly, the Committee of the
Mothers of the Disappeared and Assassinated of El Salvador, known as COMADRES, founded by women
to aid the victims and families of victims of disappearances and murders during the Civil War in El
Salvador . The Mother`s Front in Sri Lanka was formed in 1984 to protest the disappearances of family
members. The Tiananmen Mothers is also a group of activists who aimed to protest Chinese government
suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
111
Argentina, Marguerite Bouvard (1994) proposed that these organizations built up ―an
alternative model of political action‖ out of grassroots efforts. (p. 15).
Motherhood has been strongly emphasized in the Kurdish nationalist movement
since the early 1990s. News about Üveys Öcalan, the mother of Abdullah Öcalan, in the
pro-Kurdish media in May 1993 indicated that motherhood would play a role in the
construction of Kurdish identity. A review of pro-Kurdish journal Özgür Gündem shows
that news about mothers, particularly mothers of imprisoned Kurdish militants, of
members of the PKK, and of PKK sympathizers killed by Turkish paramilitary state
forces dominated news about women in the newspaper throughout 1990s. Özgür
Gündem published interviews with mothers whose children were members of the PKK,
pointing out that the mothers were proud of their children`s joining the PKK, usually
framing them as ―martyrs‖ who sacrificed themselves for Kurdish national independence.
It appears that the mothers advocated peace, not revenge. One of them, Zeynep, observed
that the PKK had changed traditional Kurdish values regarding to gender relations. She
said,
In the past, women were not allowed to talk to men who were not family
members. Now, men and women are equal. These attitudes are gradually
changing through the influence of the PKK. Kurdish women become politicized.
We began to struggle along with Kurdish men (Özgür Gündem, October, 1993,
the last page (no page # provided)).

Mothers often protested that prison administrators impeded their visits and banned
speaking Kurdish during visits, even though Kurdish was the only language many
mothers were able to speak (Özgür Gündem, March 17, 1994). Mothers used sit-ins,
hunger strikes, and petitioning as strategies of protest. Pro-Kurdish political parties
112
explicitly recognized these mothers in 1993. For instance, in its Istanbul meeting on May
15, 1993, the pro-Kurdish People‘s Labor Party (HEP) awarded commemorative plaques
to the mothers of members of the PKK. Calling for urgent collective active, the pro-
Kurdish political party the HEP organized meetings aimed at mobilizing the mothers
(Ozgür Gundem, May 15, 1993, p.1.).

i. An example of women’s collective action and mobilization Kurdish
mothers’ organizations
Organized Kurdish mothers groups have been visible on the streets of Turkey
under the names of Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri) and Mothers of Peace (Barış
Anneleri) in the mid-1990s. They wanted to voice their demands to the media and
government through press releases and demonstration. (Aslan, 2009)
Saturday Mothers, a non-partisan group, organized in order to demand
information from the Turkish state about their disappeared family members. Between
1995 and 1999, the Saturday Mothers held protests every Saturday, usually by sitting
silently on Istiklal Street, a crowded street in Istanbul, holding placards, and issuing press
releases. The number of participants increased from some thirty to a hundred over time.
The state did not consider these protesters a threat until they began to gain increasingly
broad support from both domestic and international audiences (Baydar & Ivegen, 2006).
The Saturday Mothers stopped their sit-ins in 1999 due to increasing governmental
claims that they were acting on behalf of the PKK.
In 1996, some Kurdish mothers whose sons had died in the armed struggle
between the PKK and Turkish security forces, established the Mothers of Peace. In 2009,
113
there were thirty mothers who were active participants in the organized activities.
Mothers of Peace aimed to join all mothers who had lost their children, usually their sons,
to urge peace and to act as interlocutors between the Turkish state and the PKK in
possible peace negotiations.
45
In summer 2009, a Kurdish women activist who works for
the Diyarbakır branch of the Mothers of Peace, told me that, ―the real victim of the
Kurdish struggle are the mothers, they have severe grievances.‖
Although motherhood has been the main force behind the activities of the
Mothers of Peace, women rights are also included in their goals. A pamphlet of Mothers
of Peace says that their goal is also to ―stop any kind of unequal treatment of women,
massacre of women, any kind of violence including sexual harassment and rape‖ (see
Barış, p.15). However, the goals relating to women`s rights are rarely raised as demands
in their activities. Although they believe in women`s increasing role in peace building,
they have pointed out the need for collective organized action based mainly on Kurdish
identity.
Mothers of Peace has cooperated with women`s networks in Europe including
Donne Futuro of Italy, and the Free Women Foundation of the Netherlands. Activities of
the Mothers of Peace have included organizing marches in 1999, issuing press releases,
protesting the Turkish state`s human rights violations of the Kurdish people, organizing

45
Since it was assumed that their status as mothers would protect them, the Mothers of Peace attempted
activities which are quite radical in the political context of Turkey. For instance, five members of the
Mothers of Peace visited the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq in 2000 in order to talk to Iraqi Kurdish
leaders such as Masud Barzani and Jelal Talabani. When they returned to Turkey, the women were arrested
and verbally harassed in police custody (Kadının Sesi, 2000). They were released after Amnesty
International took up their case. In another protest activity, sixteen women were arrested during ten weeks
of sit-ins in Istanbul in 2007 (Evrensel, May 10, 2007).
114
talks and sit-ins, meeting with politicians and members of civil society organizations in
Turkey and in Europe, and publishing a journal called Peace. Kurdish mothers wanted to
highlight their Kurdishness publicly in order to get national and international media
attention similar to other Kurdish activists. As Eder (2003) points out, the logic of ethnic
mobilizations includes the dependency of mobilization to a public communication. She
notes that ―identities have to be enacted in publicly visible rituals in order to be
consequential‖ during the ethnic mobilization (p. 66). Mothers of Peace exemplifies the
manifestation of public visible rituals. While journalists such as Fatih Çekirge have
claimed that these mothers have been used by the PKK for its own political ends, the
scholar Gözde Orhan (2009) has argued that these women have their own agency and
organized on the basis of collective identity. She also claims that the media`s framing of
these mothers as manipulated subjects reflected a patriarchal mindset which considers
motherhood a passive condition. Another scholar, Özlem Aslan (2007) has argued that
the reaction against Mothers of Peace illustrated the militaristic perspective of the
Turkish public, which associates motherhood ―with the activity of raising proper Turkish
subjects who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the unity of their nation and country ‖
(p. iii). Mothers of Peace are usually mothers of PKK militants and supporters who have
lost their lives in the conflict between the Turkish security forces and the PKK, thus,
these mothers are ―excluded from the category of motherhood in Turkey‖ (p. iii).
While the women of Mothers of Peace have their own agency in organizing
activities, it seems that the PKK leader, Öcalan`s advice substantially influenced their
activism. For example, he wrote in the pro-Kurdish nationalist women journal Kadının
115
Sesi (Woman‘s Voice) ―Kurdish women and the Mothers of Peace should continue on
playing their roles for the Kurdish cause. They should get involved in every realm of life‖
(2001, p. 6). In almost every action, the women voiced the demand that Abdullah
Öcalan, whom they have explicitly identified as the leader of the Kurdish population, be
released (see Baris, p.14). One member of Mothers of Peace told me that
Abdullah Öcalan is the real addressee of the Kurdish question. He has been
imprisoned for twelve years, although he is not guilty. Everything [every protest]
is for him; otherwise these activities mean nothing (July 21, 2009).

Mother`s organizations have been one of the emerging civil society organizations
established by nationalist Kurdish women, an instance of Kurdish women strategically
using every opportunity to organize on the basis of gender to support the Kurdish
nationalist movement. In 2003, these civil society organizations were organized under an
umbrella structure, the Democratic Free Women`s Movement, which will be discussed
after examining the initial inclusion of Kurdish women in pro-Kurdish parties in the
1990s.
3.4 Kurdish Women’s Participation and Representation between
1990 and 2010
It is widely assumed that political parties are avenues for political participation,
mobilization, and representation of citizens. They reflect particular visions of citizens and
their role in legislatures when elected. Political parties are defined as gatekeepers
between civil society and the state. They are considered fundamental institutions of both
116
democratic and authoritarian political system. Since they shape the political sphere, they
can also contribute to democratic consolidation (Macaulay, 2006).
Women`s connections with political parties reflect the relationship between
gender and politics. Fiona Macaulay (2006) defines political parties as both gendered
and gendering institutions. They are gendered institutions because their internal culture
and practices reflect the gender ideology of their members and leaders. They are
gendering institutions because they shape women`s political agency as well as gender
relations through electoral campaigns, party policies, and activities. Analyzing party
programs, organizational practices, and cultures of parties as well as women`s relations to
the parties may provide some insights about the parties‘s stance on gender.
Party programs (i.e. manifestos) are written platforms stating a party‘s positions,
issue emphases, and suggested policy agendas. Programs reflect not only a party‘s stance
on issues but also its identity, as party identity often shapes the relative emphases across a
range of issues, their content, and their framing. A party may change both its issue
positions and issue emphases due to the emergence of novel concerns. A party program
differs from an electoral program, which is a written statement of policies for a given
period. An election program (electoral manifesto) constitutes plans and promises which
will be employed when the party comes into power. Party programs aim at conveying
party‘s message to external audiences such as prospective voters and media, while
election programs aim at conveying party‘s message to both external audiences and to the
internal audiences such as the party‘s members, supporters and elected representatives.
117
References to women, gender equality, and women`s rights have increased in
Kurdish party programs as observed in other political parties in Turkey since the 1990s.
Zehra Arat proposes that an emphasis on women`s issues has became more visible due to
the influence of the women`s movement (Arat, 2008). However, the emphasis has been
much more explicit in the pro-Kurdish parties, and there have been serious institutional
developments differentiating them from other parties in Turkey.
Moreover, Kurdish women have been able to express political voice as members,
leaders, and elected representatives of pro-Kurdish political parties since 1991. Their
political voice became dramatically strong in the 2000s. The increase in women`s
activism in party politics was influenced by the bond of a common Kurdish identity
derived from shared life experience, discourses, and practices of association. As
Macaulay (2006) observes in Latin America, party ideologies, historical trajectories,
organizational practices, and cultures have affected women`s participation and
representation in parties. This raises questions about which mechanisms led to the
empowerment of women in the Kurdish ethnic-nationalist parties. How did their
involvement evolve? How did women`s activism in parties result in more representation
at the party, national, and local levels?
In this section, I examine relevance of these factors to Kurdish women`s
involvement in party politics. I also address how women have negotiated their roles
within parties over time. Before moving to this question, it is worthwhile to focus on
Leyla Zana, the first female parliamentary representative of a pro-Kurdish party, whose
118
experience characterizes Kurdish women`s move from movement participation to
electoral participation.
3.4.1 Emergence of the First Kurdish Women MP: The Case of Leyla Zana
Leyla Zana
46
, of the Halkın Emek Partisi (HEP) and its successor Demokrasi
Partisi (DEP), which both were outlawed by Turkish Constitutional Court respectively in
1993 and 1994, has been the most famous pro-Kurdish member of the Turkish
parliament since 1991. She is the Kurdish woman most referred to in studies focusing on
Kurdish politics (Akyol 2006; Barkey & Fuller, 2008; McDonald & O‘Leary, 2007).
It is worthwhile investigating how Leyla Zana, as a Kurdish woman, became a
political actor in Turkish politics, and a promoter of international attention to Kurdish
ethno-nationalist politics: both a leader and a symbol of Kurdish nationalism. Çaglayan
(2007) and Yalçın-Heckman and Gelder (2000) point out that Zana‘s life has been
identified with Kurdish women`s sufferings and their struggle. An examination of her
political experience can provide insights in the evolution, not only of her political career,
but into the dynamics of Kurdish women`s political activism, both in the Kurdish
nationalist movement and in pro-Kurdish parties in the 1990s and 2000s.
Although Zana`s political socialization began through the influence of her
husband Mehdi Zana, her political vision outgrew his, and he began to be recognized as
the husband of Leyla Zana. After her husband was arrested and imprisoned in 1980 for

46
Leyla (her family name could not be found) was born in 1961 in the small village of Diyarbakir in the
southeastern Turkey as the second child in a traditional Kurdish family. At age of fifteen, she married
Mehdi Zana, who was active in Kurdish politics and who was elected mayor of Diyarbakir in 1977.
119
his Kurdish nationalist activities, Leyla Zana became involved with a group of Kurdish
women trying to visit and support Kurdish prisoners, eventually becoming their
spokesperson and leader.
47
At Zana`s suggestion, some women organized protests,
including a hunger strike in front of the Diyarbakır prison, to protest poor physical
conditions in the prison and also to protest the ban on speaking Kurdish during visiting
hours (Bildirici, 2008). While the hunger strike helped to improve prison conditions,
Zana herself was arrested, imprisoned for two months, and severely tortured for inciting
the protest (Bildirici, 2008). Following her release, she worked for the Diyarbakir Branch
of the Human Rights Association, which was founded and run by Kurdish nationalists
aiming to publicize the overwhelming numbers of human rights violations against
Kurdish people between 1988 and 1989. She was both a correspondent and editor of the
pro-Kurdish Diyarbakir based Yeni Ülke (New Country) newspaper targeting Kurdish
readers in 1990.
Leyla Zana was placed a high position on the candidate list of the People`s Labor
Party (HEP) in 1991 national elections at the insistence of the party, which believed there
should be a woman on its nomination list, probably to prove its progressive stand on
women`s emancipation (Bildirici, 2008). Bildirici attributed Zana`s selection to her
activism in the pro-Kurdish Human Rights Association and the newspaper, Yeni Ülke.
Zana`s first speech to her constituency in Diyarbakir reflected her status as both a woman

47
In 1988, she temporarily joined a leftist women`s association called the Association for Solidarity among Families of
Imprisoned People, and visited the Turkish Parliament to seek justice for imprisoned relatives. This was a turning point
for both Zana and families of Kurdish prisoners. They realized that, because of their Kurdish identity, they would have
to act independently instead of cooperating with Turkish leftist or women`s groups, because leftist groups did not pay
attention their demands about speaking in Kurdish during prison visits.
120
and a Kurd: ―I am a Kurdish woman. I stand for the rights of the Kurdish nation. I will
fight for the Kurdish cause. I became a candidate because of this cause‖ (Bildirici, 2008,
p. 105). A review of her election speeches shows that she emphasized the Kurdish and
women causes equally.
In October 1991, she became the first Kurdish woman ever elected to the Turkish
parliament, receiving 84 percent of the votes in her district in Diyarbakir, one of eight
women among the 450 members of the Turkish Parliament at that time. Her oath of
allegiance became a serious issue when she entered the Parliament. She wore a hair band
in yellow, green, and red, colors associated with the Kurdish flag, and she added a
sentence to the official oath, pronouncing it in the Kurdish language: ―I take this oath for
the brotherhood between the Turkish people and the Kurdish people.‖ It was the first time
in the history of the Republic of Turkey that any parliamentarian had spoken in Kurdish
in the parliament, it sparked a huge public outcry among Turks and celebrations among
the Kurdish nationalists (Barkey & Fuller, 2008). According to the July 30, 1992 edition
of Özgür Gündem and Bildirici`s 2008 bibliographic study of Zana, harassment of her
increased after the oath incident. After that, she engaged in activities in Diyarbakir
protesting state violence towards the Kurdish people instead of focusing on parliamentary
activities. She was frequently and consistently threatened and twice was a target of a
death squad; the same death squad attacked other Kurdish nationalist activists and
politicians in 1993 (Laizer, 1996; Zana, 1995).
In March 1994, the Turkish parliament banned Zana`s political party, the DEP.
She and her colleagues were stripped of their immunity from prosecution, were arrested
121
on charges of separatism and illegal activities and she was sentenced to fifteen years.
Thanks to the international campaigns and Turkey`s bid for membership in the European
Union, she was released after having spent ten years in prison. Zana felt strongly that she
had been singled out for punishment because of her gender. At her state Security Court
trial on March 28, 2003, she said, ―They always first attack women in order to end public
opposition. Although we are not separatists, we were called separatists‖ (Bildirici, 2008,
p. 288).
Zana committed herself to attract international attention by speaking to Western
media, leaders, and international organizations.
48
She invited international media and
foreign observers from international human rights organizations, and guided them during
their visits to destroyed Kurdish villages and families suffering from state repression.
Zana continued her diplomatic efforts through her writings and visits with Western
politicians and human rights activists.
49

Although she identified herself as a feminist (Zana, 1999), she was primarily
concerned with the national and international recognition of Kurdish issues. Helena
Karlsson (2003) argued that Zana`s feminist cause disappears in the Kurdish cause.
Zana`s own book and Bildirici`s 2008 biography of Zana show that the women`s cause

48
She visited and gave talks in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Northern Iraq in 1992; the U.S.
and Canada in 1993; in France and Belgium in 1994. Zana was invited to give a speech with her colleague
Ahmet Turk to the U.S Congress in May, 1993. Since the speech was the first connection between the pro-
Kurdish nationalist party and the U.S. government, the visit was considered quite important.
49
In Writings from Prison (1999), she collected six articles, three messages, - one of these messages was
sent to the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995--and ten letters which were intended to attract
the attention of the international human rights community and to urge them to pressure the Turkish state to
peacefully resolve the Kurdish conflict. She strongly emphasizes peace and democracy in her writings. Her
articles and trial notes in the book mainly focus on human rights violations in Turkey.
122
and the Kurdish cause often intertwined in her political activities. Zana considered
national liberation the right path for Kurdish women`s liberation. A quotation from her
book reflects this line of thinking:
Only fourteen years ago Leyla Zana was an ordinary young peasant girl whose
world was limited to the search for a little domestic happiness. The events that
followed the coup d‘etat [in 1980] and the barbarities she suffered made her an
activist with a will of steel. If you burn her or hang her, there will be millions of
Kurdish women, and tens of thousands of Leyla Zana(s) will rise up before you to
carry on the struggle (p. 14).

According to male activists in the Kurdish nationalist movement, her
imprisonment and her efforts to engage with women abroad drew international
recognition to her and to the Kurdish cause in the 1990s and 2000s, embarrassing Turkish
leaders (Barkey & Fuller, 2008). However, her international popularity also embarrassed
the PKK and Abdullah Öcalan, who had strongly supported her before 1999 (Bildirici,
2008; Tekin, 1999). Öcalan`s discomfort stemmed from the fact that, given her charisma
and her position in forces of peace, many Kurds and European politicians were eager to
see her as the leader Kurdish nationalist movement.
Zana`s case was taken up by the European Parliament, the Organization of
Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, the United Kingdom Parliamentary Human Rights
Group, The Inter-Parliamentary Union, Amnesty International, and Human Rights
Watch. Delegations from these organizations attended her trial hearings. In September
1998, the European Parliament appealed to the Turkish state for her release. She was
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 and in 1998 and received the 1995
123
Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament.
50
Since 1999, she has strongly supported
Turkey`s bid to enter the EU. In July 2001, the European Court of Human Rights ruled
that Zana and a dozen other Kurdish MPs had not received a fair and independent trial.
Accordingly, on June 9, 2004 Turkey's Appeal Court decided to release her.
Zana`s experience was not unique. Female family members of imprisoned
Kurdish men who were arrested and tortured in the 1980s played a significant role in the
political socialization of Kurdish women and in their embracing of Kurdish nationalist
ideology (Yalçın-Heckman & Van Gelder, 2000). While these women family members
were initially considered victims of state violence, later they became political actors.
Their experiences in confronting the state apparatus resulted in the construction of a
collective identity leading them to organize activities in protest of state policies toward
imprisoned Kurdish men. These protesting Kurdish mothers, sisters, and wives became
the public face of all Kurdish women, a public image of women who were politicized
(Yalçın-Heckman & Gelder, 2000).
Woman leaders and founders of new Kurdish civic social organizations emerged
out of women`s mobilization on the basis of being wives and mothers. Kurdish ethnic-
nationalist parties began to show eagerness to provide opportunities for women in party
politics. Zana‘s case indicated that, as observed in South Asia in the post-independence
period and a Latin America in the post-revolutionary period respectively, many women
leaders become involved in politics through nationalist and revolutionary movements.

50
She was given numerous peace awards including: the Raftos Prize for Human rights from Norway
(1994); the Bruno Kreisky Peace Prize from Austria (1995) ; the Aix-la-Chapelle International Prize from
Germany (1995); the Rose Prize from Denmark (1996) and; the Woman of the Year Prize from Italy
(1998).

124
Zana`s case also indicated that women might have attracted more support from the
international community than men, resulting in an increased valuing of women by
political parties representing minorities or marginalized communities in a country. Since
Zana`s initial position as an elected officer, pro-Kurdish parties have focused on
women`s electoral participation and their political representation. In the next section, I
examine the pro-Kurdish party`s inclusion of women by highlighting parties programs
women`s activisms, institutions designs in these parties, and interaction between Kurdish
women pro-Kurdish parties over time.
3.5 Women`s Political Participation and Representation in the
Pro-Kurdish Parties in the 1990s
Leyla Zana remained the only woman elected the Labor Party (HEP) in the 1991
national elections that 54 women out of 500 total candidates were placed in unwinnable
positions on the HEP‘s candidate lists. However, party candidate selectors tended to
choose female candidates from affluent, prestigious Kurdish families in order to assure
Kurdish families support (Baran & Kayhan,1997).
The HEP and its successor DEP failed to develop concrete party policies
regarding women rights and gender equality (Çaglayan, 2007). In the HEP`s party
program, written in 1992, women rights were framed as a component of social policies.
The HEP`s party program stated,
The education system which disregards the equality of men and women and
excludes women from social life will be eliminated. The legal rules advocating
gender discrimination will be eliminated as well. Economic, social, cultural, and
legal provisions will be made to ensure gender equality (1992 HEP`s party
program, cited and translated from Çaglayan, 2007, p. 130).
125

In the party program of the DEP, which was active between 1993 and 1994, gender
inequality was introduced under the category of human rights violations and of anti-
democratic practices. The DEP promised to
…regulate legislation to ensure gender equality and the participation of women in
social life; to eliminate ideological and social impediments to gender equality; to
provide legislation for women in the labor force to eliminate exploitation, and to
support women`s roles as mothers which is women`s social and a natural duty
(1992 HEP‘s party program, cited and translated from Çaglayan, 2007, pp. 130-
31).

Just as party programs are important indicators of their treatment of women,
organizational structures play a significant role in the inclusion of women in parties.
Women`s branches and commissions are common structures organizing women`s
activism. The HEP and the DEP formed women commissions, but they were inactive, and
there is almost no information about the characteristics and activities of these
commissions. Baran and Kayhan`s 1997 study noted that female party members were
usually young, single women who worked hard in the election campaigns in recruiting
votes.
Dramatic underrepresentation of women in many parties in Turkey, despite
women`s activism in garnering votes, was an ongoing problem in the 1990s. There was
almost no discussion about the gender quotas among Turkish feminists who began to be
active at that time. Like other women, Kurdish women believed that traditional gender
roles and patriarchal social values were responsible for their low level of representation
(Ak, 1999; Baran & Kayhan, 1997; Geyik, 1993). However, Kurdish feminists publishing
126
women`s journals such as Roza (Day) and Jiyan (Life) questioned the issue of women`s
underrepresentation in Kurdish parties, advocating the introduction of anti-discrimination
measures and gender quotas.
51
These discussions among Kurdish feminists went on
throughout the 1990s. The limited discussion of Kurdish feminists about quotas did
convince either the HEP or the DEP. Pro-Kurdish parties waited until 1999, when the
Halkın Demokrasi Partisi (HADEP) adopted the first voluntary quota in Turkey. During
the HADEP`s period, women made significant political advantages.
Out of the thirty founders of the HADEP in 1994, only one was a woman. Thanks
to women`s mobilization capacity, however, they constituted substantial crowds in party
campaign meetings in election periods. Party program, prepared in 1994, copied its
predecessor DEP regarding women`s rights. The only addition was the statement that
―The party aims to pursue educational activities which will change deeply rooted
patriarchal social attitudes towards women‖ (HADEP program, n.d).
However, in contrast to its predecessor parties, the HADEP introduced
institutional forms to enhance Kurdish women`s involvement. For the first time, a
women`s conference was organized by a Kurdish political party which addressed the
need to organize women and the growing role of women in successive pro-Kurdish
parties. In 1997, women`s branches replaced the nascent women`s commissions which
formed earlier by the DEP and the HEP. These branches, together with the youth
branches became autonomous in HADEP`s 2000 Annual Convention. So, they were able

51
For example, the Kurdish feminist journal Roza made news in 1995 by addressing the issue. Zelal
(pseudo name), the columnist of Jiyan also discussed the issue in her page published in 1997.
127
to take decisions and organize activities without the control of the party‘s central decision
making organs.
In the 1999 national election, the HADEP applied a twenty percent gender quota
mandating that women candidates be placed in electable positions on the candidate lists.
Ayşe Gökkan, the mayor of Nusaybin, Mardin province, said that many party members
reacted strongly when women were placed in the highest slots on the candidate lists in
some provinces. In Turkey`s proportional representational election system, a party must
receive a minimum ten percent of the votes to hold seats in the parliament. This 10%
election threshold resulted in HADEP`s loss in the 1999 national election, although it
garnered substantial votes in the Kurdish populated region. In fact, the presence of
women in the highest ranks of the HADEP`s candidate lists was considered the reason for
the party`s failure by the males elites of the part (A. Gökkan, personal communication,
July 13, 2009). Nevertheless, in local elections held in the same year, four female
candidates of the HADEP were elected as mayors of municipalities.
52

As a result of women‘s lobbying efforts and the support of Öcalan, women of the
HADEP were able to have anti- discrimination measures and a twenty-five percent
voluntary party quota of women accepted at the party`s 2000 Annual Convention
(Çaglayan, 2007). It was the first political party in Turkey which introduced a voluntary
women`s quota, but the voluntary quota has been adopted by successor Kurdish ethnic-
nationalist parties. The quota became a window of opportunity for Kurdish women,

52
These were Ayse Karadag (Derik, Mardin), Cihan Sincar whose parliamentarian husband was killed
during his parliamentary tenure, Ferrah Diba Ergin (Diyadin), Mukaddes Kubilay (Dogubeyazıd).
128
resulting in the institutionalization of their role in political parties. However, women`s
empowerment and their demands for power sharing caused tensions in the party. Male
party members even accused women politicians of not trusting their male counterparts.
Time to time, activities in the women`s branches were temporarily ended by the party`s
central structure that was still heavily dominated by men.
Meanwhile, women`s branches gave women an opportunity to get used to party
politics. For example, women leaders such as Fatma Kurtulan and Sabahat Tuncel, who
became deputies in 2007, and Leyla Güven and Çaglar Demirel, who were elected as
mayors in 2009, had trained in the HADEP`s women`s branches. These political figures
could be defined as Belinda Robnett`s ―bridge leaders‖ which refers to second-tier
leaders becoming the foundation of movement recruitment, mobilization, and sustenance
(1997). The female constituency strongly supported these bridge leaders and helped to
elect them. Thus, female elite cadres who would advocate inclusion of more women into
party politics flourished in the HADEP.
As well as institutional designs, women`s multiple motivations owing to their
ethnicity and gender encouraged more women to become involved in party politics.
Interviews with six female parliamentary and local candidates whom HADEP fielded in
the 1999 national and local elections revealed that female candidates strongly emphasized
their Kurdish identity by asking for ethnic recognition. For example, a candidate fielded
for a mayoral position in Izmir province said, ―We are different with regards to our
identity, our perspective, and our lifestyle‖ (Berivan, 1997, p. 37). Candidates also
acknowledged women`s concerns as motivating them politically. A parliamentary
129
candidate from Istanbul province pointed out hegemonic attitudes of male party members
towards female party members which required women to stand out more forcefully and
be more assertive in their demands. Another parliamentary candidate from Istanbul
province who had worked in managerial positions in the HEP, the DEP, and HADEP
stated, ―Women have to be in decision-making positions. I built self-esteem through my
activities, and then I decided to run for office‖ (Berivan, 1997, p. 40).
Expectations of Kurdish political parties regarding the role of women politicians
also reflected the political intersectionality of the Kurdish women`s experience. Women
were expected to address two social action agendas: the agenda of the Kurdish nationalist
movement and the agenda of women`s rights. It was felt that women could bring a new
voice to politics by encouraging a more feminine kind of political discussion and service
because, presumably, women`s perspectives differ from those of men in approaching
social and political issues.
53
(corporate authors in Kadının Sesi [Women`s Voice] 2000)
Women used gender inclusive advantage of their political intersectionality which
provides them more opportunities than male counterparts in contacting with voters.
Women easily reached the Kurdish women who had grievances, either about state
repression or patriarchal gender values owing to gender and Kurdish identities (corporate
authors in Kadının Sesi, October 2000, p. 21; Özgür Kadının Sesi [Free Women`s Voice],
February 2002, p.31). The HADEP`s women`s branch was expected to work for
consciousness raising activities which might challenge patriarchal gender values in

53
My informants noted that anonymous articles of the pro-Kurdish journals were written by Abdullah
Ocalan, or were selected from his former writings.
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communities through building collaborations with the women`s branches of other parties.
It was expected that multiple identity advantage would better position them to build
cross-group coalitions. However, consensus building among politically active women,
even about women`s rights, has never been achieved.
3.5.1 Party affiliated Kurdish Women’s organizations: the experience of the
Democratic Free Women Movement
Kurdish women emphasized coalition building among Kurdish women`s civic
associations and women in the party, and women‘s holding public offices. Women
formed the Democratic Free Women`s Movement (Demokratik Özgür Kadın Hareketi,
DÖKH) as an umbrella organization for this coalition in 2003.
The DÖKH announced its aims as ―to struggle against the mechanisms of
sovereign, racist, nationalist and militarist ideologies that suppress women‖ (Pamphlet of
the DÖKH). Women activists of the DÖKH often work in multiple civil society
organizations and party organizations. Women are able to negotiate with Kurdish
nationalist political parties due to the societal support provided by the DÖKH.
The ideological basis of the DÖKH can be found in Abdullah Öcalan`s ideas that
were formulated under the title of the ―Democratic, Ecologic, Gender-Free Society
Project,‖ in 2002 to refer Kurdish nationalist movement. There was an explicit discursive
shift in the ideology of the PKK in the early 2000s, as the PKK adopted discourse of
democracy and freedom; this shift influenced the Kurdish women`s activism not only in
the PKK but also in the legal domains, opening more space for women than the ethnic
nationalist discourse had in the 1990s. The women, who had already been politicized by
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the Kurdish nationalist movement, now directed their activism into the civil society
organizations, Kurdish political parties, and local politics.
The DÖKH can be identified as a by-product of the Kurdish nationalist movement
which reflects women`s empowerment in the various organizations of the movement. The
ideological bases of the DÖKH were first cultivated in the workshops, conferences, and
publications of the Party of Free Women (PJA) affiliated with the PKK, then
disseminated to the Kurdish women activists in cities. The PJA, despite its illegality and
legitimization of the use of violence, emphasized the importance of civil society
organization in order to articulate the rights of the Kurdish population and the rights of
women in Turkey.
54

The movement politicized many gender relevant issues, including domestic
violence and sexual abuses. In stance of sexual abuse of Kurdish activists by state agents
have been used to draw public, media and international attention, particularly the
attention of the EU institutions to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Members of the DÖKH
stated that women activists from NGOs affiliated with the DÖKH were repeatedly
threatened by state officials to force them to stop their work.
The DÖKH formed organizations called ―women`s assemblies‖ in which women
came together to discuss problems of cities they located in. They organized campaigns
together addressing women`s rights. One of these campaigns, named ―women`s honor

54
The PJA constructed the foundation of the ―Women`s Movement on the basis of the Women`s
emancipation Ideology‖ declared by the Ocalan on March 8, 1998. They wrote the Women`s Free Social
Contract stating that representatives of the Free Women Movement (referring to women of the PJA) would
organize the relationship among society, the environment, and individuals, would succeed women`s
revolutions(It implies that women would be liberated from all kinds of subordination), and reflect feminine
traits to the system (Kadının Sesi, October 2003, p.11).
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belongs to women‖ took place in 2009. The activists of the DÖKH organized meetings,
panels, and gatherings to inform women and men about the domestic violence and state`s
violence against women. As well as serving as platforms for addressing gender`s issues,
these gatherings are used by politicians to reach the pro-Kurdish Demokratik Toplum
Partisi (DTP)`s regional electorate. For example, four female deputies out of DTP‘s eight
deputies and five mayors out of 14 along with many city council members and members
of other local NGOs participated in the public meeting series of the campaign took place
in July 2009, in Batman, providence in southeast Turkey. Gender issues, such as
domestic violence, become a tool for organizing opposition activities against government
policies as exemplified in the Batman meeting. For example, Ayla Akat Aka, a deputy
elected on the DTP ticket in 2007, harshly criticized the ruling the AKP for not
eliminating the causes of domestic violence. Nevertheless, the release of Abdullah
Öcalan emerged as the first and foremost demand of women, raising doubts about to what
extent the DÖKH, as a women`s movement, aimed at advances in women`s rights and to
what extent it prioritized the Kurdish cause.
As discussed above, Kurdish women actively got involved in various domains of
the Kurdish nationalist movement. Women are able to raise gender issues more
assertively and negotiate their space in the Kurdish nationalist movement as well as their
representation in the pro-Kurdish parties.
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3.6 Kurdish Women`s Political Participation and Representation
in the 2000s
The scope and forms of Kurdish women`s political activism began to change in
the early 2000s, although it has been closely associated with the Kurdish nationalist
movement. Mayor Ayşe Gökkan summarized the transformation of Kurdish women`s
political activism in the early 2000s, stating that ―while we were identified only as
mothers and daughters of Kurdish nationalist men, we turned into independent female
politicians, we strongly stated that we were not your mothers and daughters anymore‖ (12
July, 2004). Women began to occupy positions of power in the party, such on the party`s
central committee, which is the governing body and is responsible for establishing and
enforcing party rules.
Between 2003 and 2005, the Demokratik Halk Partisi (DEHAP, Democratic
People`s Party) led to Kurdish politics. The number of active female members in the
DEHAP was around 120 in 2004 (Kadının Sesi, 2004). In the 2003 party program of the
DEHAP, women`s issues were addressed in a separate section. It stated that ―The
emancipation of women has to be seen as a prerequisite of a democratic society‖
(DEHAP‘s Party Program, 2003, p. 18). The section defined ―gender equality as a
systemic problem‖ and ―women as the main subjects of democratization‖ (p. 18).
Important problems which the DEHAP would tackle were listed in another section. The
list included gender discrimination in the work place, domestic violence, prostitution, and
common patriarchal cultural practices such as early marriage and polygamy.
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Women in the DEHAP used to organize women`s conferences in order to
articulate their goal, strategies, and working principles. One of these conferences was
held in Ankara in November 2004. Stating that democracy could not function without the
participation of women, the women`s branch declared support for the Kurdish nationalist
movement and its new policy advocating living under democracy within the territorial
borders of Turkey. This position replaced the previously dominant discourse calling for
the national liberation of the Kurdish population. The concepts of democracy and peace
were overly used by the PKK and legal pro-Kurdish parties in the 2000s. Kurdish women
active in the DEHAP were concerned with myriad issues: the release of Abdullah Öcalan,
the resolution of the Kurdish question, and the consolidation of Turkey`s democracy by
supporting its EU accession process. They also focused on struggle against all forms of
patriarchy, including honor killing, prostitution, rape, and domestic violence. It is notable
that the women strongly criticized the conventional idea of identifying women
exclusively in relation to their roles as mothers and wives.
Women also sought opportunities to enhance their positions through seeking
institutional mechanisms that could ensure sustainable benefits regarding women`s
representation. Women`s branches continued to be active in advocating for women‘s
participation and representation at every decision making level in party politics with the
support of women‘s organizations outside of the party like the support of the DÖKH.
As expected, women`s inclusion in party politics and strengthening their positions
of power caused some tension, including the resistance of Kurdish men who criticized
them for being feminists, that has often a negative connotation in Turkey, and for
135
weakening national unity. On the other hand, feminist women criticized Kurdish women
for being ethno- nationalist. The existence of tension in political parties required
continuous negotiations between men and women. Hatice Çoban, a founding member of
the HADEP and then the DTP observed that, ―There were lively debates about how many
women would be in the parties; what their identities would be, whether they would be
presented as academicians, or whether they would be presented as wives and mothers of
murdered Kurdish people‖ (personal communication, June 20, 2009). Kurdish women
have chosen to act assertively instead of obeying all the party demands. So, women
became extremely outspoken on multiple fronts as Fatma Kurtulan, a female deputy
elected on the DTP ticket in 2007, said ―We have to struggle against ourselves, men,
society, and traditional gender values‖ (personal communication, June 19, 2009).
The DTP, was founded in 2005 as a successor of the DEHAP. The DTP focused
on both Kurdish issues and women issues. Women‘s representation reached peak of 36%
in the 2007 national elections and 18 % in the local elections respectively. Eight women
were elected on the DTP ticket in the 2007 national elections, while 14 mayors were
elected on the DTP ticket in the 2009 local elections. Many of these women were
activists both in civil society organizations forming the social base of the Kurdish
nationalist movement and in women‘s branches of the respective Kurdish ethnic-
nationalist parties. Registered female members of the party reached 600 along with
10,000 activists according to numbers announced in the DTP Women‘s Assembly
Congress held in 2008 (Heviya Jine, interview with Besime Konca, spokeperson of DTP
women‘s assembly, June-July 2008).
136
In Article Two, the DTP‘s founding text states that the liberation of humanity
equates with gender equality. The party`s constitution also focused on gender
discrimination as well as violence against women by declaring, ―Since emancipation of
society relies on women‘s emancipation, we advocate taking legal, social, political, and
cultural precautions which provide gender equality ‖ (The constitution of the DTP, 2005).
Institutional changes aiming to increase women`s representation in the party
advanced during the DTP‘s tenure (2005-2010). They were advocated for by elected
women and activists, despite men‘s accusations that these women were seeking power
instead of serving Kurdish cause. These advancements included introducing co-chair
positions in which a male and a female chair led the party simultaneously, applying
affirmative action, increasing the gender quota, and establishing women`s assemblies in
many cities in collaboration with the Democratic and Free Women`s Movement
(DÖKH). The DTP party program also articulates a number of other means for
affirmative action as well. For example, when a male and female candidate receive the
same number of votes in intra-party elections for leadership positions, the woman will be
assigned the position (the DTP‘s Party Program). Further, the party registration fee for
prospective female members is less than what male members pay. The DTP affirmative
action measures goes beyond the within party regulations. The DTP also aimed to
advocate gender equality in the private lives of its members. For example, according to
the party rules, if a member took a second wife after his registration with the party, the
party‘s discipline committee would revoke his party membership status. Violence against
women, including domestic violence, was listed as triggering disciplinary penalties. Both
137
issues were stressed because they have been very common in the Kurdish populated
region. The DTP has seen local governmental bodies as launching pads for urging
changes in gender relations in the Kurdish society.
The gender quota was increased from 30 percent to 40 percent for both national
and local candidate lists in 2005. The gender quota was strictly implemented in the 2007
national elections and the 2009 local elections. To secure seats, women argued for
placing women candidates higher up in the candidate lists. In the local elections, the
procedure was relatively complex. The party reserved almost 20 municipalities for
women. No men from the party were allowed to run in these municipalities. These were
places where the constituency of the party was very large, and the DTP expected to win.
For each municipality, a number of women candidates ran in pre-elections to be placed as
the party‘s final candidate. Three of running candidates remained for the final. The party
selection elites then chose one out of these three pre-candidates.
The voluntary party quota for women has remained the most important insurance
of women‘s power in pro-Kurdish parties. For example, the strict usage of gender quota
in the 2009 local elections increased the number of elected female representatives. But
the usage of it was not so easy; interviewees stated that women worked very hard to
defend their quota rights. In their campaign works, their intersecting identities brought
some advantages. For example, they were able to reach female voters through home visits
that male counterparts could not do due to the cultural barriers. Furthermore, women
believed that their campaign activities were more transparent than the campaign
activities of men. This implied that men are more likely to use a number of unprincipled
138
strategies to defeat their opponents; whereas women are more likely to use principled
tactics in within-party races.
Although it was assumed that women bring supposedly feminine qualities of
consensus-building to the politics, Kurdish women politicians have challenged this
assumption. Kurdish women deputies of the DTP usually appeared to outsiders as
hardliners or assertive deputies of the Kurdish ethnic-nationalist party. On the other hand,
women deputies claimed they have been singled out because of their gender and Kurdish
identity (F. Kurtulan, personal communication, June 18, 2009). A study by Gülşen
Bıçakçı cited in the leftist Evrensel [Universal] newspaper on July 6, 2009, in which the
media representation of female politicians affiliated with the DTP was examined,
indicated that these women were portrayed as ―others‖ and ―dangerous‖ in the
mainstream media as well as in large segment of the Turkish society (p.7).
Similar to their growing presence in the rough terrain of party and national
politics, Kurdish women‘s visibility in the local governments became notable in the
2000s. While there were only four female mayors elected from a pro-Kurdish party in
2002, their numbers increased to 14 in 2009. A total of 17 women were in charge of
mayorship in Turkey at that time. The number of women representatives in city councils
dramatically increased as well. Scholarship on women and politics indicates that,
compared with national and party politics, local politics can be more conducive for
women`s participation. Relying on Latin American experiences, Fiona Macaulay (2006)
states that there is ―an elective affinity between municipal government and women‘s
agency (p. 25). It is worthwhile to investigate whether Kurdish women‘s interest in local
139
politics is driven by the assumption that local politics is more women-friendly. What
factors played a role in the increase in their interest in politics?
3.6.1 Kurdish Women’s Political Representation in Local Public Offices
Inclusion in local politics in Turkey has attracted a great deal of attention from
pro-Kurdish parties. In the following section, I will briefly focus on ways in which pro-
Kurdish parties in the 2000s have stressed local politics and the roles of women in local
politics. Then, I will move to discuss that to what extent women‘s presence in local
governments generate advances for women‘s lives.
After 1999, pro-Kurdish parties gave up their demand of separating from Turkey
and founding a Kurdish state. They began to adhere to an idea that Turkey‘s centralist
state structure had to be replaced by a federal state system to allow for Kurdish
autonomy. Pro-Kurdish parties have believed that if they occupied elected local public
positions, and became powerful in local governments, the Turkish state would have to
change its state system from a central system to a federal state system which could grant
autonomy to the Kurdish population, at least, it could grant more rights to local
administrations. The municipalities governed by Kurds would be the backbones of the
structures of federal states.
Moreover, municipalities hold a great deal of financial and instrumental resources
that could be mobilized for party interests. For example, parties are usually required to
have permission and rent a venue from municipalities to organize public gatherings,
meeting, and concerts, and even protests. If the representative of a party occupied a
mayoral position, it could be very easy to get permission or rent the municipality‘s
140
venues for such activities. Municipalities may also enable the party to exert its political
control over the resident Kurdish population. Zeynep Gambetti (2004) notes that Kurdish
parties have seen municipalities as ―counter forces against the central state institutions in
cities including the governor, the police force, the army, and state security courts‖ (p. 8).
For all these reasons, occupying municipalities has been very important for pro-Kurdish
parties. As exemplified in the tenure of the DTP between 2005 and 2010, pro-Kurdish
parties wielded all their power to win municipalities. As a result of the March 2009 local
elections, only 15 of the approximately 900 district mayors and two of the 81 provincial
and metropolitan mayors in Turkey are women
55
. Interestingly enough, among such a
small group of women, eleven out of the 15 district mayors –means 73 percent - and one
of the 81 provincial mayors were women elected from the pro-Kurdish DTP ticket.
An unpublished document, titled Democratic Free Local Governments Model
Draft, which circulated within party circles, articulated a model which municipalities
governed by Kurdish elected representatives have to adopt in running local affairs. Many
interviewees from local governments who spoke with me in the summer of 2009 also
referred to this model by stating, that ―We are following our model and want to develop
it. The model draft explicitly incorporates detailed sections suggesting ways in which
women`s participation and representation may increase in the local governments and

55
Even the number of women candidates nominated for local elections was low: 18 from the ruling AKP,
34 from the Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party ), 45 from the CHP, nine from the FP,
five from the Büyük Birlik Partisi (Grand Unity Party), 33 from the DTP, 37 from the Türkiye Komunist
Partisi (Communist Party of Turkey), three from the Barış ve Özgürlük Partisi (Freedom and Solidarity
Party ), 37 from the Demokrat Parti (Democratic Party) and 52 from the Demokratik Sol Parti (Democratic
Left Party). But from the very beginning, most of these women were not in a position to be elected.
141
states that they are vital components of a successful project. It further mandates adopting
a 40 percent women quota, establishing women and men equality commissions in local
government bodies, and initiates a separate budget for women in the local governmental
bodies. It was pointed out that women politicians had an obligation to bring their unique
traits to the local political processes.
Although this model advocates women-friendly features, practices matter more.
Advocating Kurdish women‘s involvement in a previously male-dominated terrain,
namely in local governments, is necessary for overcoming women‘s underrepresentation
in local-decision making apparatus. Certainly women‘s efforts seem essential in
advancing more women-friendly projects. It is worthwhile to examine to what extent the
increase in descriptive representation of Kurdish women in local governments has led to
substantive representation. What do these Kurdish women actually do for the lives of
those in these municipalities?
Women mayors whom I interviewed overwhelmingly pointed to women‘s
emancipation as their first mission. They reported that women living in these towns rarely
go out in public without men. As female elected representatives, they often advocate for
facilitating women‘s participation in the public sphere. In this context, women mayors
made an extra effort to contact women during the election campaigns. Fikriye Aytın, the
mayor of Lice, a town in Diyarbakir province, said, ―We organized meetings with almost
fifty-sixty women every time, women did not have many requests, just they wanted to see
that municipality was open for them as well, they wanted to go out in public.‖
142
When women mayors were elected, they tried to make municipality buildings
open for women‘s usage. They were concerned that, since men usually run
municipalities, they have become gendered spaces and often exclude women
56
. Women
mayors also told me that local women began to visit the municipality and make requests
more often than they had during men‘s tenures, because women feel more at ease
interacting with a female rather than a male mayor. Hiring female staff also was
considered as means for opening these spaces for women‘s usage. For example, more
women staff began to work in municipalities whereas previously their numbers had been
limited. In Nusaybin, the number of women staff increased from one to 18 out of 250.
Female mayors also want to adopt a 50 percent quota in staff hiring. Thus, municipalities
have been transformed into places that no longer seem the solely realm of men. As
assumed by the party, this outcome may well help the Kurdish party in mobilizing
women and galvanizing their votes for next elections.
In addition to opening municipality buildings to women, mayors have been
concerned with providing more spaces for women‘s socializing. They focused on
building public parks that women can use for leisure time. For example, in Diyarbakir
province, one of the largest public parks was allocated for the usage by pro-Kurdish
women organizations. After its allocation, the Diyarbakir Municipality renamed the park
as Ekin Ceren Women‘s Park. The park took its name from Ekin Ceren who was a former
PKK`s female militant. The public park includes a library, classrooms, and conference

56
For example, many municipalities previously had not even had a restroom for women due to the lack of
women‘s presence there.
143
rooms that have been usually used by women. Also, some women run a restaurant within
this park facility to generate income.
Female mayors have planned to develop projects for creating jobs such as opening
restaurants, coffee shops, and tailor shops run by women. Since municipalities have
established vocational training facilities for women, although the central government
already had similar facilities in these towns. They have aimed to train women in activities
such as sewing and traditional handcrafts to earn income. However, it seems there has
been an ongoing tension between the central government and local governments run by
the Kurdish nationalists, since the former believe that the latter are using vocational
training facilities to disseminate Kurdish nationalist ideology to women.
Kurdish women elected to local government offices believe that women suffer
more than men from local problems related to the infrastructure. The lack of proper
sanitation, lighting, and play grounds for children dramatically affects women`s daily life.
Thus, they concern with these problems from a women‘s perspective. Furthermore, some
practical needs of women from low-income families received attention of female mayors.
For example, many municipalities open public places for a free laundry, and public stove
centers for cooking food. All of the projects addressed above aim not only to meet
women‘s needs but also to create space for women to communicate with each other as
men do in coffee houses, which women are not allowed to use (Gambetti, 2004).
Raising consciousness regarding women‘s issues is framed as of vital importance
for municipalities. They have created a great number of projects that are centered on
women‘s strategic needs. Municipalities have established women‘s consultation centers
144
to address women‘s specific needs such as women‘s health, family issues, and domestic
violence. Although these issues have previously been addressed by local NGOs,
municipalities are also committed to similar gender-specific projects aiming to increase
gender consciousness. Mayors have also tried to enforce other women-friendly policies.
As an example, a number of mayors have committed to eliminating domestic violence
through signing an agreement between the workers and the municipalities. The male
mayor of Sur, in the Diyarbakir province reported that he gave half of the salary of three
male staff members to their spouses, when the staff members used domestic violence
against their wife (personal communication, July 20, 2009). The same policy was
enforced in Yenişehir municipality of Diyarbakir in January 2010 by a female Kurdish
mayor. Some female mayors committed to declaring March 8 International Women‘s
Day an official holiday for female staff of municipalities.
As happened in national politics, the power shift in local politics in favor of
women caused resentment among men. Women‘s increasing numbers in local public
offices were directly attributed to the party‘s quota system. Because the quota has been
institutionalized and women hold a substantive power in party ranks, men are rarely able
to criticize the adoption of the quota. Elected women were also well aware of the fact that
mandating quota eased their way to offices. A woman mayor of the Viranşehir, a town in
Şanlıurfa province, told me ― If there were no quota, only two or three women could be
elected on the DTP ticket. For example, I could not be elected in Viranşehir. But, because
of the gender quota of the party, opposition stopped.‖ (personal communication, July 15,
2009). On the other hand, locals sometimes complained about the inexperience of women
145
mayors, attributing it to mayor‘s gender. It appears that local male politicians feel
insecure about the fact that the quota benefits women candidates while putting men in a
disadvantaged position. One male mayor, however, made the case from a different
perspective by noting, ―The party‘s voluntary quota is a gender quota, even male
members of the party will have to use it in the future.‖ (personal communication, July 20,
2009). The concerns of the male electorate seem quite different. In Derik, Mardin, a man
said that although he voted for the current female mayor of his town, he observes serious
problems. He told me that the mayor was not from the town, and she was unaware of the
particular local infrastructure problems of the town. As a constituent of the DTP, he voted
for her because she was assigned top-down. He added, ―We would elect whom the party
put on the list without questioning their traits and experiences.‖
3.7 Conclusions
This chapter examined the actors, institutions, and mechanisms that influenced
Kurdish women‘s representation in upper-level party positions and in elected offices
between 1991 and 2010. In relation to the three sets of explanations laid out in chapter 1,
evidence from this chapter provides support for the role of mobilization via intersecting
identities, the efforts of women‘s organizations, and the support of party leadership. More
specifically, the double discrimination that Kurdish women faced in the 1980s and 1990s
as women and as members of a minority became both an ideational basis and an
organizational tool for Kurdish women‘s extended mobilization in the Kurdish nationalist
movement. The mobilization included joining Kurdish ethnic secessionist organizations
such as the PKK, engaging with many civil society organizations, and participating in
146
electoral activities of political parties. Through their mobilization and participation in
these organizations, women found opportunities to develop a collective identity on the
basis of simultaneously emphasizing their gender and their Kurdish identity. All of these
substantially empowered women in their claim-making and negotiating for further
representation with the party leadership. Women‘s activity within the women‘s
organizations created a larger pool of politically experienced women from which the
party drew for candidate lists.
Although women gained power through their mobilization and their collective
efforts in organizations, these might not have directly led to the changes in women‘s
representation if there had been no leadership support. The support of the male
leadership, in this case the support of Öcalan, has been a very important driving force
behind Kurdish women‘s mobilization, their participation in movement affliated
organizations, and increases in the numbers of Kurdish female representatives both in
pro-Kurdish parties and their delegation to the parliament. Since the Kurdish movement
was an ethnic nationalist movement with an armed wing, civil society organizations, and
a political party, Öcalan regarded women‘s inclusion as critical to increasing the PKK‘s
human capital, to mobilizing the Kurdish masses, and to generating more publicity. As
observed in many nationalist movements, women have been given importance in the
Kurdish nation building project. Furthermore, Öcalan believed that women were more
effective advocates for the Kurdish cause and were more loyal to him than men; thus,
gaining women‘s support would serve to strengthen his leadership. He also believed that
147
a transformation in gender relations was necessary for the success of the PKK and the
creation of a ‗new‘ modern Kurdish nation.
An additional factor influencing the changes has been the introduction and the
usage of a gender quota in pro-Kurdish parties. There have been interrelationships of
aforementioned three factors and quota usage, although the quota was implemented after
the other factors. A party-level 25-percent gender quota was adopted voluntarily in 2000
by the HADEP and was increased to 40 percent in 2005 by the DTP. The quota‘s impact
emerged after 2005 when pro-Kurdish party won parliamentary seats, as it enabled the
reorganization of power within the party in favor of women‘s representation. Although it
can be hypothesized that the party-level quota by itself could explain why the descriptive
representation of Kurdish women increased in the 2000s, process-tracing evidence can
eliminate this alternative causal process. Evidence suggests that if there had been no
efforts by Kurdish women‘s organizations or no support from Öcalan, the quota
introduction could not initially have been possible. Kurdish parties introduced the quota
voluntarily, as there is no national legal mechanism that requires that Kurdish parties use
the quota as proposed. Therefore, if the efforts of women‘s organizations and Öcalan‘s
support for women had stopped in the 2000s, the quota might not have been used at all or
it might have been inconsistently used, as happened in other Turkish parties.
Nevertheless, the quota gave a considerable momentum to Kurdish women‘s descriptive
representation after 2005. It appears to be one of the major factor explaining why the
representation of Kurdish women dramatically outpaced the representation of both
148
conservative Muslim women and mainstream Kemalist women in the second half of the
2000s. This will be discussed in the Conclusions section of the dissertation.
This chapter focused primarily on changes in the descriptive representation of
women. However, it seems that the descriptive representation of Kurdish women also
positively influenced their substantive representation. The presence of women in the
party and in elected offices, particularly in elected local offices, benefited women
because elected women have tended to prioritize women‘s interests and to develop more
projects for women than men do. However, as observed in many sociopolitical
movements, the Kurdish cause still often trumps the women‘s cause; that is, ethnicity
trumps gender.
In the next two chapters, I explore the conditions under which representation of
other women‘s groups changed in the 1990s and the 2000s. First, in Chapter 4, I examine
conservative Muslim women‘s representation in the upper levels of party organs and in
elected offıces. As proposed in the theoretical framework, I consider the effects of factors
such as mobilization via intersecting identities, women‘s organizations, and political
leaders. I investigate how they interact to influence women‘s descriptive representation.
Then, in Chapter 5, I analyze Kemalist women, which is the mainstream women‘s group
in Turkish political life. Specifically, by examining activities at the party level, I focus on
how Kemalist women reacted to the political activism of both Kurdish and conservative
Muslim women.

149
Chapter 4. The Political Representation of Conservative
Muslim Women

4.1 Introduction
Conservative Muslim women first became involved in party politics in the early
1990s through their vote-garnering activities in the women‘s section of the Islamist Refah
Partisi (RP, Welfare Party, 1987-1999). Their electoral mobilization did not result in
representation either in the upper-level organs of the party or in the elected offices until
1999, when a few advancements occurred in women‘s representation in the Fazilet Partisi
(FP, Virtue Party, 1999-2001), Refah‘s successor. The Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP,
Justice and Development Party), despite having the same roots as the RP and the FP,
emerged as a conservative centrist party in 2002 and has ruled as a single-party
government since then. The leaders and a substantial number of party members are pious
Muslims who are also committed to running state affairs according to secular principles
and to avoiding the use of Islamist language in politics. The AKP incorporated a
considerable number of women as party founders, as well as party members, members of
the party‘s decision-making organs, and elected representatives. Figure 2 illustrates the
increase in the numbers of women in pro-Islamic parties as candidates, elected MPs, and
members of decision-making organs between 1991 and 2007.
150

Such a change constitutes another case of significant increase in the
representation of a previously marginalized women‘s group in Turkey, namely
conservative Muslim women. This chapter examines to what extent explanations based
on identitities, organizations, and elites help to explain this change. Specifically, it will
trace the influences of the mobilization of conservative Muslim women as well as the
influences of intra-party women‘s organization and party elites on increase in women‘s
representation. The chapter will also focus on the strength of these influences and the
interactions among them. Where appropriate, the effects of additional factors, which may
emerge out of specific dynamics of the case, will be considered as well.
151
The chapter begins with an examination of the double discrimination that
conservative Muslim women, particularly headscarved women, have experienced; it then
outlines women‘s participation in Islamic organizations and protests against the headscarf
ban in which women‘s mobilizational attempts became a manifestation of political
intersectionality in the 1990s. The chapter then moves on to a discussion on women‘s
electoral mobilization in the women‘s sections within parties, a substantial part of which
examines the evolution of women‘s political involvement in the AKP by comparing it
with its predecessors in terms of the party program, women‘s sections, and the support of
the party leaders.
Before moving to the discussion, some conceptual clarifications are in order. The
terms ―Islamic women‖ and ―Islamist women‖ have been used interchangeably in
scholarly and public discussion. They have been contested concepts because they mean
different things to those who use them as opposed to those whom they are used to define.
Yeşim Arat, the pioneer scholar of gender and politics in Turkey, stated that ―Islamist
women‖ is a broad category that encompasses ―self-conscious Muslims who expected the
state to respect public expressions of religiosity, some women who were ready to fight
for these beliefs and others who did not want any confrontation with the state‖ (2005, p.
21). Berna Turam (2007) has deliberately distinguished between the categories of
―Islamic‖ and ―Islamist‖ actors. For her, Islamic actors are non-confrontational and do
not challenge secular state ideology. They only demand freedom for their own views and
lifestyles. Islamist actors are more likely to advocate the ideology of Islamism that aims
to transform the social order and polity in favor of their beliefs. Women who have been
152
categorized as ―Islamic‖ often identify themselves as ―pious Muslim women,‖ ―religious
Muslim women,‖ and ―conservative religious women,‖ rather than as Islamic or Islamist
women. Rarely, they used the term of Islamic women. some women have preferred the
term Islamic women (Şişman 2000; Özçetin 2006; Pusch, 2000). No women identified
themselves as Islamist women by claiming that it has powerful overtone. Nazife Şisman
(2000) maintains that liberal, feminist, and secular women living in Turkey created the
category of ―Islamist women‖ to refer to headscarved women who demanded to be
included in the public sphere. Throughout this chapter, the term of conservative Muslim
women is used to refer to both political activists women in the pro-Islamist parties and
conservative AKP. This concept seems not only more inclusive than the term of Islamic
or Islamist women but also a term which do not disturb to whom it refers to.
4.2 Headscarf Issue and Intersectionality
Conservative Muslim women encountered structural intersectionality on the basis
of their gender and their religiosity. Due to their gender identity, they encountered
discrimination in families and the society. Patriarchal attitudes have been common in
conservative families, in which women‘s traditional roles were very much prioritized and
women were often referred to solely as mothers, wives, and housewives. Men had an
authority to decide whether women would go out and participate in public life without the
presence of a male family member. Such an authority is often justified by the Islamic
rules and values (Eraslan & Senler, 2011). For example, male family members tended not
to allow girls to continue their education after the elementary school and not to allow
their employment. Furthermore, polygamy was considered men‘s right that was granted
153
by the Islamic law. These patriarchal practices placed conservative women in a
disadvantaged position in terms of their educational and professional attainment as well
as their social status.
Conservative Muslim women also encountered discrimination and harassment due
wearing headscarf, which is often seen as a reflection of their religiosity by those wearing
it (Akbulut, 2011; Cindoğlu, 2011; Kavakci, 2010; Şenler & Eraslan, 2011;
57
). For many,
wearing a headscarf has been considered the most apparent indicator of being a
conservative Muslim woman. Gole (1997b) observed that ―the veiling of women, the
most visible symbol of Islamization, becomes the semiology of Muslim identity‖ (p. 87).
University students wearing headscarves became first visible in the 1960s and 1970s. The
number of them dramatically increased in the 1980s and the 1990s. Furthermore,
graduated women with headscarves, often doctors and lawyers demanded to involve in
public employment. Thus, women with headscarves became visible in the public sphere.
However, wearing a headscarf has been banned in the universities and public offices
since then. Headscarved women are prevented from serving in all state sectors as well as
in the parliament, and local governments, even in founding groups of parties. Although
the ban encompasses actually universities and the state sector, companies in the private
sector also do not want to employ headscarved women so as to present a secular image or
those employ women pay them less (Cindoğlu, 2011).

57
For collections of articles, reports, and books addressing the problems that headscarved women
encountered see following website. http://www.turkiyedebasortuluolmak.com/?cat=36. Accessed
September 7, 2011.

154
The headscarf issue was the most significant polarizing topic between Islamic and
secular groups in the 1990s and 2000s. It was literally transformed from being about
attire and choice to being a matter of national security, a threat to the secular founding
principles of Turkey (Cınar, 2008). It is probably not be an exaggeration to say that it has
been the most studied issue in religion and politics in general, and regarding Islamic
women in particular in Turkey, since the early 1990s. Many studies trace the issue to
the early Republican era in the 1920s. Theoretical frameworks employed by scholars
studying the headscarf issue have included modernization theory (Gole, 1997b), the
theory of the public sphere (Şişman, 2000), the theory of body politics (Cınar, 2008), and
the postcolonial theory (Yegenoglu, 1998). Here, I will present a very short version of
the headscarf discussion in Turkey, then address in which ways double oppression
women experienced via headscarf ban lead to the political intersectionality of
conservative Muslim women.
Islamic and secular groups have held opposite opinions and positions on the
headscarf. They have used diverse concepts in referring to it, in identifying the
motivations of those wearing it, and in legitimizing their respective reactions to the
headscarf ban. The table below on the headscarf issue, adapted from Aksoy (2005)
illustrates the differences in positions of secular and Islamic groups with regards to the
headscarf

155
Table 1. The Positions of Secular and Islamic Groups in the
Headscarf Debate
Secular Groups Islamic Groups
The title of the debate
Türban (Turban) Başörtüsü (Headscarf)
Motivation in wearing
headscarf
Political symbol Religious duty
Legitimization
Opposition to secularism Freedom of religious
expression
Stance
Against wearing headscarves In favor of wearing
headscarves
The reason for headscarf
protests
Use by Islamic parties for party
interests
Female students‘
efforts to become
agents and seek their
rights
Source: The table is adapted from Murat Aksoy (2005), p. 16.

Despite all of these different issue positions, public opinion on the headscarf ban
is generally moderate. Konda‘s 2007 survey indicated that 56 percent of 5,291 survey
respondents were in favor of allowing the headscarf in universities, while 22 percent
supported the ban. Although secularists assumed that the headscarf reflected opposition
to secularism, about 68 percent of survey respondents said that it was not a symbol of
such opposition.
Headscarf issue is important to understand political activism of conservative
Muslim women. The issue turned into an organizational tool for conservative women to
156
establish many civil society organizations and an ideational basis in their claim making
regarding the right to veil and the right of headscarved women to an education as well as
in their participation in political parties. Thus, women‘s double discrimination on the
basis of their gender and their religiosity became politically salient in a process in which
an collective action of these women emerged. This process was also shaped by pro-
Islamic parties that emphasized the headscarf ban as a part of their party platforms.
Dynamics of these processes will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
Conservative Muslim women‘s participation in civil society organizations such as
in informal groups, associations, and foundations, dramatically increased in the late-
1980s and 1990s (Narlı, 2007). According to Eraslan‘s 2004 study, there were more than
300 associations, clubs, foundations, and umbrella organizations formed by these women.
While some of them founded charitable organizations to help those in need in keeping
with Islamic tradition, others founded human rights organizations to struggle against what
they viewed as discrimination against pious/conservative Muslim citizens of Turkey. By
referring to Islamic principles or by glorifying the significance of women in early Islamic
history, conservative Muslim women‘s human rights organizations focused on the
importance of women‘s rights, particularly the right to veil and the right of headscarved
women to an education. They raised their voices not only to demand equal rights but also
to demand to be different (Cayir, 1997). Feminism was rarely a reference point for these
women‘s groups.
Even though many organizations led by religiously conservative women
identified themselves as apolitical organizations, Push (2000) determined that their
157
activities were a part of the political realm for two reasons. First, they cooperated with
some politically motivated women‘s coalitions such as the Women‘s Commission of the
Foundation for the Research of History and Islam and the Initiative Groups for
Supporting Education. Second, the presence of apolitical women‘s organizations often
projected the image of Muslim women who wanted to be accepted as active members of
society.
Some women‘s organizations supported right-wing parties, but they were more
likely to support Islamic parties
58
, although not all Islamic women‘s organizations did.
59

Nevertheless, a great number of conservative Muslim women found the pro-Islamic
parties appropriate arenas for fostering a sense of achievement, recognition, and a
collective Islamic female identity. They wanted to gain a foothold in partisan politics.
Simultaneously, one of the most powerful Islamic movements in Turkey, namely,
the Milli Görüş (National View) and political parties affiliated with it, the RP, then its
successor FP, focused on the headscarf ban and framed it as the most important problem
that Islamic women had encountered. The movement considered the headscarf an Islamic

58
Members of such organizations explicitly identified their organizations as political organizations]. A
member of the Ozgur-Der told Kadioglu (2005):
We do see ourselves as a very political group, not because we want to interact with political
parties and influence their agendas but rather because we are interested in informing people about
the discrimination we have to face, appeal to their consciences and transform the society. (p. 33)
59
For example, associations such as the AK-DER (Ayrımcılığa Karşı Kadın Hareketi, Women against
Discrimination) and Ozgur-Der (Özgür Düşünce ve Egitim Haklari Dernegi, Association for the Freedom
of Thought and Educational Rights), which mainly focused on the struggle against the headscarf ban at
universities, showed no interest in connecting with the pro-Islamic FP (Kadioglu, 2005). These civil society
organizations were not interested in increasing women‘s representation in the government.

158
symbol and the ban on it as the most explicit indicator of Turkish state policies aiming to
suppress religious groups and Islamic life styles. The RP and the FP constructed a party
discourse centered around the suppression of Islamic identity by focusing primarily on
the headscarf ban (Çınar, 2008). According to Milliyet (a mainstream daily newspaper) of
March 24, 1998, the FP even considered making the headscarf the official party symbol.
While these parties claimed that they struggled for women‘s human rights, secular forces
argued that religious beliefs and the headscarf issue were strategically politicized by
Islamic politicians who were engaging in identity politics (Saktanber, 2002). On the other
hand, some Islamic female activists have maintained that these parties have failed to
support women in their struggle against the headscarf ban.
It seems that pro-Islamic parties were interested in both the headscarf issue
because of its symbolic meaning and in order to recruit women who were active in
headscarf protests. The RP first recognized the potential of female student activists in the
mid-1980s. In her 2000 study examining the political activism of women in Islamic
parties, Sibel Eraslan cited two female students who participated in headscarf protests in
Istanbul in 1987. A student noted:
We were not allowed to enter Istanbul University in 1987 due to our headscarves.
No one paid attention to our street protests against the ban. One day, a group that I
do not know at all came to greet us. One of them made an impression on me. I
asked about him, and learned that he was Erbakan [the chairman of the RP]. I will
always be grateful to him. (p. 214)

Another student stated:
In 1989, I was a senior student in Law School. I was an active, veiled student who
waved placards, memorized all the slogans, and gave long speeches in
demonstrations. I even knew how I could get away from the police when they
chased us. School was about to end, but it seemed that there were no employment
159
opportunities for us [veiled graduates]. I was invited to the RP by the chairman of
the party‘s Istanbul Province Branch, Tayyip Erdogan. Since then, the party has
become my home. (p. 214)

Thus, a number of activists in the protests began to join the limited number of
wives and daughters of politicians who pioneered women‘s activism in the RP in the late
1980s (Eraslan 2000; Narli, 2007). Nermin Erbakan, the wife of party chairman
Necmettin Erbakan, and Gunder Kazan, the wife of vice-chairman Şevket Kazan, took
part in mobilizing women in election campaigns.
4.3 Women’s Political Involvement in the RP and the FP
Although pro-Islamic parties first became active in the 1970s, they had hesitated
mobilizing women for political causes. They did not even establish women‘s associations
affiliated with parties (Toprak, 1994). When the pro-Islamic RP was established in 1983,
the party program had no reference to women, nor was gender listed in its listing of
categories against which discrimination is unacceptable (Arat, 2005; Arat, 2008). Its
1986 program pointed out the importance of family and motherhood, but did not mention
any women‘s issues. Protection of family, mainly through reforming the educational
system, was listed among the party‘s goals. The RP embraced traditional family values
and often prioritized women‘s identities as wives and mothers. The statement in the
party‘s national election declaration (1991) illustrated its stand regarding women‘s
position and role in society:
In society, ladies [sic] and mothers are given important duties. According to our
religious beliefs and national tradition, ladies and mothers have always deserved
respect, love, and affection. Let us never forget that Sultan Alpaslan, Sultan
Osman, Sultan Fatih [Turkish emperors], and great scholars such as
160
Aksemseddin, people who have been examples of morality and virtue, have been
raised by their mothers. Mothers of today and tomorrow will raise those who will
build and serve the great Turkey once again. What a great goal, what an honorable
service! (cited in Arat, 2005, p. 37).

The FP, which succeeded the RP in January 1998, similarly adhered to traditional
ideas about the role of women in society, and it also failed to list gender discrimination as
an unacceptable discrimination category. The party‘s program emphasized women‘s
education by stating, ―We consider women to be the foundational pillar of the society.
Special attention will be paid to women‘s education and training in order to enable
women to be more successful in economic and public life‖ (cited in Arat 2008, p. 23).
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the RP‘s Istanbul Branch between 1985 and
1994, established the first women‘s party organization, called the Ladies‘ Commission
60

(Refah Partisi Hanımlar Komisyonu) in 1989, six years after the party was founded, and
in imitation of the FP, which had also had its Ladies‘ Commission. Both these Ladies‘
Commissions became fertile ground for women‘s political participation in electoral
politics as their mission was to mobilize women for garnering votes in local and national
elections and to energize women for the cause of Islamic politics.
According to the organizational structure of the RP and the FP, the Ladies‘
Commission was under the direct control of the central party organs, meaning that it was

60
The usage of ―ladies‖ in the name of the organization was questioned because the usage of ―women‖ was
considered appropriate for naming such organizations. For many, the former term, ―ladies,‖ indicated the
RP‘s (and later the FP‘s) traditional stance about women‘s position in society. From the party‘s perspective,
however, the choice of ―ladies‖ meant to reflect the party‘s high esteem toward women as well as the
party‘s desire to use more polite terms in addressing women.

161
granted a relatively special status in the party along with the youth branch. Activists in
the Ladies‘ Commission organized at the regional, provincial, district, neighborhood, and
even street levels. Heads of each level regularly met with higher ranks in the
Commission. Heads of the regional and provincial levels met with men in central party
organs. Such an organizational structure aimed at providing information flow from
bottom up and top down. At the same time, this structure reproduced patriarchal
constraints within the party.
Nevertheless, conservative Muslim women committed to the party as they
approached their labor in parties as a contribution to the Islamic revivalism. Women
aimed at supporting men in building an ideal ―just‖ system envisioned specifically by the
ideology of the Islamist Milli Görüş movement (Sozen 2006), but they hold different
goals with respect to women‘s status than men do (White, 2002). While ―women were
interested in the means by which the Islamist movement could allow them to challenge
the status quo, men envisioned an ideal in women were wives, mothers, and homemakers,
and some wanted the possibility of polygamy (which is illegal in Turkey).‖ (White 2002,
p. 215). Women also viewed inclusion in a political movement as an opportunity to ―be
able to go out,‖ ―be visible,‖ and ―serve God‖ (Eraslan, 2004, p. 819). Among the women
activists in the RP, Toprak (1994), Arat (2005) and Ramazanoglu (2000) found that the
desire for respectability, achievement, recognition, as well as the drive to build a
collective identity among pious Muslim women were the primary motivations behind
women‘s activism. In general, women developed very novel ways for contributing the
parties.
162
The following section will examine ways in which women have become involved
in politics through the women‘s organizations of the parties. Then, the outcomes of
women‘s political activism will be analyzed by focusing on women‘s representation in
these parties.
4.3.1 Women’s Organizations within the RP and the FP (Ladies’
Commissions)
Women activists in the RP and the FP displayed notable activism in developing
supervision and networking mechanisms as well as in organizing activities that might
enable them to recruit a larger number of women. The intensive training and direction
they received from male party elites made them excellent recruiters. Erdoğan himself
played a significant role, as he personally trained the first group of activists, most of
whom were middle class urban women (Arat, 2005). The LC then served as a platform
for the emergence of new female leaders. For example, in 1989 Erdogan invited new
party member Sibel Eraslan to become the head of the commission. . The headscarf ban
during her last year of university education had motivated her to become involved in
protest activities, and although she had become a lawyer, she had chosen not to practice
her profession because of the headscarf ban in state courts. She served as the head of the
LC between 1989 and 1995.
The RP‘s LC appealed to a large group of religiously conservative, middle and
low income urban women mostly as a result of the intense recruiting activities. Female
party activists often reached other women through person-to-person outreach, going from
house to house to aid poor women and recruit votes. Party women strategically preferred
163
building face-to-face contacts, listening to women‘s problems, being sensitive to their
daily family-related issues, and trying to provide practical solutions. Arat (2005) calls
such a neighborhood-based activism an ―apolitical politicization‖ in which personal
relations were transformed into political ones. (p. 10). Similarly, Saktanber (2002)
identifies this activism as the politicization of the private sphere for the sake of women‘s
entry into the public sphere.
Women developed wide range of activities, called ―women‘s events,‖ which were
usually shaped by traditional gender roles. For example, in 1994 alone, party women
visited 14,231 households, 12,625 patients, and 3,740 newborn babies; organized 1,572
talks, 3,465 education seminars, 326 meetings, 310 picnics, and 75 fundraising activities
(Eraslan, 2004). Many women also joined rallies, meetings, and other activities organized
by various party organizations The party registered 18,000 female activists in Istanbul
and 1,265,000 female members in total, making up 52 percent of the total number of
members in 1995 (Kristianasen, 1997). No other party in Turkey has ever achieved
similar numbers of female members or such a mobilization of women (Cakır, 2000;
White, 2002; Arat, 2005).
4.3.2 The Representation of Women in the RP and the FP
Academic and journalistic studies noted that women‘s recruiting and vote
garnering activities in the LC played a significant role in the electoral victories of the RP
in the 1990s, even though the RP had been a relatively small party in the late 1980s. An
analysis of speeches given by party leaders also shows the significance of LC‘s efforts in
electoral victories. Given that one expected outcome of women‘s political efforts is to
164
increase the women‘s representation at the elected offices, accordingly advocate
women‘s causes in policy making stages, and parties are critically important for this end,
it is essential to examine ways in which the RP and the FP approached women‘s
representation at the highest ranks such as in party decision-making organs and in
parliamentary offices. The former head of the LC, Sibel Eraslan told me that conservative
Muslim women expected to be promoted by Islamic parties for elected offices like male
counterparts (personal communication, June 12, 2011)
However, Eraslan‘s six years of service in the LC did not result in being placed as
a candidate by the RP. Even, she was denied any decision-making position in the party
and she left the party due to the failure on her expectations for advancement in
conservative Muslim women‘s representation. The reluctance of the RP and FP in the
1990s to include women in high party positions, although they have might done so,
continued, until the 2000s (Aksoy, 2005; Tura, 1995; Kristianasen, 1997). As a former FP
MP rightly stated, ―It was clear that women wearing headscarves had no chance to be
elected as MPs due to the legal regulations. Women also had no chance to being included
in party‘s decision-making circles, although the party was able to include them. Women
were not even holding leadership positions in the Ladies‘ Commission of some party
districts.‖ (personal communication, August 4, 2009).
At the same time, women had difficulties in challenging the power structures in
the party due to ―the glass ceiling separating themselves from the men‖ (Ramazonoglu,
2000, p. 10). The confinement of women‘s activism to only the commission without even
limited representation in high party positions, as well as the consistent control of them by
165
male elites was a disadvantage, slowing down further improvements in their activism and
leadership capacities (Eraslan, 2000). A few gradual improvements did take place in the
late 1990s. While the RP had allocated no seats to women in the party‘s decision-making
organs, the FP appointed five women to decision-making positions: two were appointed
to the Central Decision and Executive Council (Merkez Karar ve Yürütme Kurulu) and
one was appointed to the Consultative Party Council (Parti Danışma Kurulu). Similarly,
while there had been only three female delegates from the RP, the number of female
delegates increased to 52 out of around 1,200 delegates in the FP in 1999.
The FP invited two non-veiling women, journalist Nazlı Ilıcak and medical doctor
Oya Akgönenç, and one headscarfed woman, computer engineer Merve Kavakçı, who
served as the head of foreign affairs for the RP and FP‘s Ladies‘ Commissions, to run in
the national elections of 1999. More important, it placed these three women in winnable
positions on its list and hence they won. Ilıcak told me that ―almost in all elections, only
female candidates who were supported by chairmen were placed on the list. However, in
some cases, the wives of the Party leaders played a role in candidate selections as well. In
both cases, party elites are more likely to prefer candidates who are not very assertive and
outspoken.‖ (personal communication, August 4, 2009).
The selection of Kavakçı indicated that an individual woman close to the
chairman might influence the women‘s representation. Ilıcak recalled that ―Erbakan was
indecisive about placing Merve Kavakçı on the list due to her headscarf, but I advised
him to put in her name.‖ But, the election of Kavakçı led to a parliamentary crisis
because this was the first time an elected official had worn a headscarf in the parliament.
166
In the same year, Nesrin Ünal, a veiled woman, was also elected from the Milliyetci
Hareket Partisi (MHP, Nationalist Action Party) ticket. However, she took off her
headscarf before entering the parliament on May 2, 1999, and she resigned from the MHP
in October 2002. Kavakçı, on the other hand, was not allowed to take her oath, because
she attended the oath-taking ceremony wearing a headscarf.
The Kavakçı affair incited public outrage among secularists, leading some women
to take to the streets in protest against her. On May 13, 1999, the Council of Ministry
approved the Constitutional Court‘s decision which revoked Kavakçı‘s Turkish
citizenship, claiming that she had given up her Turkish identity by becoming a citizen of
the United States.
61
Hence, she lost both her Turkish citizenship and her membership in
the parliament. Although her headscarf caused a political crisis in Turkey, it seems that
her decision to wear the headscarf was not about political ideology. In her commentary
published in Foreign Policy in June 2004, she stated, ―For me, the headscarf was—and
remains—part of my personal religious conviction. Wearing it is a matter of choice‖ (p.
66).
The Kavakçı affair led to the closure of the FP by the Constitutional Court in
2001, and. both Kavakçı and her supporter Ilıcak were banned from politics for five years
because of their activities against secularism. It became clear for pro-Islamic political
parties that placing covered women, who are generally party activists, on the candidate

61
In May 1992, she had received green card, because she had married a U.S. citizen. On May 5, 1999 she
had become a U.S. citizen.

167
lists was not a politically wise move unless the women were willing to remove their
scarves while in Parliament. Since then, no pro-Islamic party has attempted to field a
covered woman on its list.
Placing three women on the electable places on the FP list where 17 women were
fielded as candidates might have been read as an indication of progress in terms of
women‘s representation, despite its unprecedented consequences. But, it was not
evaluated as such. Some scholars (Aksoy, 2005), the secular press, and feminist journals
such as Pazartesi [Monday] used the metaphor of window dressing to explain the reason
that the pro-Islamic FP had fielded three female candidates in the 1999 election. This
metaphor suggested that pro-Islamic parties engaged in acts of manipulation aimed at
creating a modern, liberal, and democratic public image to ease criticism of their
conservative cultural codes.
The intense activism of women in the pro-Islamic parties between 1989 and 1999
resulted in neither the emergence of a women‘s movement nor a notable increase in
women‘s representation in political decision making (Eraslan, 2004). Even, some
scholars tend to define women‘s activism in the LCs of the RP and the FP as a Muslim
women‘s movement or Islamic women‘s movement (Ozcetin 2009; Sozen, 2006).
However, their activism predominately remained within the boundaries of party‘s LCs.
Women were reluctant to form an independent organized women‘s movement outside of
the party. The military memorandum directed against the RP in 1997, the opposition
against the headscarved MP Merve Kavakçı, the continuation of the headscarf ban in the
public offices silenced the conservative Muslim women. They were also disappointed
168
with the lack of conservative men‘s support in women‘s cause in and outside of the party
(Sibel Eraslan, personal communication, June 12, 2011).
Although women‘s participation failed to generate gains for better representation
in the party and parliamentary levels, women did gradually assert their agency and make
claims about their personal and political empowerment as well as they contributed to the
provision of a more fertile ground for women‘s representation in pro-Islamic parties over
time.
4.3.3 A Gradual Empowerment of Women through Involvement in the RP
and FP
A number of studies have argued that conservative Muslim women‘s civic
participation did produce some positive results. They succeeded in challenging existing
boundaries between the private and the political, secular and religious, modern and
traditional, by questioning traditional social and political norms in Turkey (Gole 1997b;
Arat 1998; Sozen 2006). For example, religiosity had often approached as a private
issue; accordingly, religious symbols were strictly excluded from the public sphere.
Headscarves that are worn by lower social and economic classes or worn in private places
do not concern the Kemalist establishment and could be tolerated, whereas headscarves
worn by university students and public officers are regarded as a serious challenge to
secularism (Akbulut, 2011). Wearing headscarf was considered a symbol of the
traditional life style. The presence of educated professional women with headscarf
challenged common assumptions on modernity, raising questions regarding its meaning
and forms (Gole, 2000). Conservative Muslim women had to struggle against many
169
existing boundaries. Eraslan (1997) summarized it in the following way: ―Women (in the
RP) had to work four times harder than men and fight on four different fronts: the state,
macho society, Islamic men, and other women.‖ (interview given to Wendy Kristianasen,
Le Monde Diplomatique, 1997) In 1998, female members of the FP prepared the Party‘s
first Women‘s Policies Declaration that emphasized that women could not be approached
only as mothers. The declaration also addressed issues that influence women‘s lives
directly such as education, social welfare, and health (Eraslan, 2004).
Some limited but promising changes occurred on the party level over time. For
example, in 1999, Aysenur Tekdal became the first woman to lead the party‘s women‘s
organization without male involvement (Arat, 2005; Eraslan, 2000). Eraslan (2000)
observed that women‘s demands for candidacy for elected positions, which had been
deemed inappropriate and non-religious by men in the RP period, were accepted as
appropriate by the late 1990s. The normalization of women‘s demands demonstrated a
moderation in the party‘s perceptions regarding women‘s political participation.
On the other hand, seculars and Kemalist have different ideas about the gains of
women in the pro-Islamic parties. Some feminists have criticized female Islamic activists
for remaining passive and allowing the Islamic parties to use them for political interests
(Bora, 1996). Narli (2007) argued that women in Islamic parties internalized their party‘s
gender-biased ideology, the lower ranks given to them, and their exclusion from the key
decision-making positions. Some feminists, such as Arat (1996) and Saylan (1996), had
more optimistic views, hoping that women activists would actively oppose the pro-
Islamic parties‘ poor treatment of women.
170
In fact, women‘s activism in pro-Islamic parties generated an unprecedented and
unexpected outcome which could be called the ―contagion effect,‖ as it encouraged other
right-wing political parties to promote women‘s mobilization and participation for
compete in the later election campaigns (Saktanber, 2002). In addition, the activism of
the LCs of the pro-Islamic parties led other parties to activate their own women‘s
commissions and to adopt methods of organizing women as a party strategy as pro-
Islamic parties had done (Arat, 2005). It was realized that women‘s inclusion as members
and as candidates for elected offices benefit parties in the election campaigns and it
contributes to present a more inclusive and egalitarian party image. Even the senior
chairman of one of the powerful center-right political parties, DYP, allowed a woman,
Tansu Çiller, to be the leader of the party when its chairman, Suleyman Demirel, became
president. Subsequently, in 1993 Çiller was elected Turkey‘s first female prime minister.
Another example of the contagion effect appeared in the December 1995 election, but in
the opposite direction. When the board of directors of the RP announced that the party
would place no female candidate on its list, the other parties --left, right, and center --
followed similar paths (Saktanber, 2002).
4.4 Women’s Political Engagement with the AKP
In the 1990s, the political engagement of conservative Muslim women was part of
the emerging Islamic movement. Women tended to follow a pattern of collective action
to build a just and more Islamic Turkish society as they had imagined it. A considerable
number of women came together in Islamic civil society organizations and in the LCs.
171
However, in the 2000s, as a result of the semi-military intervention in 1997 and the
closures of the Islamic parties, the Islamic political activism declined and Islamic groups
adopted more moderate discourses in order to avoid repression.
The AKP was established by a group of active reformists in the FP; yet, it
dissociated itself from previous pro-Islamic parties in formal party discourse. It is
strongly committed to becoming a centrist party pursuing conservative democratic, rather
than pro-Islamic, ideals. AKP ideology emphasizes traditional Turkish cultural values,
which are closely intertwined with Islamic religious values. Politicians known (or self-
defined) as pious or conservative Muslims make up the core of the AKP cadres. The party
consistently calls for protecting religious values and society‘s conservative roots, instead
of solely following Islamic politics (Akdogan, 2006). The party has never defined itself
as an Islamic or a religious party.
The AKP came to power in Turkey with a landslide victory in the 2002
parliamentary election by receiving 34.2 percent of the popular vote. As a result, 66
percent of the parliamentary seats went to it. In 2007, it received 47 percent of the vote in
the national elections, resulting in its winning 341 of 550 parliamentary seats. As of
2010, the AKP was still the ruling party. The individuals who voted to elect the AKP did
so, not because of its Islamic identity, but because of its party‘s promises for moderation
and change, and because of its role in ushering in political and economic stability after
the 1997 political crises and the 2001 economic crisis.
172
Since the Party‘s founding in 2001, women have shown a notable interest in it,
with the percentage of women supporters five percent higher than that of men.
62
In 2010,
the number of total female members stood at 1,250,000. The party has tended to include
women from diverse political and social backgrounds. Sociologist Edibe Sozen (2006)
proposed that there have been three different active groups of women in the AKP. The
first consists of Islamist women who had previously supported the RP and who had been
mobilized by Erdoğan while he was the mayoral of Istanbul between 1994 and 1999.
These women make up the electorate of the AKP (Tur & Citak, 2009). The second group
is composed of both pious and conservative women who work in the party organizations,
often in the party‘s women organization, called the Women‘s Branch (WB). In the
organizational structure of the AKP, only 30 percent of female members had been
activists in LCs of the RP or FP (Tur & Citak, 2009). The third group is the deputies
elected on the party ticket. These women make up a homogenous group and
fundamentally represent the center-right. They differ from women activists of the party
and the wives of male MPs, as none of them wears a headscarf.
As for how to identify AKP women, personal communication indicated that some
are not religious individuals, while others prioritize their faith, yet do not wear the
headscarf
63
. As Turam (2008) stated, women in the AKP ―display a radical break from
the previous, more vocal form of Islamist women‘s movement under the Refah Party‖ (p.

62
For the Republican People‘s Party, the percentage of men among those supporting the party is one
percent higher than that of women. (men %14, women %13). (Turan, 2004).

63
I was able to observe a weekly meeting of the Ankara Women‘s Branch and the Diyarbakir Women‘s
Branch. In the Ankara meeting, half of the participants wore headscarves. In the Diyarbakir meeting, the
number of headscarved activist women was slightly higher.
173
476). Using the term ―pious women‖ instead of ―Islamic women‖ of the RP, she argued
that pious women avoid using the headscarf as a ―political weapon or a symbol of
resistance or mobilization‖ (p. 477). Despite the confrontational activism of radical
secularists, whose collective action against political Islam mainly targets pious women in
headscarves, pious women have chosen non-resistance and avoidance of conflict.
The AKP‘s attitudes towards female representation have explicitly differed from
that of the RP and FP. The AKP placed 28 female candidates on its lists in the 2002
national election, and 62 in 2007. While only 18 women were elected in 2002, 30 women
were elected in 2007.
64
It seems that conservative women politically empowered with the
ruling terms of the AKP (2002-2007; 2007-2011). In the following section, I address how
the representation of conservative Muslim women increased at the elected offices as well
as the upper-level party organs of the AKP.
4.4.1 Women in the AKP Program
The AKP‘s program diverged from the programs of the RP and FP with respect to
its approach to women and women‘s issues, by including a sub-section on women under
―Social Policies.‖
65
Moreover, it was more progressive in terms of its gender policies.

64
The MHP had 43 female candidates, and only two were elected. The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society
Party fielded ten candidates at electable ranks, and eight of them were elected. The small parties that have
no chance of entering parliament have many more female candidate. The Genç Party, for example, had 128
female candidates.

65
Women‘s issues can be defined as issues that mainly affect women, either for biological reasons such as
breast cancer screening and abortion rights, or for social reasons such as child-care policy, domestic
violence, sex equality in employment, in education, in social security measures.

174
For example, the program defined women mainly as individuals, then as mothers, while
the RP and FP had defined women mainly as mothers. The AKP program stated that
―women should be considered as individuals before everything else, and they are also
individuals who play the prime role in raising healthy generations‖ (www. akparti.org.tr).
The party‘s primary goal for women was to increase their participation in politics. The
program states that the party is committed to ensuring women‘s participation in public
life, increasing the number of female party members, and encouraging women to play an
active role in politics.
The program addressed a wide range of women‘s issues under the Social Policies
section. It promised to develop programs to increase schooling rates for girls, and policies
to stop violence against women, including sexual violence, honor killings, and domestic
violence. The program also pointed to the economic exploitation of women as among the
issues the party should address. In its stance on the social security system, it pledged to
address the needs of female workers by recognizing women‘s responsibilities in their
families as a type of ―respectable‖ labor arguing that social security measures should also
cover housewives.
4.4.2 The Representation of Women in the Party Organs and in Elected
Offices
Although there were no women among the founders of the Refah or Fazilet
parties, the AKP invited 13 women to be among its 64 founders in 2001. All of them
were highly educated professional married middle or upper middle class women. Six out
of the 13 female founders wear headscarves. Since none of these six women had a right
175
to be placed as a candidate for elected offices, the party chairman Tayyip Erdoğan
developed a compromise formula for them. Ayşe Böhürler, Ayşe Boston Ünsal, and
Serap Yahşi Yaşar became members of the AKP‘s highest decision-making and
supervisory body, the Central Decision-Making Council. Another veiled female founder,
Sema Ramazanoğlu, was appointed an advisor to Erdoğan on family issues, which were
strongly emphasized in the party program and its policies. However, two incidents made
it clear that the sensitivity of the Kemalist establishment regarding the headscarf issue
would cause difficulty for the AKP in placing many of the female activists in visible
high-ranking positions. One incident occurred in April 2002 when the Turkish
Constitutional Court put the AKP on notice for having six headscarved women among
the party‘s founders. The Constitutional Court cited a previous ruling against the Refah
Party for having violated the principle of secularism by having placed a headscarved
woman, Merve Kavakci, on the party‘s election list.
Among female founders those do not wear headscarf, Remziye Öztoprak, Güldal
Akşit, and Nimet Çubukçu were elected as deputies from Istanbul on the party ticket in
the 2002 election. Akşit and Çubukçu were reelected in the 2007 parliamentary election
as well. The inclusion of women in the party‘s elites during the foundation process
signaled the AKP‘s intention to further women‘s advancement in partisan politics. This
meant that female activists, particularly conservative Muslim women activists, would not
be confined to women‘s branches as was the case in the LCs in the 1990s. And in fact the
number of the women in the Central Executive Committee of the AKP, the most powerful
organ of the party stood up 14 in 2008. 48 women from the AKP held seats in the
176
parliament between 2002 and 2009. All 48 women elected as deputies on the party ticket
have been university graduates and professionals from the urban middle class: among
them have been eight lawyers, six academicians, five engineers, and two bureaucrats.
Interviews revealed that having a university degree was a criterion for being chosen as a
candidate, although the party did not seek the same criterion in selecting male candidates.
The age of female members of Parliament ranged from 33 to 58. While the average age is
54 in the parliament, the average age of the female parliamentarian is 39. Interviewees
stated that women elected representatives are expected to be good-looking and
presentable. Many women had sought family approval before entering politics, and
family ties can open entry to political office. Such ties played a significant role at various
levels selection process. I was told that at least three women were selected because their
husbands, who had turned down the party‘s invitation to be on the party list, suggested
placing their wives as candidates.
A salient question related to changes in women‘s representation is who made the
selections and how. From interviews, informal meetings, daily newspapers, and journal
articles the following picture emerged.
66
The chairman, Erdoğan, played the primary role
in candidate recruitment, although there has been a tendency to shift limited authority to
the WB and women party elites in the selection process. Experience in the WB has

66
In the summer of 2009, I conducted interviews with 15 female members, including Guldal Aksit and
Nimet Cubukcu, who both served two terms, as well as two male members of Parliament, Abdulkadir Aksu
and Kemalettin Aydin. News about each female Member of Parliament was sorted and analyzed. I have
also collected data about their selection process during my informal meetings. Staff of both the parliament
and the Women‘s Branch provided me with insightful information.

177
become an important element in being included in the candidate pool. Women from the
Branch were first fielded as candidates in the 2007 national election. In addition women
party elites, including chairman Tayyip Erdoğan, his wife Emine Erdoğan, senior
deputies, women founders have been asked their opinions about prospective candidates.
Sometimes, they have lobbied for a particular candidate. The list of WB and the list of
those who were newly recruited mainly by Erdoğan are combined, constituting the
preliminary female candidate pools. Erdoğan himself and very small number of party
selectors has decided the number of women who would be presented as candidates, has
selected some of them from the pool, then placed them in safe seats on the party lists and
constituted the parliament‘s composition.
The selection process does not seem democratic and fair in a sense of not
allowing the involvement of local activists and the electorate. And not all women who
have been involved have had an equal chance for candidacy. Such as process reveals that
Erdoğan play a substantial role not only recruiting female candidates but also in deciding
the composition of the AKP‘s delegation to parliament in terms of men and women
portions.
As a prime minister, Erdoğan is also the most influential person in deciding
women‘s inclusion in positions of power, such as ministry and commission chair
positions. The AKP has formed the cabinet since the 2002. Usually, two women have
been given ministry positions in a 25-member cabinet. Party founders Akşit and
Çubukçu, were appointed as ministers: Akşit as minister of tourism and minister of state
responsible for women and family affairs; and Çubukçu as the minister of state and
178
minister of education. Selma Kavaf, a deputy with experience in the WB, was appointed
as minister of state for women and family affairs (For the list of female MPs served in the
cabinets between 1923-2011, see Appedix B, Table 9). Commission chairpersons also
have a great deal of power in the legislature. Two women held these positions; Alev
Dedegil, who has led the Petition Commission since 2007; and Aksit, who led the newly
established Men and Women Equality of Opportunity Commission since 2008.
As briefly mentioned in the paragraphs above, the WB of the AKP has a capacity
to become involve in female candidate selection which is mainly dominated by Erdoğan.
The following section discusses the characteristics of the WB and its role in the
conservative Muslim women‘s engagement with the AKP.
4.4.3 Women’s Organizations within the AKP (Women’s Branch)
The WB copied the organizational structure of the AKP‘s central bodies and
hence includes a Central Decision Making and Administrative Committee, consisting of
50 members elected by secret ballot, and a Central Executive Committee, made up of 12
members. It has a headquarters as well as organizations at the provincial, city, and district
levels. Since the summer of 2009, the Branch has planned to organize even at the street
level. Smaller organizations exist in villages and neighborhoods where the number of
female members is sufficient to carry out party activities. The heads of branch
organizations are included in the board of directors of the AKP‘s provincial, city, and
district organizations.
179
The WB has been quite successful in organizing since 2003. In addition to the
support of Party Chairman Erdogan, female leaders such as Selma Kavaf
67
and Fatma
Şahin have played an important role in the rapid organizing of the WB. According to the
2007-2009 activity report, the WB had affiliated divisions in 896 districts in 81 provinces
and had a total of 1,250,000 registered members.
The WB plays several roles in party politics. Some of these roles are: recruiting
new female members into the party; providing political training to women; propagating
the party‘s policies; helping mobilize at the party‘s events such as annual congresses and
public meetings; collecting data about local needs and feedback from the party‘s current
and prospective electorate; building networks with local, national, and international
organizations to disseminate the idea that the party has a progressive perspective about
women; and developing projects to further women‘s education, health, and employment
opportunities.
The AKP‘s WB has a rich activity repertoire to contribute to the party politics.
The main types of the branch‘s activities are: 1. Networking: Home visits, home
meetings, visiting patients at hospitals, visiting mothers of newborns, visiting mothers of
killed soldiers, visiting disabled individuals, delivering roses and cookies for special
occasions; 2. Aid: Delivering food, clothes, coal, house appliances, providing educational
support, providing assistance to those who plan to get married, helping the needy to reach
relevant state institutions; 3. Dialogue with NGOs: Visiting NGOs, inviting NGOs to the

67
Former head of the Women‘s Branch, Selma Kavaf was nominated in both the 2002 and 2007 national
elections. She was elected in 2007.

180
party activities; 4. Dialogue with foreign parties, politicians, and the EU organs; 5.
Political training of women and academic activities through organizing conferences,
panels, seminars, competitions, summer camps, and workshops.
Building face-to-face relationships, home-based activities (visits), and intense
networking are the main strategies of the AKP women that are similar to those of the pro-
Islamic parties of the 1990s. Some of the activities, particularly those under the category
of networking and aid, have emerged within the context of traditional gender roles. It is
almost impossible to observe male party members conducting activities such as visits,
delivering aid, and helping needy people.
The performance of the Branch made it clear that it generates many benefits for
the party. For example, the Women‘s Branch explained social policies of the government
to 319,449 women in districts between 2007 and 2009 according to Women‘s Branch‘s
annual reports. Two members of the Branch stated that ―women constitute the backbone
of the AKP, the Women‘s Branch is the backbone of the party organizations… The party
cannot be successful without women.‖ (Personal communication, June 22, 2009) Have
women benefited from their efforts in the Women‘s Branch? If yes, how and in which
ways the Branch contribute women‘s social and political empowerments?
Women have approached the Branch as a civil society organization and their
engagement as a form of civic engagement. Drawing on data from 21 semi-structured
interviews and 38 surveys conducted with the provincial and district heads of the AKP‘s
WB, Tur & Citak (2009) found that women in WB were interested in politics because it
led them to become more self-confident individuals, better mothers and neighbors, and
181
more active citizens. Many of my interviewees told me that they participated in party
politics in order to serve the public, and to contribute to solving the country‘s problems,
and to be able to say that ―they do something good‖.
Miki Kittilson (2006) found women tend to devise context-contingent strategies
for inclusion in party politics, and the women in the AKP‘s WB exemplify this. Given
that women‘s political engagement is traditionally limited, the pool of politically
experienced women in the AKP is small. Through the WB, women have learned the
internal dynamics of the party. They have become aware of the unwritten rules, networks,
party hierarchy, and political maneuvers. Interviewees reported that most of these women
behaved with caution and worked hard to neutralize men‘s criticism by avoiding
confrontation. Safiye Seymenoglu and Fatma Şahin, female deputies ―raised‖ in the WB,
told me that in the early years, their efforts were to demonstrate their political presence to
male counterparts who used to dominate political domain (Personal communication, June
17, 2009 and June 19, 2009). Women wanted to change gender composition of the party
in favor of women. Similarly, Serpil Çakır, the head of Diyarbakır Province Women‘s
Branch, explained that although their suggestions and their efforts were sometimes
disregarded by Central Provincial Party organizations, the WB continued and even
intensified its activities. The women of the Diyarbakir Branch tried to prove that ―party
women could be more courageous and creative in energizing voters; thus women‘s
political labor could contribute party in a great extent in a city where the party was not
very powerful‖ (personal communication, July 17, 2009).
182
The WB has been considered a major site for training women in party politics
(Cansun, 2008). Since many women first encounter party politics in the WB, its leaders
focus on teaching the basics of politics to the activists. They may begin with the meaning
of formal meetings, ways of articulating women‘s demands, and taking collective
decisions in meetings (Selma Kavaf speech, 2005). The headquarters organize training
programs, panels, seminars, and summer camps to educate women in affiliated branches.
For example, an intensive program called the Politics Academy trained 3,000 members of
the WB in 2008 and 2009.
The content of political training programs and academic activities is important. It
reflects ways in which the party leadership and the WB perceive women‘s role in politics.
Family appears as a notable issue in women‘s training programs as well as in male
leaders‘ discourses addressing female members. A review of the annual reports of the
Women‘s Branch showed that many seminars were devoted to family-related topics, such
as family happiness, a healthy life, and reproductive health. Provincial and district WBs
organize those seminars; and both the members of the WB and the wives of male MPs
participate in them. The AKP‘s patriarchal and traditionalist ideology regarding women is
embedded in its family-centered discourse: In all its seminars, speeches of party elites,
and publications
68
women are warned to keep a balance between family and politics.
(Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008). Erdogan has consistently pointed out the significance of

68
For example, Ayşegül Kurtoglu, an advisor of Tayyip Erdoğan on family and women‘s issues developed
a project called ‗My Family Turkey‘ for which she prepared a series of books about marriage and family
life. The books have been sent to the AKP municipalities and wedding officials are supposed to give new
couples during the ceremonies. Kurtoglu‘s articles on these issues have been published in the AKP‘s
monthly journal, ‗Türkiye Bülteni‘. (cited from Ayata & Tutuncu, 2008).
183
women for the Turkish family structure and for the well-being of society in his speeches
addressing party women. He also often refers to the importance of motherhood and
women‘s critical role in child-raising by criticizing those who consider women‘s role as
mothers as impeding their participation in the public sphere. One of the issues
overwhelmingly emphasized in his speeches has been that of women‘s familial roles in
overcoming the economic crisis in Turkey.
69
Content of programs manifest the
conservative values hold by the party elites. The party elites concerns that women might
erode their traditional roles mainly as mothers and wives due to their involvement in
intense party works. However, the same concern is not hold for male politicians.
Actually, wives of them are expected to compensate men‘s intense activism at home.
The participation of women in the branch activities has been transformed from
simply civic engagement to a path to increasing involvement in party politics and an
opportunity for representation in elected offices. Some members stated that although in
the past women did not tend to demand holding a position, they have recently begun to
make such demands. A former member said the party had benefited tremendously from
the work of women; thus, women were able to send the ―right‖ messages to the party
elites in asking for representation. In the 2007 elections, seven female MPs out of 30
came from among WB cadres
70
.

69
Interestingly, he has urged young families to have at least three children, a call that spurred outrage
among many feminist groups.

70
The candidacy process of some deputies such as Selma Kavaf, Safiye Seymenoglu, and Fatma Şahin
exemplified the increasing effect of the Women‘s Branch in the 2007 election. These three women were
first nominated to non-electable positions on the party list in the 2002 election. After their work in the
Branch, the party placed their names at electable levels, and they were easily elected. Similarly, five other
184
A number of leaders of the WB consider this number too low, and complain that
party elites have failed to acknowledge the significance of the WB. They also criticize the
elected representatives who did not rise through party ranks for underestimating the
political work of the WB. Women leaders of the party have argued that selecting
parliamentary candidates from the party organizations would positively influence the
party‘s work and encourage women in participating party (Ozcan, 2007). Nonetheless,
the WB has generally avoided confrontation with male counterparts. Sociologist and
AKP MP Edibe Sözen found that ―the political culture of the women in the party is in
consensus with cultural codes, favoring consensus over disagreement and conformity
over divergence‖ (Sozen, 2006, p. 268).
Parallel to the empowerment of the WB through increasing memberships and
wide mobilization, women in the branch began to raise demands for more autonomy. The
Branch seeks to be equal with other decision-making organs in the party and to have a
separate budget, and in fact a number of party regulations were changed in 2009 to
advance the status of the WB. The impeding of the activities of the WB by male party
members was reintroduced as a ―disciplinary offence‖ punishable by temporary
dismissal, and leaders of provincial Branches who are members of the Board of
Directors were granted the right to vote on the party‘s provincial boards.

women who have worked in provincial branches were placed at electable ranks in the party lists in the 2007
elections to acknowledge the efforts of Women‘s Branch.
185
4.4.4 The Strategic Support of Party Leadership in Women’s Increasing
Involvement in Party Politics
Both organizing performance and the increase in the number of its members has
led to a greater institutionalization of the WB and to greater empowerment of women
within the party. Nevertheless, this empowerment has not diluted decision making power
of the male party leadership in issues regarding party women‘s activism. As Miki
Kittilson (2006) noted, women‘s gains within parties flow not only from the pressure
from party supporters but also from calculated efforts made by the central party
leadership in a top-down fashion under specific circumstances.
In the AKP, party elites, particularly the central party leadership, have encouraged
and facilitated women‘s inclusion. Given that Erdoğan has been the chairman of the party
since its founding in 2002, he has been the most influential gatekeeper in women‘s
nomination for elected offices. He has played the role of a mediator between women and
party elites, and women‘s organizations that may facilitate participation within the party
gain access only with his support. At the same time, personal conversations with
politicians and party activists and an examination of various party publications indicates
that he has had an extraordinary influence on women, and they have been grateful to him
for supporting them. Politicians and activists refer to his charisma, his former cooperation
with women during his Istanbul metropolitan mayorality, and his ongoing
encouragement, as significant factors in their involvement in party politics. One of the
founders of the party, Fatma Bostan Ünsal, said, ―Mr. Erdogan became a mayor thanks to
his working together with women. Although he does not speak about it, he knows how to
186
work with women.‖ (Sozen, 2006, p. 264) Indeed, many female deputies explained the
increase in women‘s representation solely in terms of his support. Thus, it is worthwhile
to examine his role in women‘s increasing involvement in the AKP since 2002. This
analysis of Erdoğan‘s role relies on several data sources: his 16 speeches to female party
activists, my personal interviews conducted with female political activists and interviews
published in the print media as well as academic articles.
Erdoğan considered that women‘s political involvement was insufficient as a
result of male dominance and of men‘s resistance to seeing women, and hearing their
political ideas, and projects. (Tayyip Erdogan, 2004). He argued that the exclusion of
women weakened Turkish politics; women have traits such as ―sensitivity,‖
―colorfulness,‖ ―love,‖ and ―compassion,‖ which would strengthen the male-dominated
―cruel‖ politics (Tayyip Erdoğan speech, 15 August 2005). He encouraged women to
overcome the barriers and the resistance of men through their hard work in the party by
asserting their rights.
Erdoğan‘s ideas about women‘s representation have progressed from the early
1990s when he first became involved in politics in the RP. While he was less likely to
support women‘s presence in elected offices then, and more likely to use women‘s help
simply to secure votes, by the 2000s he began to support the presence of more women in
national elected offices as well as in high-ranking party positions. Despite his opposition
to a gender quota, he applied a de facto quota in the 2007 national elections and the 2009
local elections. According to statement of my interviewees, he wanted to have 30 elected
women on the party ticket in 2007. Therefore, female candidates were placed in electable
187
positions on the lists. Female candidates did not compete with men to hold a place on the
party list. Rather, they competed with other party women and his goal of 30 was met. In
the 2009 local election, according to Erdoğan‘s directive, the third, sixth, and ninth places
on the party lists were reserved for women. This directive was applied in many places. As
a result, the number of elected women from the AKP increased doubled in provinces and
city councils (See statistics about the change women‘s local representation see Appendix
B, Table 8.).
Being a great orator, he has succeeded in using metaphors to make women feel a
close affinity with the AKP. For example, in a speech addressing members of the Istanbul
Province Women‘s Branch, he said:
I believe that you [women] will look after the dream of the AKP as you look after
your children. You will be excited to realize this dream more than anyone. I
believe you, and I trust you. You are the real actors in politics. You are also real
actors in society. (Tayyip Erdoğan Speech, 13 March, 2005).

In a similar fashion, he said in the Kahramanmaraş Province Women‘s Branch
meeting in March 2005, ―Now, we expected you to raise newborn hopes, dreams, and
expectations.‖
He tended to use the AKP‘s emphasis on women as a propagation tool. In his
speeches, he has often emphasized reforms and policies about women‘s rights carried out
by the government such as the new Penal Code and Civil Code as well as the
government-sponsored campaigns such as ―Girls, Let‘s Go to School‖ (Haydi Kızlar
Okula). He has also often referred to increasing women‘s representation in the party‘s
Central Decision and Administrative Council and the institutionalization of the WBs.
Contrary to a widely held assumption by critics‘ that the AKP has regarded women
188
merely as ―window dressing,‖ and useful only to gather votes, Erdoğan believes that the
AKP led a breakthrough in supporting women‘s participation. He has strongly
emphasized gender policies and treatment of women in the party, not only to show that
the party has provided many opportunities to women but also to respond to the criticism
of secular groups about the AKP‘s gender ideology.
Erdoğan seems to have a great deal of ongoing influence on female politicians
and activists. He is a role model and a source of motivation for women. According to MP
Safiye Seymenoğlu, the real reason for women‘s increasing participation Erdoğan.
Similar to Seymenoğlu, Aşkın Aşan, an academic elected on the AKP ticket in the 2007
elections, considered Erdogan provided invaluable opportunities for women with regards
to political involvement. Both Akşit, and Şahin explained the increase in women‘s
representation in terms of the decisiveness of the party in including women thanks to
Erdogan‘s vision. Deputies such as Edibe Sözen, Fatma Şahin, Özlem Müftüoglu,
Nursuna Memecan, and Fatma Kotan told me that they admire the competence and
leadership skills of Erdoğan during his Istanbul mayorality and then during his tenure in
the parliament. Although they had no confidence in participating in politics, they acquired
that confidence due to his leadership skills and his vision. He altered their perspective on
politics, and they decided to join the party. Many women also described Erdogan as their
role model. On the other hand, feminist civil society organizations have criticized elected
women in the party for obeying Erdogan, rather than behaving independently. They
maintain that these women are supposed to represent women, so they should be able to
assert themselves and at times say ―no.‖ They prefer co-optation rather than cooperation
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and confrontation in almost every issues. The number of factors have influenced the
tendency of party elites, particularly Erdoğan, to support women‘s inclusion. The
following sub-sections will discuss three of these considerations.
i. Recognition of the Mobilization Capabilities of Women
Much of the hard work of party organization has fallen to the AKP women,
particularly during election periods. The head of a provincial Women‘s Branch
summarized the role of the WB as follows: ―There is always a need for a team, for a
group of individuals, and an organization which will work to win elections. This is the
role of the WB in the AKP.‖ (personal communication, June 22, 2009). As a result of
intense activities of women in the party, not just during election periods, but throughout
the year, more women have voted for the party. The percentage of women who voted for
the AKP was eight percent higher than that of men in 2009 local elections.
Women of the AKP succeed in mobilizing many women in party activities as a
result of their networking and advanced organizing structure. Massive participation in
congresses of Women‘s Branch headquarters indicated women‘s mobilization abilities.
For example, in May 2008, almost 15,000 women participated in the WB Congress. I
observed during my visit to the Ankara Women‘s Branch a weekly meeting devoted to a
discussion of how the branch could increase the number of women who would participate
in the upcoming summer 2009 Party Congress. Women were very enthusiastic to find
accommodations for attracting many women to join the congress, especially in
summertime when people are less likely to join public events because of the hot weather.
A member told me, ―When the party gives women the responsibility, each woman brings
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ten women. They are able to make the congress building crowded.‖ (personal
communication, June 22, 2009). I also observed successful mobilization efforts of
members of WB in the 2011 elections campaigns in Istanbul. Women made rallies and
meeting crowded by inviting their friends and neighbors and by arranging
accommodations. They also in charge of recruiting new members to the AKP in small
portable offices opened in front of parks, bus stations, malls and public squares. This
shows that party approach members of WB mainly as mobilizers in mass organizations
and member recruiting, however, women also fulfilled this roles without objections. In
fulfilling this role, their gender and religious identity provide opportunities. They make
home visits easier than male counterparts as they are women and headscarved. Female
voters feel comfortable in talking them because members of WB look like them as
wearing headscarves and coming from middle or lower class.
ii. Continuous Criticism and Close Scrutiny of the Party’s Gender
Ideology
The AKP‘s stance on gender has been considered a litmus test of the change in its
ideology from an Islamic political party to a conservative democratic one. (Tur & Çıtak,
2009). Political parties, secular groups, and feminist groups constantly pressure the party
to pursue what they define as women-friendly policies.
Secular groups and opposition parties have perceived a threat from the Islamic
basis of the party. They have been worried about rolling back the status of women in the
society as well as women‘s rights, because the secular state has been considered the main
safeguard of women‘s rights and equality (Turam, 2008). Thus, they have been
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concerned about the AKP‘s sincerity in its political reforms which aimed at harmonizing
its policies with the EU (Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008; Sözen, 2008). The EU accession
process has required a number of reforms in human rights and women‘s rights and the
government led by the AKP have often responded, but in some cases agreed on reforms
reluctantly. For example, the revision to the Penal Code was asked by the EU. The AKP
cabinet had to work closely with women‘s NGOs which had organized long-term
campaigns for making these laws women-friendly and in line with gender equality.
Senior female MPs from the AKP like Güldal Akşit, who was also the Minister
Responsible from Women and Family Affairs, tried to build dialogue between the AKP
and feminist women‘s NGOs. However, before the amendment was voted on, Prime
Minister Erdoğan proposed criminalizing adultery by punishing both men and women,
but he had to withdraw his proposal as a result of organized reaction from feminist
groups. (Arat, 2009)
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In another example, despite criticisms from feminist groups, the government
increased women‘s retirement age through amending the Social Security and General
Insurance Law in March 2008. Two instances made it clear that first, the feminist groups
have been active pressure groups seeking to motivate male and female representatives in
the parliament for advancing women‘s interests; second, the AKP had to become
involved in heated debates with representatives of the women‘s groups and in the end it

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Since 1998, adultery has not been a crime under the Turkish Penal Code. In September 2004, Erdogan
proposed an article in which adultery was defined as a crime, claiming this protected women.

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had to take some of their considerations seriously in making policies regarding women
(Ayata & Tütüncü, 2008). While the feminist groups tended to make collaboration if
women‘s interests are on the table, secular Kemalist groups and opposition parties tended
to confront with the AKP in terms of its women related reforms. Drawing upon their
concerns, they advocated for the necessity of the ―second women‘s revolution‖ that
would succeed the first one carried out by Ataturk in the 1920s and 1930s. These groups
believe that women‘s rights have been under serious threat from the AKP.
The secular Kemalist groups and feminist groups and also have different ideas
about the representation of women in the AKP. The first one have considered the
increase in the number of women elected on the AKP ticket is merely window dressing.
Feminists in general have criticized the AKP for its shortcomings in women‘s
representation. They have claimed that the party has been taking advantage of women‘s
hard work during elections but has not provided them with opportunities either in elected
offices or in the party decision-making organs. Accordingly, the lack of a voluntary party
quota has been considered a serious shortcoming, proving the party‘s insincerity about
women‘s political empowerment. As of 2010, a feminist group, called Anayasa
Platformu (Platform for the Constitution) has continued a campaign to put pressure on the
government to adopt a gender quota as a part of Constitutional amendments. A leading
secular feminist academician, Nükhet Sirman, criticized the party‘s female candidates for
meeting the participation criteria of Chairman Erdoğan rather than other objective criteria
set by women who want to advocate their rights and promote their interests in policy
making (Turam, 2008). Feminists have also been concerned about the decrease in
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women‘s employment during the AKP‘s governing years. Overall, they believe that the
AKP has enhanced patriarchal aspects of the state apparatus.
The AKP has tried to respond to critics of feminists and secular Kemalists by
adjusting its agenda regarding gender equality. For example, until 2009, feminist groups
harshly criticized the government party for failing to take necessary measures to outlaw
violence against women. The women of the AKP had been silent about the issue until the
criticism intensified. In 2009, the WB finally set the agenda regarding violence against
women by organizing a workshop and a publishing a press statement. Since then, female
leaders and MPs of the AKP have been more likely to address incidents of domestic
violence as well as to develop projects in this area. Another example is the issue of
women‘s employment. In 2009, the Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum
indicated that the gender gap in Turkey was widening, mainly because the percentage of
women in the labor force, women‘s wages compared to men‘s wages, and the percentage
of women in legislative, senior official and managerial positions remained low in the
AKP‘s ruling years. In response, among other measures, in November 2010, in order to
encourage women‘s employment, the government announced that employers that hired
women would not have to pay into the social security pension fund for the first two years.
It seems that a close scrutiny on a conservative religious party on its gender policies work
in many instances. It brought both male and female leaders of the party into the spotlight.
Thus, they have to adopt more progressive policies contrary to their conservative values.
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iii. Competition among Parties to Attract More Women and be Seen as
Progressive
The literature about women‘s political representation agrees that competitive
multiparty electoral systems like Turkey‘s are likely to produce greater women‘s
representation than single-party electoral systems are (Bystydzienski, 1995; Leyenaar,
2004; McDonagh, 2009). It is important to identify ways in which the multiparty system
benefits women‘s representation. One way is the party competition. Kittilson (2006) has
stated that competition among parties often provides new windows of opportunity for
women. One party motivates another to change its behavior since parties do not want to
be in a disadvantaged position. Therefore, they follow the emerging pattern of placing
more women in electable positions on the party list. Overall, this change may generate
systematic transformation in the party system
72
.
In this context, it is hardly a coincidence that although the religious and
nationalist-right parties of Turkey did not have any female candidates until 1999, in that
year, all of these parties listed women candidates. In the 2002 elections, all parties had

72
Drawing quantitative data from parties in the government in Western European countries between 1968
and 1992, Rebecca Howard Davis (1997) made a strong argument regarding the role of competition among
parties in women‘s representation. She disagreed with a commonly shared assumption that leftist parties are
more likely to promote women‘s rights or elect and appoint women for political offices than rightist parties
are. Instead, she argued that political parties are likely to appoint women to the government only when their
opponents are also likely to do so. Relying on Norway and Canada as cases, Matland & Studlar (1996)
elaborated on the influence of the competition among parties using contagion theory. Contagion theory
suggests that traditional parties will feel pressured to nominate more women if one of their political rivals,
usually a smaller party farther to the left, starts to promote representation of women. Furthermore, Lisa
Baldez (2003) found that the adoption of a sex quota by a party may even give other parties incentives to
adopt such quota.

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female candidates. In the 2007 elections, parties placed similar numbers of women on
their party lists. While the AKP fielded 62 candidates, the opposition party, the CHP
placed 52 women on its party list, and the MHP counted 43 female candidates (only two
women were elected, while 70 men were elected). Because of the size of its electorate,
the pro-Kurdish DTP put nine women in electable positions, while 51 men were fielded.
Eight women and 19 men were seated in the parliament. As a rule, small parties that are
unlikely to enter the parliament have placed many more female candidates on their list.
For example, the Genç Party fielded 128 female candidates and won no seats owing to
the ten percent national threshold.
Party competition clearly influenced the number of women recruited in some
provinces of East and Southeast Turkey. In the 2004 local election, a considerable
number of women had been elected as mayors and members of city councils in the region
from the pro-Kurdish DTP ticket. To compete with the pro-Kurdish party in the 2007
election, the chairman of the AKP decided to place four women on the party lists of these
provinces. Similarly, six women were elected on the pro-Kurdish DTP ticket in the same
election. It seems that party competition between the AKP and the DTP benefited
women‘s representation in the East and Southeastern region of Turkey where previously
women‘s representation had been rare.
73

73
The developments at the onset of the 2009 local elections illustrated the influence of party competition as
well. In the 2004 local elections, only two women were elected on the AKP ticket to the mayoralty, while
14 women were elected on the pro-Kurdish party ticket. Before the 2009 local election, the Women‘s
Branch began to emphasize the role of women in local politics. They organized visits, meetings, and
training programs to increase the number of female candidates. The leadership of the AKP recognized
women‘s increasing chances to be elected in local positions as well as the advantage of the pro-Kurdish
party in having more women. Erdogan reprimanded local AKP branches that submitted municipal council
candidate lists that did not include women (Simsek, 2009). Backed by Erdogan, the Women‘s Branch tried
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4.5 Substantive Representation: Female Politicians’ Attitudes
towards Gender Equality and Problems of Women
In addition to the simple increase in the number of women in political offices,
their activism on behalf of women‘s empowerment is important. Do women act for
women in general and women‘s interests? It is widely expected women will have a
distinctive group identity based upon shared common interests on women‘s issues, often
called substantive representation. Accordingly, it is assumed that women‘s presence in
political institutions may translate into substantive public policy that promotes women‘s
social, economic, and political well-being. What has been the women‘s impact on
legislative agenda-setting and on adopting laws and policies empowering women?
It seems too early to evaluate whether the women deputies of the AKP are making
substantive changes in women‘s empowerment. However, it is possible to discover to
what extent the women are both willing and have the opportunity to make such changes.
To find out their willingness to make substantive changes, it is critical to explore the
group identity of women politicians and ways in which they approach women‘s issues.
An initial way of assessing women deputies‘ willingness and capacity for substantial
representation is to examine whether they approach women as a social category with
which they are obliged to deal, and if they care about an unequal balance of power

to ensure that more women would be nominated (personal interview, summer 2010). In the end, 137
women were placed on candidate lists for the mayoralty.
73
However, the result was disappointing for both
the party and the Women‘s Branch, because only two women were elected to the mayoralty on the party
ticket in the 2004 elections. However, the number of women elected to provincial and city councils slightly
increased.

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between the sexes as a problem, often called as ―a woman question‖ (Ayata & Tütüncü,
2008).
Female deputies of the AKP often follow the position of the AKP on all issues,
including gender. They rarely argue that they represent women. Party loyalty is very
strong and it is almost impossible to find a female AKP deputy in a personal
confrontation with the party. They have often avoided negotiating or collaborating with
women of other parties represented in the parliament or women in civil society
organizations in order not to come into conflict with their own party (Turam, 2008). They
usually pointed out that the issues should have been addressed in a ―convenient way‖,
meaning politically correct way. None of the deputies reported having had to confront a
double standard or gender stereotyping in the party
74
.
Female deputies tend to frame women‘s issues by referring to conservative
democratic ideals with which the party used to identify itself. A deputy who rose through
party ranks stated that women are expected to be conservative in both their dress and
their attitudes toward party activities. A number of deputies framed their concerns about
identity issues through highlighting the party‘s ―conservative democratic‖ ideals. For
example, Halide İncekara, an AKP deputy elected in the 2002 and the 2007 national
elections, stated:
I am a member of the party which identifies itself as conservative democratic. I
am not supposed to think either as a social democrat or a liberal. . . . I cannot
propose policies like liberals do. No one can criticize me for embracing a

74
According to their reporting, these attitudes were not prevalent even among their electorate. I find this
unlikely.

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conservative identity, traditional values, and faith. I develop policies with respect
to my identity, values, and faith.
. . . I can identify myself as a free and strong woman with references to my faith/
values and traditions/customs. I do not need to be fit into the dictated ―modern
woman‖ model which emphasizes attitudes and attires. (Conference Procedings,
Women‘s Branch Conference in 2005; 36-37, 39)

Like male elites of the party, women emphasized the need to preserve cultural and
family values. Selma Kavaf (2007), an MP and minister of State for Women and Family
Affairs maintained,
We believe that women may become involved in politics as women and mothers
in an environment in which globalization threatens families. Because of that, we
may develop close relations with and support individuals and organizations that
have worked to keep alive conservative values.‖ (p. 8)

Similarly, in her comments to the party‘s monthly journal Turkiye Bulletin in
August 2006, Fatma Şahin, who was elected to the Parliament in 2007, and led the
Women‘s Branch until 2011 stated, ―We are a conservative society in which families are a
very important part of its fabric. Violence against children and women does not fit into
our faith and culture.‖ (p. 53)
When I asked women elected representatives to list the top three problems in
Turkey, none of them listed the gender inequality or women‘s empowerment among top
three problems such as unemployment, security, and education. They ranked women‘s
issues such as girls‘ education, the dramatic gender gap in the labor force, the gender
based violence as less important. Those MPs who considered gender inequality as a
problem chose to frame it either within the context of human rights or of the family.
According to first line of thinking, when democracy is consolidated and human rights
violations decrease, problems pertinent to gender inequality would be solved. According
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to the second line of thinking, when female deputies develop education and social
policies addressing the well-being of children and elderly people in the family, they will
contribute women‘s empowerment. Many of female MPs did not accepted sole
responsibility in addressing women‘s issues in policy making level and instead advocated
for the inclusion of male deputies in the process. They also pointed to civil society
organizations as platforms for developing solutions.
Despite their limited numbers, there have been some alternative women‘s
perspectives
75
who recognize the presence of problems about gender equality in Turkey
and elected officials‘ responsibilities in addressing the problems. For example, Aşkın
Aşan stated that the problems about woman issues in Turkey are very important. She
regarded herself as responsible for contributing to its resolution by providing
opportunities for women, particularly opportunities for them to become involved in
public life, participate in politics, and be represented in the parliament. Aşkın Asan with
Alev Dedegil, both of whom identified themselves as feminists, developed projects
addressing polygamy and sexual abuse of children, although politicians have often been
silent about these problems. Dedegil set women‘s poverty and violence against women on
parliamentary agenda.
In Turkey, according to the national and international reports, one of the most
prominent area reflecting gender inequality is still the low political representation of
women, although the representation has gradually increased since the 1990s. Thus, I

75
Women‘s perspectives refer to women‘s views on all political matters. It is widely believed that women
may perceive some issues, particularly women‘s issues differently from men.
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asked the AKP deputies asked their thoughts regarding women and politics. Interviewees
stated that the reasons for women‘s limited participation in politics include: lower levels
of education, economic dependence, meager financial resources for political campaigns,
and a lack of role models. According to them, cultural values that prioritize the domestic
roles of women along with women‘s inexperience politics also negatively influence the
political involvement of women. Many stated that women in general tend to avoid
politics. They are too timid about being a candidate. They leave politics if they are not
elected, whereas men are more persistent. In my personal communications with
politicians and party women, the lack of solidarity among women was identified as the
main impediment to the advancement of women in party ranks, along with the existence
of competition among women.
4.6 Conclusion
This chapter has shown that in the 1990s a large number of conservative Muslim
women began to participate in pro-Islamic parties, mainly as members of intra-party
women‘s organizations. They mobilized in women‘s branches of these parties in addition
to their mobilization in civil society organizations. Women widely used their gender-
based and religious-based resources extracted from their intersecting identities in their
party-affliated activities. Women‘s mobilization benefited the pro-Islamic parties, as
women energized others for the cause of Islamic politics and garnered substantial votes
for the parties during elections. Such participation and mobilization empowered women
politically, but they did not lead to changes in their descriptive representation either in
high-level decision-making positions within the party or in elected offices until the
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2000s. Women‘s participation continued in after the founding of the AKP and ultimately
translated into gains in women‘s representation.
The chapter sought to determine which influences affected the change in the
representation of women and how these influences worked together. It found that
mobilization via intersecting identities, efforts of intra-party women‘s organizations, and
the support of party leader Tayyip Erdoğan all affected conservative Muslim women‘s
representation in the pro-Islamic/conservative parties. The results support the proposed
theoretical framework that considers the importance of explanations based on identities,
party organizations, and party elites for understanding changes in the representation of
previously marginalized women‘s groups.
In the case of conservative Muslim women‘s representation, the first explanatory
factor, which preceded other two factors, is related to their gender and religious identities.
Conservative Muslim women encountered double discrimination because of dominant
patriarchal practices in the communities they belong to and to the state‘s headscarf ban in
universities and public offices. The structural intersectionality owing to gender and
religious identity transformed into the political intersectionality. The transformation
occurred when conservative women‘s identities became politically salient when they
began mobilization in civil society organizations to make claims about their right to
education while wearing a headscarf. Thus, women‘s mobilization in civil society
organizations led to electoral mobilization in pro-Islamic parties. Parties played a role in
making these women‘s identities politically much more salient by emphasizing the
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headscarf issue in their platforms and recruiting headscarved students who joined
headscarf-ban protests.
The second influential factor, the women‘s branches, emerged from the women‘s
engagement with parties and closely related to the third factor, the support of party elites.
Elites of pro-Islamic RP, including Necmettin Erbakan, who was the head of the party,
and Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the head of RP‘s Istanbul Provincial Branch at that time,
established intra-party women‘s organization, called the Ladies Commission, to benefit
from women‘s engagement in terms of gaining votes for the party. Intra-party women‘s
organizations made the parties more open to women and provided them with
opportunities to voice their demands. Although these internal organizations tended to
confine women‘s activism, they also increased women‘s visibility and empowered them
politically. Having worked hard for many years, by the 2000s, women‘s intra-party
organizations began to act strategically to empower women in the party. In turn, these
women pushed forward their claim to representation and made progress in part by
targeting the party chairman, Tayyip Erdoğan. Accordingly, the third factor, the strategic
support of political leaders, became apparent. It is clear that the influence of women‘s
organizations‘ efforts and the support of male leaders have been subtly intertwined since
the beginning of women‘s engagement with pro-Islamic parties.
Erdoğan, who supported women‘s participation in pro-Islamic parties in the
1990s, began to support their representation along with the moderation in Islamic
ideology and AKP‘s ruling party status which both appeared as additional interacting
elements. Erdoğan took these considerations into account when doing political
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calculations. For example, due to the AKP‘s ruling party status, feminist groups and
secular women‘s groups were able to put more pressure on the AKP regarding its gender
policies than they did for other parties. The AKP leadership has seen endorsement of
women‘s presence within party bodies as a way of eliminating criticism and transforming
the image of pro-Islamic parties by gaining democratic credentials in national and
international spheres. Finally, the influence of other parties‘ policy towards women
spurred the party leadership, which wanted to attract women whose vote it coveted in the
competitive climate for continuing its ruling party status.
In general, as proposed in Chapter 1, a number of factors related to identities,
women‘s organizations, and party elites together interacted repeatedly, resulting in a
change in women‘s descriptive representation. Although the case suggests that the
representation of conservative Muslim women increased, they still lag behind the
progress made by Kurdish nationalist women. The major reasons for this are the lack of
quota and the ongoing headscarf ban in political offices. Institutionalization of any
improvement by adopting anti-discrimination measures such as a quota will be important
to ensure further progress. The AKP has been reluctant to adopt a gender quota despite
women‘s activism. In part, this is because the AKP women rarely advocate for a quota:
they are extremely loyalty to the party and the party leadership which has expressed
reservations regarding a quota on the grounds that it would impede selection based upon
merit. Many AKP women also agree with the men on this issue. Since the AKP has been
in power since 2002, its adoption of the quota would have serious implications in
furthering women‘s representation in Turkey in general.
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As for the headscarf ban in public offices, since most conservative Muslim
women wear the headscarf, the ban significantly reduces the number of women who will
run for such offices. It also hampers efforts of women, particularly those of party
activists, who are pushing for greater representation. Meanwhile, the headscarf ban made
AKP more reluctant to place headscarved women high on candidate list, because the
election of these women could lead to the allegation that the AKP is challenging Turkey‘s
secular character. The Merve Kavakci affair in 1999 and the latest closure case against
the AKP in 2007 are examples of just such problems.
Finally, this case shows that women‘s organizations within parties may play a role
in advancing women‘s representation. It is expected that these organizations will also
become more involved in agenda-setting and policy development at the party level. Such
an involvement will necessitate being more assertive and less loyal toward the AKP‘s
reservations regarding the gender quota.
The next chapter will address the political activism of Kemalist women in the
1990s and 2000s when the political involvement of the Kurdish and conservative Muslim
women became notable.
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Chapter 5. The Political Activism of Kemalist Women
5.1 Introduction
The previous chapters discussed how Kurdish and conservative Muslim women
began to be politically active in the 1990s. Until that time, Kemalist women had been the
mainstream women‘s group in Turkey. Thus, their political activism should be treated as
a control case against which both Kurdish and conservative Muslim women‘s activism
are evaluated. An emphasis on Kemalist women is also useful to asses whether factors
such as identities, organizations, and political leaders appear as influential factors in
another case and the extent to which the lack of or presence of these factors affects
women‘s representation.
Kemalism has been the nationalist state ideology of Turkey, had been dominant in
the public sphere and in political institutions since the 1920s. Kemalists expected that all
groups would assimilate into the Kemalist state. As we have seen, the Turkish state
apparatus prohibited some public displays of religious piety, as exemplified in the ban on
headscarves in public schools and public offices, just as it outlawed some manifestations
of non-Turkish ethnicity, as seen in the ban on the Kurdish language.
In this regard, following the characterizations made by intersectionality scholars
such as Verloe (2006), Kemalist women may be defined as a ‗norm‘ social category, like
white middle-class heterosexual women in the West. Kemalist women are Turkish,
secular, and ‗modern,‘ and they perceived those who did not possess these characteristics
as ‗others.‘ Moreover, as members of a norm category, Kemalist women felt themselves
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responsible for protecting the secular, nationalist, and Kemalist character of the Turkish
state. In this regard, women‘s issues received a considerable attention, because these
women strongly believed that the Kemalist reforms, specifically secularism, greatly
benefited women.
As Kurdish and Islamic women‘s groups began to call into question the central
Kemalist principles of Turkish nationalism and secularism, their political activism was
perceived as a challenge, to not only the main characteristics of Turkish state but also the
dominant identity of Kemalist women. In particular, Kemalist women were concerned
about the growth of Islamic movements and the increase in the number of headscarved
girls in universities. They assumed that the Islamic groups would both enforce an Islamic
life style on others and roll back the status of women in the society. They have also
believed that their identities as women and as secularists/Kemalist made them more
vulnerable than men. As a result, they have strongly asserted Kemalist identity. They
have not only built a consciousness by focusing on the intersection of their gender and
Kemalist identities but also have developed new types of political action. Electoral
participation is a part of their political program. In this context, the integration of
Kemalist women into the CHP, which historically represented Kemalist ideology in
electoral politics, is an important topic for this chapter.
Examining the Kemalist women through the lens of intersectionality is not
straightforward, because political ideology is rarely accepted as a relevant social division.
Nevertheless, intersectionality provides very helpful analytical tools for addressing
Kemalist women‘s political activism. Here, I use Yuval-Davis‘ argument about the
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categories of intersectionality (2006) and Brah and Phoenix‘s (2004) argument about the
role of relational context in identity restructuring. Yuval-Davis argued that ―in specific
historical situations and in relation to specific people there are some social divisions
which are more important than others in constructing specific positioning.‖ Brah and
Phoenix argued that the relational context people have been experiencing might
necessitate restructuring a given identity in order to comply with new situations. These
two propositions may be also fruitful in examining this specific case within the context of
wider research question addressed in this dissertation.
The chapter will address the political manifestations of Kemalist women‘s social
positioning and identity restructuring. Symbolic acts, associational engagement, and
protest movements are all activities in which women have manifested a Kemalist identity
in relation to Islamic women. First, however, it is important to more fully explain who the
Kemalist women are by tracing the origins of Kemalism to the early Republican era and
then by examining challenges it encountered in the 1990s and the 2000s. Then, the
chapter will analyze the types of their activism. Then it will proceed to discuss women‘s
integration into electoral politics through participation and representation in the CHP.
5.2 Kemalist Women’s Identity
Kemalism describes the official program of the new Turkish state and founding
party, the Republican People‘s Party (CHP) in 1920s and 1930s. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
and modernist elites launched many political, economic, educational, and societal
reforms to build a modern secular Turkish nation-state from the remnants of the Ottoman
Empire which was defeated in the WWI. The founding fathers, taking European states as
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their nation-building model, formulated six guiding principles of Kemalism in 1931:
republicanism, secularism, nationalism, populism, statism, and reformism. Maintaining
these principles at the core of its discourse, Kemalism subsequently acquired a range of
meanings, and the CHP has been the main political party advocating it.
The elites of the Kemalist nation-state building process emphasized women and
gender relations. They envisioned an ideal Turkish woman who should not only
participate in social life but also shoulder the domestic roles of mothering and homecare
The goal was to create ‗proper,‘ ‗modern,‘ ‗civilized,‘ women. These ideal women were
expected to serve their family, their people, and their nation. Kemalist reforms granted
women educational, legal, and political rights in order to liberate them from the
oppression of religion (Gole, 1997a). Since the 1930s, educated professional women have
actively participated in social, economic, and political life, and many of them have
carried on the Kemalist mission of creating ―modern women.‖ They have claimed that
they represent national Turkish culture, serve the country‘s modernization, and foster
national development. They have also been treated as representatives of Turkish national
culture in the official discourse (Smith, p.321). They have glorified Ataturk and Kemalist
reforms which enabled them to access education and the public sphere. In response they
have strongly emphasized the importance of education, career, and legal rights for
Turkish women, and have been active in politics and in civil society.
76

76
Some of them also called themselves modern and feminist as well. But, cooperation between Kemalist
secular and the feminist secular women happened only on rare occasions. Thus, Kemalist women have
generally been marginalized by women‘s groups, including feminists.
209
Until the mid-1980s, Kemalist women‘s status as the dominant women‘s group
was not significantly challenged. However, the mid-1980s and the 1990s saw important
societal and political changes, such as urbanization, the introduction of neo-liberalism
reforms, the emergence of identity politics including Islamic movements, the Kurdish
nationalist movement, and the feminist movement. These changes challenged the
mainstream position of Kemalist women. No longer were they the sole women‘s group
seeking to participate in public life and claiming to represent Turkish culture. At the same
time, Kemalist women were genuinely worried about the fate of secularism in Turkey.
Women wearing headscarves, often identified as Islamic, Islamist, and pious Muslim
women, became visible in public life; moreover, they claimed to represent authentic
Turkish national culture. Given that identity claims are often relational, depending upon
each other for a meaning, the Kemalist women had to reinforce their identity in relation
to the Islamic headscarved women. Islamic women were portrayed as the ―other.‖ How
did the Kemalist women assert their female Kemalist selves in relation to the Islamic
female other?
The process of asserting an identity often begins at the discursive level with the
creation of narratives. In the example of Turkey, competing narratives are produced by
religious and secular groups simultaneously. These narratives reflect the different values
and beliefs of these groups about religion‘s role in state and society, the parameters of
modernization, and the status of women in society and their rights (Somer, 2011; Navaro-
Yashin, 2002).
210
The Kemalist master discourse, which has been in place since the 1920s, insists
that religion is to be confined to the private sphere and be under the control of the state.
Regardless of whether they were religiously observant or not, Kemalist women strongly
believed that not only public life but also everyday life needed to be carried out according
to secular modern principles. A strong secular state controlling religion would advance
the women‘s status, because religion tends to suppress women. Kemalist women have
rarely had a tolerant approach toward visibility of the religious themes/symbols in the
public sphere, particularly headscarves (Turam, 2008).
Since the mid-1980s, the substantive part of the discourse has centered on the
headscarf issue. The Kemalist women claimed that participation in public life by
headscarved women is a complete reversal of the secular modernization project, in which
women‘s emancipation is regarded as vitally important. For most of them, the headscarf
worn by young urban women, symbolizes the practice of traditional values, the tool of
patriarchy, and the way of constraining women in the home (Gole, 1996; Toprak, 1994).
There was almost no dialogue between Islamic and secular women groups on the issue, to
the degree that members of these groups often have not wanted to be in the same meeting
room (Tuksal, 2009).
Kemalist women‘s concerns dramatically increased when headscarved women
became involved in politics through joining Islamic movements and political parties, and
participating in protests against the headscarf ban. For example, Pinar Ilkkaracan, a
pioneering liberal feminist, stated that ―the secular/Kemalist feminists… perceive the
women activists in the Islamic movement as their enemies or reduce them to ignorant
211
beings‖ (Pinar Ilkkaracan 1997, cited in ESI Report, p.5). Kemalist women also tended to
underestimate the activism of Islamic women. They often claimed that Islamic women
were simply playing the role of militancy assigned to them by the male leaders of Islamic
movements. Headscarved women‘s confrontation with state authorities in headscarf ban
protests was attributed to this militant role, which was viewed as threatening because it
seemed to challenge very core of the secular state (Toprak, 1994). Alev Cinar (2008)
cited a 1987 Cumhuriyet newspaper article which said that ―headscarf protests were
perceived by secularist circles as a ―rebellion against Ataturk‘s reforms and the principles
of the Republican state Kemal Ataturk established‖ (p. 906).
Although Kemalists were concerned about both the headscarf protests and the
visibility of women in headscarves in the public realm, even more challenging
developments took place in 1994 and in 1995: the Islamist Refah Party won mayorships
in Istanbul and Ankara in the 1994 local elections, and won about twenty-one percent of
the popular vote in the 1995 national-level general elections, making it the most powerful
party in the country. Many had believed that women‘s freedom would be restrained, if
Islamic parties continued taking power (ESI Report 2007). For example, ‗modern‘ attire
would be replaced by ‗traditional‘ and Islamic attire, namely the headscarf; public
entertainment places bars, cafes, theaters would be closed
77
; women would not be
allowed to work or even to go out; segregation of sexes in public places would be
enforced (Navaro-Yashin, 2002).

77
In some instances, as happened in Beyoglu, Istanbul in 1994, Islamist mayors aimed at regulating the use
of public space. The Islamist mayor of Beyoglu ordered that tavern tables be removed from the street or
sidewalks, that opaque curtains be put in the windows of taverns to conceal them, and that alcohol not be
served outdoors (Navaro-Yashin, 2002)
212
After Refah‘s election victories in the mid-1990s, the Kemalists began to mobilize
against the rise of political Islam. They committed themselves to defend the
achievements of Kemalism against the new prominence of religion in public life. They
aimed at remaking Kemalist principles dominant at the social and political spheres. They
sought to push the army, judiciary, and intellectuals to confront the rise of Refah (Aydın
& Çolak, 2004). Simultaneously, they tried to mobilize Kemalists and launch a
reactionary movement rooted in civil society (Cinar 2005; Erdogan 2001)
78
.
5.3 The Role of Women in the Kemalist Mobilization
In Kemalist mobilization, women became the most active, vocal, and radical
activists. Well-educated and of middle and upper classes origins, most were in their
sixties and older. They resisted not only cooperation but also negotiating with Islamic
forces, even as their male counterparts found limited consensus on some issues such as
political reforms launched by Islamic parties in the 2000s (Turam, 2008). Their
mobilization began with symbolic acts, then, continued with establishing civic
associations, and organizing protest movements. This mobilization influenced
participation in electoral politics through political parties.
The CHP has been the main vehicle for their participation in electoral politics.
They viewed such a mobilization not only a way of advocating Kemalism, but also as a
way to reassert their identity and status. The statements of Kemalist woman interviewed
for this study provide evidence of this motivation. One of them said that ―Kemalist

78
Some scholars such as Necmi Erdogan (2001) have called this movement neo-Kemalist movement, while
others such as Marvine Howe (2000), have called it a secular movement.
213
women were afraid that they would lose their status and would become a marginalized
women‘s group with the rise of Islamic women. As a result, they sought to maintain their
Kemalist identity through social activism.‖ (personal communication, June 2009).
Another lamented, ―I think we are becoming a minority.‖ So, although they fully shared
the male Kemalists‘ demand for the reinvigoration of the Kemalist, the women were also
motivated by their fears about the challenges to their privileged status.
How did these Kemalists mobilize? How did women engage with the
mobilization? Symbolic activism, associational engagement, and protest movements as
components of Kemalist mobilization will be examined in the following sections. Then,
the Kemalist women‘s participation in the CHP will be detailed.
5.2.1 Symbolic Activism
Memory and emotions both constitute significant parts of identity discourse.
They are mainly expressed by reconstructing historical events in a nostalgic manner;
reifying certain historical symbols; and using items that display these symbols (Navaro-
Yashin, 2002). A focus on the various forms of expression may be helpful in explaining
Kemalist mobilization.
Ataturk has been the most significant symbol for Kemalists. As a result, the
oppositional identity movements which aimed at devaluing Ataturk and his reforms, in
fact, generated the opposite effect in certain sectors of society: love for him became
deeper and the reverence for him became much more explicit. Accordingly, Kemalists
developed an emotional nostalgic attachment for the early Republican days (Navaro-
214
Yashin, 2002). In her 2006 book, Esra Ozyurek has identified this trend as a ―nostalgic
attachment to the founding days,‖ the first ten years of the Republic, from 1923 to 1933.
Such emotions have been expressed through public performances. Women made
expeditions to Ataturk's mausoleum in Ankara in a ritualistic manner. In the mausoleum,
they were assumed that they symbolically talked to Ataturk about the state of affairs,
complained to him about the presence of Islamists, and eventually they wrote their
complaints in his symbolic notebook. Moreover, official commemoration days including
Republic Day (October 29) and the anniversary of Ataturk‘s death (November 10)
became major events, although prior to mid-1990s few people beyond state officials and
students had celebrated them (Navaro-Yashin, 2002). When in 1994 mayors from the
pro-Islamic Refah party refused to organize a celebration for Republic Day contrary to
the bureaucratic tradition, Kemalist civil society organizations cooperated with some
state officials in organizing orchestrated celebrations in the following years, which
became rallies for Kemalists. They rediscovered early Republican symbols such as the
Tenth Anniversary March, a nationalist march written to celebrate the tenth year of the
Turkish Republic in 1933, and ended up becoming much more popular than the national
anthem. Events such as cultural performances and pop concerts concluded with a singing
of the march along with the chanting of slogans such as , ―no to sharia,‖ and ―Turkey is a
secular country and will stay secular‖ (Howe, 2000). These were all political reactions
against the rise of political Islam and the continuing successes of Islamic parties at the
ballot box. These performances also conveyed a Turkish nationalist message to the
Kurdish nationalists who were deemed a threat to ―national unity‖.
215
Items symbolizing Ataturk were also circulated in the private and public venues.
Kemalists hung flags and posters, and framed portraits, postcards and pictures of Ataturk;
used key chains and mugs, wore pins and clothing, all with pictures of Ataturk on them.
Offices and houses were decorated with images and objects featuring Ataturk and themes
about the Republic. Ataturk monuments, statues, busts, and portraits were placed in many
school courtyards, in public squares, and at the entrances to public buildings; his
silhouette was placed on hills; his ―canonized‖ words were displayed in many places
from cars to shopping centers. Mainstream pro-secular newspapers such as Sabah,
Hurriyet, Milliyet not only placed the picture of Ataturk on their front page, but also
distributed free posters of Ataturk to their readers (Navaro-Yashin, 2002; Ozyurek,
2006).
5.2.2 Associational Activism
Kemalist reactions also took the form of associational engagement, as new
associations, voluntary groups, local newspapers, and journals were established
throughout the 1990s (Cinar, 2005). Terms such as modern, Ataturkist, and Republican
were widely used in the names of these organizations,
79
which were mainly established
and led by Kemalist women professionals (Navaro-Yashin, 2002). The main motivation

79
Major organizations founded or led by Kemalist women include: Atatürkçü Düşünce Dernegi (ADD, the
Association of Ataturkist Thought); Çağdas Yaşamı Destekleme Dernegi. (ÇYDD, the Association to
Support Modern Life); Anne Cocuk Egitim Vakfi, (AÇEV, the Mother and Child Education Foundation );
Türk Kadınlar Birligi( Turkish Women‘s Union); Kadının Sosyal Hayatını Araştırma Dernegi (the
Association to Research Women‘s Social Lives); Cumhuriyet Kadınları Dernegi (CKD, The Republican
Women‘s Association); Egitim Gönülüleri Vakfı (the Turkish Educational Volunteers Foundation );
Anadolu Cagdas Egitim Vakfi (the Anatolian Modern Education Foundation ).
216
behind establishing such civic associations was similar to the motivation behind the
Kemalists‘ increasing engagement in symbolic acts: upholding Kemalist principles and
reasserting Kemalist identity. Türkan Saylan, a pioneering Kemalist woman, stated that
these associations were run by ―educated young people, who have remained quiet and
individualistic until now, but have discovered the hidden power, namely, the power of
Mustafa Kemal, within them‖ (Erdogan 2001, 588). Saylan founded one of the biggest
Kemalist associations, Çagdas Yaşamı Destekleme Dernegi (ÇYDD, the Association to
Support Modern Life). Aysel Eksi, the first president of this association, explained the
association‘s mission in the following terms:
For some time now, we have been facing a serious and sneaky reactionary
movement in Turkey which hides behind the veil of ‗women‘s freedom to dress as
they like‘ but endeavors to take our society back to the dark ages… we came
together, conscious of this threat and based upon the authority given to us by
Atatürk‘s revolutions, in order to preserve Atatürk‘s revolutions, the secular
republic and our rights, which are inseparable from them (cited in Arat, 1994:108-
109).

Similarly, Atatürkçü Düşünce Dernegi (ADD, the Atatürkist Thought
Association) often led by Kemalist women, was established to counter the ―potent threat
of Islamism.‖ In its founding statement, the ADD promised to advocate Kemalist
principles and claimed to be a guardian of them.
80
Cumhuriyet Kadınları Derneği (The
Association of the Republic‘s Women ), also aimed at ―advancing women‘s rights which

80
See the following website for the founding statement www.add.org.
217
were acquired with the founding of the Turkish Republic; and defending these rights
which were turned back by some actors (referring Islamic actors)‖.
81

An analysis of statements given by Kemalist women‘s associations suggests that
activists strongly believed that Turkish citizens, particularly women, tended to forget the
importance of Ataturk who launched the first ―woman revolution‖ along with the
Republican reforms. They therefore felt an urgent need to launch a ―second woman
revolution‖ by praising his teachings. Accordingly, associations were to play a vital role
in educating citizens, they were to achieve the second women‘s revolution. In order to
educate these ―prospective revolutionaries,‖ Kemalist associations organized campaigns
for promoting the education of girls, provided scholarships to students, and ran adult
literacy and vocational training courses. They targeted women living in the shantytowns
around big cities and needy students who might otherwise turn to Islamists for help. In
the 1990s, shantytowns residents overwhelmingly supported the RP. Kemalist women
believed that Islamism could be slowed down and ultimately eliminated by educating
religious women in secular schools and by involving them in extracircular activities
organized by such organizations. They established centers called ―houses of learning‖ in
shantytowns to teach women all sort of skills ranging from sewing to childcare (Navaro-
Yashin, 2002). Yet these associations‘ influence remained limited because they were
committed solely to upholding Kemalist principles and glorifying Kemalist reforms.

81
http://kadininsesigazetesi.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=189:cumhuriyet-
kad%C4%B1nlar%C4%B1-derne%C4%9Fi&Itemid=667. Accessed 02.07. 2011.
218
To sum up, Kemalist women associational activists regarded themselves as the
defenders of Kemalism, particularly its secularist component. Such a strong commitment
of women may be attributed to their desire to reclaim their traditional, privileged status as
the ―representatives of Turkish women,‘ a status that was being challenged by the
mobilization and visibility of Islamic women in the public sphere (Cağatay, 2009).
5.2.3 Activism in Public Protests
Public protests were another channel for expressing the Kemalist identity.
Although such protests against political Islam were not organized solely by women,
women dominated them. The first public protest against political Islam was held in the
capital, Ankara, on 15 February 1995. With the support of the Kemalist women‘s
associations, predominately women protestors took streets to demand the protection of
secularism. In February 1997, a rally called the ―Women‘s Rally against Sharia‖ was held
in Ankara in which nearly fifty thousand women participated.
82

A series of public demonstration, called Republican Demonstrations, started on
April 15, 2007, with almost 21 demonstrations held between April and July and attended
by hundreds of thousands of people, the largest demonstrations in Republican history.
The CHP, the DSP, and the İşçi Partisi (Workers Party) participated in these gatherings

82
The University of Ankara and the ADD organized a march under the name ―Respect for the Republic‖ on
25 October 2003. Almost ten thousand people from different universities participated. A banner was
carried behind the university presidents and professors, calling upon the army to do its duty. The word
army on the banner was interpreted as call for a coup d‘etat to overthrow the AKP government. This banner
sparked public discussions about universities, although the university presidents reported that they had had
had nothing to do with the banner (Milliyet, 27.10.2003, p.17, Retrieved from
http://gazetearsivi.milliyet.com.tr.Accessed 04.08. 2011).
219
which sought to emphasize the need to protect the gains of the Republic and reject
Islamism (Bila, 2009). The event that sparked demonstrations at that time was the
announced presidential candidacy of Abdullah Gül, the foreign minister and a founder of
the AKP. Gül‘s candidacy triggered oppositional protests partly because of his
background in Islamic parties and partly because his wife wears a headscarf. If he were
elected, his wife Hayrunnisa Gül, would be the first headscarved first lady of the Turkish
Republic. Turkish secularists strongly believed that if the presidency, which had been
viewed as a guardian of secularism, was won by an Islamic actor, secularism would be
threatened.
Kemalists, particularly women protested, but on 24 April, 2007, the AKP
announced that Gül was its presidential candidate. At the time, the AKP had a the
majority in the Turkish parliament, but the election of a president requires the support of
two-thirds of the parliament, something that Gül was unable to secure in the first round.
The main opposition party, the CHP applied to the Constitutional Court for an annulment
of the parliamentary vote on technical grounds, although it seemed clear this was a
political maneuver aimed at halting Gül‘s election.
83
The Court ruled that the voting was
inconsistent with the relevant law and stopped the process on 1 May. The Turkish
military also became involved in this process, although it had kept its distance from
politics. During public demonstrations, Kemalist protestors and the CHP called for the

83
The CHP has often gone to the Constitutional Court in order to annul laws passed by the AKP For
example the AKP, with the support of the DTP and the MHP, secured the passage of a constitutional
amendment to lift the ban on headscarves in public universities on February 9, 2008. The CHP then went to
the Constitutional Court, which then annulled the amendment on June 5, 2008 (Bila, 2009).
220
involvement of the military to ―protect secularism.‖ In the end, the Chief of the Turkish
General Staff posted a press release on its official web site to clarify its position on the
issue of Gül‘s presidency. The press release stated that ―military is the defender of
secularism and would act if it needs to act‖—a move that was called an ―online military
ultimatum.‖ As a result of the Court‘s and the Military‘s involvement, the parliamentary
elections for the presidency remained deadlocked until the general elections scheduled
for July 2007. In the elections, the AKP secured a majority of seats in the parliament. The
AKP was able to elect Gül as the president in August 2007. The CHP, on the other hand,
won twenty percent of the popular vote, rendering it the main opposition party.
84

As for women‘s participation in the 2007 demonstrations, not only protestors but
also the spokespeople and members of the organizing committees were predominantly
women.
85
Some Kemalist women, including Türkan Saylan, Necla Arat, and Nur Serter,
became the symbolic figures of the demonstrations. An analysis of the speeches given by
the spokeswomen in the demonstrations suggests that they were concerned about the
AKP government (ESI Report, 2007), as their negative assumptions regarding the AKP‘s
rule had been transformed from simple fears to threat perception about their lifestyle.
Nur Serter, a Kemalist university professor and an MP from the CHP, called the situation

84
During the 2007 demonstrations, participants had called for the merging of the DSP and the CHP in
order to build a strong bloc against the AKP. Responding to protestors‘ demands, the DSP and the CHP
entered the July 2007 election under a single list, but failed to unite as a single party.
85
It was reported that together with the ADD, more than 500 organizations, mostly composed of women,
supported the organization formed under the leadership of ÇYDD, CKD, the Union of National Non-
Governmental Organizations, the Turkish Women‘s Union, the Istanbul Bar‘s Women‘s Commission, the
Association of Our Country, the Istanbul Union of Women‘s Organizations and the Contemporary
Education Foundation (Sabah, 28 April, 2007).
221
―high degree of fear.‖ But this fear was not limited to concerns about to their lifestyle. As
discussed above, it extended to the threat they saw to their losing their privileged status,
becoming a disadvantaged group. These fears convinced the Kemalist women to
undertake the mission of being the guardians of Republican reforms and secularism.
These women believed that democracy is essential, but secularism was the first and
foremost guarantor of not only democracy, but also women‘s status. In my interviews,
they made it clear that secularism was not up for discussion: ―there cannot be soft and
strict secularism or less secularism and more secularism. There is only an absolute
secularism.‖ Indeed, Kemalist women became ambivalent about multi-party democracy if
the secularism seemed under threat. This perspective was expressed in many occasions,
particularly during the public demonstrations in 2007. In this regard, sociologist Nilufer
Göle (2007) pointedly asked whether 2007, the year of demonstrations, would be
remembered as the year of the ―feminine coup,‖ due to a ―rapprochement between secular
women and generals.‖ Göle‘s characterization of the women‘s call for military
involvement appears to be supported by some statements of Kemalist women that
appeared in the media. For example, as a response to the question addressing the Army‘s
press release on presidential candidacy, Saylan said, ―the army, whose main task is to
protect the secular republican order, has just as much right to voice its opinion as any
NGO because policies initiated by people in positions of authority are based on religious
law‖ (Seufert 2007). Similarly, in my interviews, both Nesrin Baytok and Nur Serter
stated that:
222
The secular political regime of Turkey has been under threat, it is clear that
regimes are not allowed to be harmed by such threats, so, the political regime of
Turkey is supposed to protect itself, even by using undemocratic means.

The fervent activism of women in the demonstrations contributed the Kemalist
mobilization. Nonetheless, their activism has been insufficient to weaken political Islam,
defend secularism, and uphold Kemalist principles. In addition to the symbolic,
associational engagement, and protest movements, electoral participation has been
regarded as an alternative to achieve Kemalist goals. Particularly, election victories of the
pro-Islamic parties in the 1990s and the 2000s urged Kemalist women to reconsider their
involvement in the political parties which has Kemalist ideologies. The following section
will focus on women‘s activism in the CHP, the main site of Kemalist electoral activity in
the 1990s and 2000s.
5.4 Kemalist Women’s Engagement with the CHP
The CHP was first established in September 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as
the founding party of the Republic of Turkey. It ruled the country between 1923 and 1950
and carried out the reforms launched by Ataturk and the founding elites. During this
period, the party shaped gender policies and discourses within the context of
modernization. In the 1960s and 1970s, the party followed the ‗left of center‘ discourse
and leftist identity, although until that time, they did not adhere leftist identity (Ciddi,
2009). Along with all political parties, the CHP was banned after the 1980 military coup.
Its members then established other parties. Sosyal Demokrat Parti (SODEP, the Social
Democratic Party) was established in 1983, and was renamed Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı
Parti (SHP, the Social Democratic Populist Party) in 1985 after merging with the Halkçı
223
Parti (HP, Populist Party) established in 1983. Rahsan Ecevit, the wife of Bulent Ecevit,
the former leader of the CHP, formed a new party in 1984, Demokratik Sol Party (DSP,
the Democratic Left Party), which is on the left of the political spectrum. The CHP was
reestablished in1993 under its original name by its former members when the ban of the
usage of old party names was removed. In 1994, the CHP merged with the SHP.
As in the 1920s and the 1930s, the CHP has been committed to six Kemalist
principles: republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, laicite, and reformism. Since
the late 1990‘s the party has emphasized even further its self identified role as guardian
of Kemalism as a way of opposing the rise of political Islam and Kurdish ethnic politics.
It has been the main opposition party in the parliament since 2002. As of 2010, the party
identifies itself as a social democratic party, representing the centre left however, because
of its nationalist and statist discourse political analysts tend not to view the party as social
democratic (Ciddi, 2009).
When the CHP was reestablished in 1992, there were only two women out of
forty-four members of the General Executive Committee. In the first party Congress held
in 1993, some party members addressed the issue of women‘s disadvantageous position
in party politics. Three sets of policies were proposed for advancing women‘s integration
in the CHP: the inclusion of women‘s issues in party programs, the implementation of an
internal party quota in the Central Executive Committee and assemblies, and finally the
reorganization of the women‘s branches. The CHP did not propose a solution for
increasing the number of women in national and local governments. The following
sections will address whether these three propositions were adopted or not, and if so,
224
how? Then, the representation of women in elected offices will be discussed. The
processes by which these policies and women‘s representation were adopted provide
evidence regarding the party‘s stance on women‘s integration and on Kemalist women‘s
electoral activism.
5.4.1 Women in the CHP Programs
After its reestablishment in 1993, the first party program was written in 1994 and
emphasized gender equality as an integral part of human rights and democracy (p.49),
recalling the pioneering role of the CHP and Ataturk in launching reforms for achieving
gender equality. Accordingly, discrimination based on gender was characterized as
unacceptable. It committed to advance the equality of men and women in the legal,
societal and family domain by taking some measures as Ataturk did in the 1920s (Talaslı,
1996; Z. Arat, 2008). In the legal domain, it stated that ―all laws would be devised within
the context of gender equality‖ (Arat, 2008, p.17). The Civil Code, the Penal Code, the
Tax Law, and the Trade Law should be reformed; and the social security system should
be revised. On the societal level, the commitment was to transform society from being
male-dominated into one composed of free individuals. In the family domain, the party
also aimed at reassessing women‘s status by applying the principles of equality.
Preventing domestic violence was viewed as necessary for equality in the family. In sum,
in tems of discursive level, the CHP‘s emphasis on gender equality and the women‘s
political activism was much more intense compared to other parties that were active in
the 1990s (Talaslı, 1996).
225
The CHP published its second program in 2009. Gender equality was again
emphasized as a party priority along with democracy, human rights, education, and
peace. Similar to the 1994 program, the 2009 program states that ―our goal is to create a
society in which men and women are equal; the most effective path in achieving this goal
is education.‖ The program also stresses the need for taking measures to raise awareness
about gender-based violence and to fight against it. The program can be identified as
feminist in terms of its emphasis on advancing women‘s status and addressing gender-
based violence. However, it might not been perceived as fully feminist because it
repeatedly emphasizes the central role of Kemalist principles in developing policies about
women issues (CHP‘s 10
th
Women Congress Announcement Booklet). This kind of
emphasis contradicts the feminist principles of liberation and individualization (Cağatay,
2009).
5.4.2 The Introduction and the Implementation of Women’s Quota
Internal party quotas are often viewed as tools to bridge the gender gap, at least
quantitatively. The number of women in the CHP‘s decision making organs was very
limited in the early years. For example, in 1998, only 46 of 1200 party members were
women, called ―delege‖, who had the right to vote in the Party Assembly.
86
As a result, in
1999, the CHP decided to adopt a twenty-five percent quota for women in its decision-
making organs, including its main party assembly, provincial assemblies, and sub-
provincial assemblies. The quota mandates that the Party Assembly, which consists of 60

86
Nazmiye Halvaşi, Interview, 31 May 1998, Retrieved from http://ardiye.org/?p=672
226
members in total, must have 15 women. If assembly elections end producing fewer than
15 women members, the men who get the fewest votes will be excluded and their places
will be filled by women who get the most votes. The quota is applied similarly in the
provincial and sub-provincial assemblies (p.81).
87
However, the gender quota remains
limited to the party assemblies, although some female party activists demanded to use
gender quota in candidate lists at local and general elections. The party leadership has
used ambiguous language in introducing quota in all elected positions. Although they are
in a position to advocate such changes, they wanted from party women to be more
assertive in demanding further quota introduction. For example, in a speech given in
November 1999, the General Secretary of the CHP, Altan Oymen, advised women to
convince party men to introduce a women‘s quota in candidate lists. As of 2011, despite a
considerable number of party women in favor of introducing quotas for elected offices, it
has not yet been adopted.
5.4.3 Women’s Branch
The women‘s organizations inside parties are often key venues for women‘s
participation in Turkish party politics. Despite the abolition of women‘s organizations in
all parties in 1981, the tradition of women‘s organizations within the CHP continued with
party commissions mainly run by women. These commissions reorganized as a Women‘s
Branch (WB) in 1999. The WB is composed of a headquarters, a Central Executive
Committee, as well as branches in almost every province and city. Each provincial and

87
This decision was included in the CHP Code/Bylaw (Party Code, Section about Consultative Bodies,
Item 56, p. 60).

227
city branch is headed by an executive committee consisting of chairs in charge of
running organizational activities, social activities, chairs organizing neighborhood and
home visits, and chairs relations for media, civil society, and local governments (CHP
Internal Training Notes, 2006). That said, the WB and its sub-branches are not
autonomous. The female president of the Branch does not have decision-making rights;
rather, she has to ask permission of the higher decision making organs before executing
tasks.
The WB seeks to promote and facilitate women‘s political participation, and
further their political experience through party training. It attracts mainly middle and
upper middle class educated urban women. While these women identified themselves
mainly as social democrats in the 1990s, they have often identified themselves as
Kemalist, Ataturkist, and laicist in the 2000s. These women have mixed motivations
regarding their participation in the WB. Some view party politics as a useful way of
disseminating the Kemalist principles that they strongly believe in, while others simply
want to support their husbands in their political career. Others want to gain a foothold in
politics, so they began their career in the WB. However, only a few women activists in
the WB have risen to become parliamentary candidates. (Adıgüzel, 2004). Moreover,
those who have applied for candidacy have had fewer chances than those who were
recruited by party leaders because the former are often fielded at the lower ranks on the
lists decided by the party leadership.
The WB prioritizes activities aiming at both recruiting new party members and
winning votes. In addressing members of the WB the party leadership has on occasion
228
strongly proposed that ―more party members would mean a stronger CHP; more female
members would result in transforming the CHP from being an opposition party into a
ruling party‖ (Internal Training Program Notes, 2006). The party therefore trains women
in how to organize campaigns, lobby, and communicate with voters and the media.
Perhaps tellingly, in general, it expects the Women‘s Branch to carry out tasks
resembling those traditionally undertaken by women in the private sphere (Ayata, 1998;
Adiguzel, 2004): holding parties, participating in funerals, organizing charity bazaars,
helping those in need, and visiting homes, workplaces, schools, dormitories, hospitals,
and prisons. In these activities, certain messages are used in order to recruit new female
party members. These include the contention that the CHP is the sole party producing
solutions for women‘s problems and the sole party focusing on gender equality; hence,
women have to support the CHP so that it can become the ruling party, and then curb the
power of the Islamic parties.
In their quest to further promote Kemalism, the WB has developed relations with
women‘s groups outside the party. The CHP women not only engage with organizations
such as public schools, dormitories, and civil society groups, but also initiate dialogue
with school teachers and former bureaucrats (WB Internal Trainings Notes, 2006). For
example, in November 1999, the party women along with the feminist professors such as
Nermin Abadan Unat, Duygu Bazoglu Sezer organized a workshop entitled Social
Democratic Women‘s Politics to discuss ways to make the CHP a social democratic party
advancing women rights. The workshop began by addressing issues such as women‘s
employment and legal regulations regarding the family; however, the discussions
229
remained limited. Instead, a great deal of the workshop centered on the pro-Islamic
Refah Party‘s Ladies Commission. The CHP women tended to harshly criticize the
Islamic women for being used by men, reinforcing patriarchy, and behaving naïvely. On
the other hand, the CHP women wanted to understand the Islamic women‘s election
strategies which had garnered so many votes for the RP. Being proud of having a
distinctive role in advancing women‘s status in every domain, the CHP women had
difficulty in understanding how Islamic women had succeeded in mobilizing women
politically. As a result of intense discussions in the workshop, they ultimately published
the Woman Project in which the CHP‘s gender policies and the state‘s gender policies
were assessed from a critical perspective. It appeared as a charter calling for more gender
equality in the party. The project defined the ―woman question‖ as one of ―democracy,
peace, laicite, and social justice‖ (the CHP Women Project, p.4). It stated that the CHP
women were worried because ―not only were a considerable number of women playing a
prominent role in the rise of Islamic movements at the expense of decreasing women‘s
status, but also they constituted the most radical core of these movements‖ (CHP Women
Project, p.6).
A similar perspective was obvious in the election campaign activities carried out
by the party women. For example, the CHP women focused on women living in the
suburbs of metropolitian cities such as Istanbul and Ankara in the 1999 general elections.
They approached these women as if they needed CHP guidance. The CHP‘s emphasis on
these women was due to the fact that the RP was successful in contacting with suburban
women and mobilizing them for the Islamic cause in the 1990s.
230
Since the AKP came into the power in 2002, the CHP women have more
intensely raised their concerns about its policies. They have published a number of
booklets addressing their concerns and the women‘s mission in defending secularism. In
one of these booklets, entitled Those Invading the Republic, Güldal Okuducu, the
president of the Branch, wrote that the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923
should be perceived as a ‗woman‘s revolution;‘ therefore, women should defend the
Republic‘s secular character. Another booklet, Secular, Democratic, Fully Independent
Turkey …(can be realized) only by Women, was published in 2006. Its main message
was that the Turkey was under threat and millions of men and women should
immediately mobilize to defend it, as happened in the Turkish War of Independence
(1919-1923). In this second booklet, Güldal Okuducu maintained that ―as the women of
the Republic, we will bear our responsibilities by opposing the AKP, which is anti-
laicist/anti-secular (p.7)‖. This discourse was often supported by visuals including
Ataturk pictures, flags, and photos of massive protests organized against political Islam.
The WB benefited the CHP by recruiting members and gathering votes. It also
tried hard to uphold Kemalist ideology. This mission was reflected in almost all its
projects, publications and election campaigns organized by women. In general, the CHP
has had a women-friendly party culture in accordance with its secular and leftist
ideological background.
88
Its egalitarian discourse has mainly centered on the promotion

88
Oya Adıgüzel (2004) claims that the CHP has an egalitarian party culture. Similarly, a 2009 Survey
entitled ―Gender in Political Consciousness: An Analysis of Gender Equality in the 23th Period
Parliament‖, conducted by Prof. Dilek Cindoglu, Prof. Ayse Saktanber, and Sule Yaylaci, found that the
CHP has a relatively women-friendly party culture compared to the AKP and the MHP.
231
of women‘s rights and the advancement of women‘s status. The following section will
examine how well CHP women have in fact fared in elected offices.
5.5 Kemalist Women’s Descriptive Representation in the Elected
Offices
The CHP does not differ from Turkey‘s other political parties in terms of the
ongoing gender gap in parliament. Only one CHP female MP, Birgen Keles was elected,
while 49 male MPs secured seats in the 1995 parliament. The party did not pass the
parliamentary ten percent threshold in the 1999 general elections, so it no
parliamentarians at all. In 2002, nine women versus 168 men entered the parliament
from the CHP. In the 2007 elections, the number of women increased to ten while 112
CHP men secured seats.
The party‘s ongoing reluctance to promote greater women‘s representation can
be attributed to a number of factors. Adıgüzel (2004) found that both the weakness of
intraparty democracy and institutionalization problems resulted in women‘s poor
representation. She noted that an ―elite patriarchal oligarchy‖ dominated the nomination
process of women. Another reason may be the behavior of other political parties, which
have fielded similarly small numbers of women in electable places on their lists.
It is important to investigate the party‘s candidate selection process and the
common characteristics of the women they recruited, as they may provide insights
regarding to what extent the party‘s purported egalitarian culture influences candidate
recruitment. Similar to other elected women in the Turkish parliament, the elected CHP
232
women have been university graduates, professionals, and from the urban middle and
upper class. They ranged in age from 47 to 68, while the average age of thirteen female
parliamentarians is 39 as of 2010. The number of university professors among the CHP‘s
elected women was quite high. An analysis of elected CHP women suggests that the
party rarely seeks political experience as a criterion in recruitment. Rather, it seems party
elites are seeking in the selection of candidates who would be fielded on electable ranks
at the party list: loyalty to the party leadership and name recognition (popularity).
Loyalty to the party leadership seems to have considerably influenced the fortunes of
female candidates in elections. For example, Birgen Keleş, known as one of the members
most loyal to Deniz Baykal, the former party chairman, secured a seat in four elections.
Similarly, Nesrin Baytok, who served as secretary of Deniz Baykal for almost ten years,
was elected from the party ticket in the 2007 general elections. These women were
fielded on very high on the party list.
The second qualification is name recognition. The party‘s leaders recruited some
well-known women whom they assumed would attract votes. As a member of the CHP‘s
Central Executive Committee said, ―we tried to find candidates who were more likely to
win elections. That‘s why we preferred to put those applicants with a publicly recognized
name on the top of the candidate lists (Adıgüzel, 2004, p.63)‖. Name recognition
particularly influenced candidate recruitment for the 2007 general elections. Three
hundred women versus 2000 men applied to be candidates for the CHP; fifty-two were
nominated, twenty of whom were placed in winnable places on the party list. Ten of
those were actually elected. Some candidates who were placed high on the list, such as
233
Necla Arat and Nur Serter, had political track records as Kemalist women‘s advocates in
the 2007 demonstrations. The CHP invited these women to be candidate in 2007 and they
were elected.
As discussed above, the elected CHP women are overwhelmingly self identified
and publicly recognized Kemalists/Ataturkist laicist. Some stated that their
Ataturkist/Kemalist identity was more significant than their gender identity. Some did
not differentiate between the two identities. For example, Nur Serter told me that ―The
identity of being women and being Ataturkist are closely intertwined, because women
were able to access rights due to Ataturk and his reforms in the early Republican years
(personal communication, June 25, 2009).‖
Deep concerns regarding Turkey‘s national unity and its secular system led
women to run for elected offices from which they had previously shied away. Nesrin
Baytok, the CHP deputy, told me that ―politics based on ethnic, religious, and sectarian
identities as the AKP has carried out would impair the national unity. In the end, we
(people of Turkey) would lose our identity and Turkey would be disintegrated‖ (personal
communication, June 23, 2009). Another deputy, Güldal Mumcu, explained her decision
to run for office on the CHP ticket in 2007 by addressing similar concerns. She recounted
in a 2007 interview that:
Enough is enough, the unity of Turkey was under threat, unemployment,
corruption, and terror reached their peaks. Even, secularism became a discussable
topic. Could ―sharia‖ be more dangerous than in a time period we are
experiencing right now?
89

89
Interview conducted by Mine Kirikkanat, 03.07.2007. Retrieved from
http://www.guldalmumcu.net/bas_kos.php.

234

Similar to Kemalist women in general, the CHP‘s elected women have shared a
serious concern regarding a retreat of women‘s status, secularism, and Turkey‘s image.
Both Baytok and Serter noted ―women in the street felt themselves under threat; women‘s
lifestyles would have to change because of the pro-Islamic ruling party [the AKP], they
might lose more than men might‖ (personal communication, June 23 & 25, 2009). In this
respect, they have also worried about the image of Turkey abroad. In a parliamentary
speech given in 2006, Birgen Keles said that ―those who are representing Turkey should
have been more careful about the attire of people accompanying them, otherwise their
attire might give the wrong idea about Turkey‖. In fact, her statement meant that
headscarved wives and daughters of the prime minister and ministers gave the ―wrong‖
impression because they made Turkey look like Iran or Saudi Arabia in which all women
have to cover themselves. Kemalist women are always afraid that Turkey will join the
ranks of these non-secular countries.
The CHP women have scrutinized the AKP in terms of its policy making. They
criticized both male and female AKP MPS for failing to influence their party‘s policies
on secularism. For example, CHP deputy Güldal Mumcu criticized the female AKP
deputies for being very passive. In a speech delivered on Woman‘s Day in Sivas, Turkey,
she stated:
Now, there are 49 women in the parliament. Because 30 out of 49 are members of
the anti-secular, anti-reform [reforms of Ataturk] AKP, honor killings continued.
Even if there were 300 women from the AKP in the parliament, the result might
not change in favor of women.

235
It is important note that women also criticized CHP party elites on issues
regarding secularism. They accused their own party weakening often party discourse on
the issue to attract votes. For example, from time to time, the CHP leaders tend to
moderate their discourse on headscarved women and the headscarf ban. Deniz Baykal,
the chairman of the party, accepted into party membership three women who wore the
―çarsaf‖, a long, black loose covering clothing at a public meeting. This sparked
discussions and raised concerns among Kemalist women about the identity of the CHP.
MP Necla Arat reported to the daily newspaper Hürriyet that ―members wearing the
headscarf do not befit the social democratic identity of the party. We cannot ignore
Ataturk‘s legacy; his reforms and principles are pivotal in any circumstances‖.
90
In 2010,
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, recently elected chairman of the party, stated that the CHP would
solve the headscarf issue by lifting the ban. However, women MPs including Necla Arat,
Nur Serter, and Canan Arıtman vigorously criticized such a shift in position, stating that
they opposed to discussion of the headscarf issue repeatedly. Clearly, the main emphasis
of the elected women of the CHP remains Kemalism in general, secularism in particular.
5.6 Conclusions
This chapter discussed the origin, nature, and scope of the Kemalist women‘s
oppositional activism. It expanded on the argument that the social division between the
religious\conservative on the one hand and the secular\Kemalist on the other in the 1990s
and the 2000s became very important in reconstructing Kemalist women‘s identities. The

90
―Necla Arat'ın susacağı yok‖ 6 December, 2008. Retrieved from
http://www.internethaber.com/necla-aratin-susacagi-yok-168902h.htm#ixzz1Cw6ehsKW.
236
discourse around this division centered on issues such as the headscarf, women‘s status,
and life styles. They identified Islamic/conservative women as the ―other‖ and
themselves as ―defenders of secularism‖. They felt more threatened by Islamists than did
Kemalist men because of the intersections of these strands of their identity. Although it
was known that Kemalist women felt threatened by the rise of Kurdish nationalism due to
the Turkish nationalist character of Kemalism, the Kemalists rarely referred Kurdish
women as constituting the threat that headscarved women posed. As a result, Kemalist
women attempted to build new consciousness by focusing on the intersection of their
gender and Kemalist identities, leading political activism that could be identified as
oppositional activism. The activism included symbolic acts, associational engagements,
and protest movements
Women‘s activism in associations and protest movements brought them to the
attention of the Kemalist CHP. Here again, the dynamics of party politics shaped
women‘s political actions. As observed in other parties, they organized within the WB,
carried out tasks resembling women‘s domestic roles, and mainly tried to garner votes.
Party activities were viewed as key opportunities to disseminate Kemalist ideology, but
women rarely demanded representation in exchange for their services to the party.
Accordingly, the descriptive representation of women‘s representation in elected offices
remained unchanged. Kemalist women could have been represented better due to the fact
that the CHP has an egalitarian party culture and the tradition of women‘s participation
since the 1920s. Moreover, the CHP has a gender quota in its internal party organs;
however, the quota has not been used properly and does not extend to the candidate lists.
237
These unexpected consequences seem to be explained by the lack of political
intersectionality, the lack of a notable party leader‘s support, and the limited efforts of
WBs.

238
Chapter 6
Conclusions, Implications And Future Study

6.1 Introduction
This dissertation examined the dynamics of change in women‘s political
representation. It studied the timing, direction, and the mechanisms of change in three
women groups in Turkey, namely Kurdish, conservative Muslim, and Kemalist women.
The questions raised in the study were: 1) why there was a change in Kurdish and
conservative Muslim women‘s political representation in the parliamentary offices and
parties‘ decision making organs between 1990 and 2010, while there was almost no
change in the representation of Kemalist women; and 2) why the change occurred at
different rates for Kurdish and conservative Muslim women.
The literature on political intersectionality, women‘s representation, and women
and politics in Turkey were found useful to explain the changes in the representation of
Kurdish, conservative Muslim women, and Kemalist women as well as the variations in
their representation.
The political intersectionality literature provided identity-related explanations.
Political intersectionality asserts that women‘s gender identity crosscuts other identities
such as race, class, age, ethnicity, religion, etc. Everyone has an intersectional identity in
that sense, but the consequences of intersectionality are much greater when someone
must confront multiple subordinated categories. From the standpoint of the political
intersectionality literature, which generally analyzes the political outcomes of having
239
intersecting identities that are multiply subordinated, this study analyzed how intersecting
identities of multiply subordinated women influence their political representation. The
study applies the political intersectionality framework to the experiences of Kurdish
women and conservative Muslim women who are the members of subordinated
categories due to their gender, ethnicity, and religiosity, and Kemalist women who are the
members of mainstream group. As political intersectionality proposes, the intersection of
identities influences state policies towards Kurdish and conservative Muslim women as
well as their political demands and actions. These groups experience oppression,
discrimination, and disadvantage in society and politics. However, such a multiply
subordinated position provided them organizational resources for mobilization and much
more ideological motivation for collective action. Involvement in civic associations and
political parties were considered as a path to fulfill their commitments. These
mobilizations positively affected changes in their representation. Briefly, mobilization via
intersecting identities was found to be an influential factor in improving the
representation of Kurdish women and conservative Muslim women. In this regard,
political intersectionality literature contributes to explaining a part of the observed
change and variations, specifically regarding how women‘s political engagement started
in the first place and how actors‘ identities shape their political experiences. However, it
is clear that the political parties with which these women engaged also affect their
political experiences. Thus, we need to consider the role and strength of party-related
factors as well.
240
The literature on political parties and women‘s representation is useful in
explaining party-related factors‘ influences on women‘s representation. This literature
provides two sets of explanations that were considered in this study: organization-based
explanations and elite-based explanations. Organization-based explanations emphasize
the influences of intra-party women‘s organizations, party ideology, and gender quotas,
while elite-based explanations emphasize the influences of female and male party elites.
The findings about Kurdish women and conservative Muslim women‘s experiences
suggest that party-affliated women‘s organizations provided both space for women to
become active in politics and opportunities to demand further representation and present
these demands to the party leadership. The findings also suggest that role of political
leaders has been critical because it is they who have the power to initiate changes in the
parties. In both cases, male leaders took women‘s demands into consideration as they
perceived a need to promote women, regardless of these leaders‘ ideologies or attitudes
about women‘s political role. They strategically advocated women‘s representation due
to their pragmatic calculations.
In sum, process tracing in the chapters illustrated that the mobilization via
intersecting identities, the efforts of intra-party and party-affiliated women‘s
organizations, and the strategic support of male leadership have all played key roles in
increasing the representation of both Kurdish and conservative Muslim women. All three
factors were intertwined and have interacted in many subtle ways. On the other hand, the
gender quota of pro-Kurdish parties and the ruling party status of the AKP also apperared
to influence the changes, while party ideology was not a significant factor. It should be
241
noted that each of these three factors took on different values due to the differences in
political developments pertinent to each group as well as differences in group
characteristics. Differences in their values determined variations in outcomes. The
details of the values that each factors took are presented in the following table. The table
also provides a summary of findings of this dissertation.

242
Table 2: The Summary of Dissertation’s Findings by Groups
Kurdish Women Conservative Muslim
Women
Kemalist Women
Parties
HEP (1990-93)
DEP(1993-94) HADEP
(1994-04) DEHAP
(1997-05) DTP (2005-
09)
BDP (2009-)
RP (1993-98), FP
(1998-01), AKP(ruling
party since 2002)
SHP (1993-1995),
CHP (1995- )
Changes in
Women’s
Representation
Descriptive Dramatic increase Moderate increase Few changes
Substantive
-Very notable
advancements in gender
roles in the Kurdish
society; development of
women friendly policies
-Work at the local and
party level
-Limited advancement
in gender roles and
limited development in
women‘s substantive
representation
-Work at the national
level
-Few changes in
substantive
representation

Political
Intersectionality

Source of double
discrimination

Gender and ethnicity Gender and religion Mainstream, ‗norm‘
group.
They did not
experience notable
discrimination.
Types of
Structural
Intersectionality
(discrimination
and inequalities)

Familial and societal
oppression due to their
gender identity

Familial and societal
oppression due to their
gender identity

Felt threatened by
possible
discrimination due
to their life styles.
Discrimination and
inequalities in education
and politics owing to
Turkish state‘s
repressive policies
(torture, violence, forced
migration) toward
Kurdish population and
owing to the struggle
between state security
forces and armed
Kurdish nationalist
groups
Discrimination and
inequalities in
education, politics and
labor market owing to
state-imposed
headscarf ban in
universities and public
offices
Their social and
political dominance
was challenged by
the activism of
Kurdish and
conservative Muslim
women

Marginalization and
―othering‖ by the
Kemalist establishment
due to the nationalist
character of Kemalist
discourse
Marginalization and
―othering‖ by the
Kemalist
establishment due to
the secular character of
Kemalist discourse

M.echanism in
which women
mobilized via
their intersecting
identities
-Participation in the
armed PKK as militants
since the early 1990s
-Intense mobilization in
Kurdish human rights
NGOs and women‘s
NGOs
-Electoral mobilization
in parties
-Protests against
headscarf ban in the
1990s
-Activism in Islamic
NGOs and women‘s
NGOs
-Intense electoral
mobilization in
Women‘s Branches
-Symbolic acts,
protest movements
-Activism in
Kemalist NGOs
-Low degree of
electoral
mobilization

243

Table 2: Continued
The Influence of
Intra-Party and
Party-Affiliated
Women’s
Organizations

Intra-party
women‘s
organizations
Party‘s Women
Commissions
RP‘ and FP‘ Ladies
Commissions
(1987-2001)
AKP‘s Women‘s
Branch

Party‘s Women‘s
Branch

Kemalist
Women‘s
Associations
Party affliated
women‘s
organizations

Loose network of
like-minded
organizations and an
umbrella organizing
called Democratic
Free Women‘s
Movement

Mechanisms
in which
these
organizations
influenced
representation
-Person-to-person
outreach
-Emphasis on
mobilization
-Raising of female
politicians
-Very intense
lobbying for better
representation
-Played an important
role in mobilizing
women for Kurdish
cause
-Lobbied for power
sharing in the parties
and adopting party
quota
-Ensured effective
usage of the quota for
female candidates
Lobbied to put
forward Kemalist
ideals about
women within
parties

244

Table 2: Continued

Kurdish Women Conservative Muslim
Women
Kemalist Women
Male Leaders

Abdullah Öcalan is
the leader of armed
group PKK and has a
substantial influence
on Kurdish
nationalists in Turkey
Tayyip Erdoğan
was active in the
RP, former mayor of
Istanbul, established
first Ladies‘
Commission. He is
the chairman of the
AKP and the vice
president since 2002

Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk
-Founder of
Turkish Republic,
is perceived as the
eternal leader of
all Turks and
Kemalists
Pragmatic
considerations
of leaders
-Increase the armed
group‘s human
capacity
-Mobilize the masses
widely in the civil
society
-Generate more
publicity for Kurdish
cause
-Parties‘ reliance on
women during
electoral campaigns
- Aiming to
eliminate continuous
criticism and close
scrutiny of the
party‘s gender
ideology
- Competition
among parties to
attract more women
and be seen as
progressive

Additional Party
-Related Factors
Adoption of gender
quota in party organs
and candidate lists in
1999 and its effective
usage
-Moderation in the
Islamic discourses
-AKP‘s government
party status

The table above presents the changes in women‘s descriptive and substantive
representation by groups. Descriptive representation of both Kurdish and conservative
women increased, while there were few changes for Kemalist women. Similarly,
substantive representation of women notably changed in Kurdish women‘s experience,
while there was limited advancement in that of conservative women and few changes in
that of Kemalist women. As proposed before, the differences can be explained by
245
variations in the mechanisms pertinent to mobilization via intersecting identities, intra-
party/party-affiliated women‘s organizations, and male leaders.
It should be emphasized that although there were positive improvements in the
representation of both Kurdish and conservative Muslim women, Kurdish women
outnumbered conservative Muslim women in terms of descriptive representation. While
both of these previously subordinated women‘s groups encountered double oppression
and discrimination due to their intersecting identities, they also benefited from their
identities. However, political benefits in terms of representation have become greater for
Kurdish women than for conservative Muslim women. In these cases, religious identity
appeared as a more restrictive force than ethnic identity for women‘s political activism.
Certainly, it can be hypothesized that the representation of women having religious
identity improved slower than that of women having ethnic identity as their major axis of
identity because religious movements/parties espouse more conservative gender
ideologies and attitudes than ethnic movements/parties. However, such a hypothesis
should be tested in large-n studies before generalizing it. It seems that differences
between the consequences of ethnic and religious identities and their intersections with
gender relate to the fact that inequalities and intersecting identities are not equivalent,
although they have many similarities; thus, they are experienced differently, are
restructured differently, and lead to different consequences (Verloo, 2006). Thus,
Kurdish, conservative Muslim identities and intersecting with the gender identity are not
equivalent, although they have many similar characteristics; accordingly, their political
consequences vary. It should be noted that, as the findings of this dissertation illustrated,
246
the influence of intersecting identities constitutes only one explanatory factor in changes
for better representation. Other factors and mechanisms including women‘s organizations
in parties and male leaders have significantly influenced the changes as well. If there
were no organizations where women could mobilize, and the lack of supportive male
leaders, the intersecting identities by itself would not have led to better representation.
These factors also worked differently in two groups as discussed in the chapters in detail.
For example, as illustrated in the table, activities of a loose network of like-minded
organizations along with the intra-party organizations strengthened Kurdish women‘s
claim-making for better representation.
Furthermore, the presence of the additional party related factors such as the
introduction of gender quota by pro-Kurdish parties is important for understanding why
the representation of Kurdish women dramatically outpaced the representation of both
conservative Muslim women and mainstream Kemalist women since 2004. The findings
about the Kurdish case support the argument that quota can make important
improvements in women‘s representation as current worldwide examples are proven to
be true. In addition, the cases of this dissertation illustrate that women‘s efforts are
critical for both the introduction of quota at the first time and its proper usage. If there
were no effort of women activists within the party for its introduction, male leaders
would not have made it. The presence of a quota in Kurdish parties makes us hopeful
about the sustainability of women‘s gains even after the Kurdish nationalist movement
achieved its goals and does not need women‘s political mobilization anymore. The quota
ensures that women will be represented in the Kurdish parties and its delegation in the
247
parliament. The parties would be unable to reverse the decision as to women‘s better
representation due to the gender quota, the emerging egalitarian political culture in
parties and changing gender roles within the Kurdish community.
In this regard, the lack of quota in the AKP also helps us to understand why the
representation of conservative women progressed slower than that of Kurdish women.
The AKP has been reluctant to adopt a gender quota, and the AKP women rarely
advocate for a quota due to their loyalty to the party‘s mainstream culture even in issues
regarding women. The ongoing headscarf ban in public offices appears as the second
impeding factor for conservative Muslim women vis-à-vis the Kurdish women‘s
progress. The ban has twofold implications. First, headscarved women activists in the
party, who comprise the majority of activists, internalized the idea that they could not
ascend to a position of power; thus, they pushed for the representation of women less
assertively than they would have liked to do, since they had limited personal aspirations.
Second, the conservative AKP showed more reluctance to improve headscarved women‘s
representation than they could have, on the basis that the secular establishment tended to
accuse the party of being anti-secular when it promoted headscarved women in the party
or called for the removal of the ban. Meanwhile, some party-related additional factors
positively influenced the representation of women in the AKP like the moderation in the
religious discourse of the AKP along with its ruling party status since 2002. The AKP
had to seek wider legitimacy and thus tried to eliminate continuous criticisms about its
gender ideology because its stance on gender has been considered a litmus test of the
moderation in its ideology from an Islamic political party to a conservative democratic
248
one. Political parties, secular groups, and feminist groups constantly pressure the party to
pursue what they define as women-friendly policies. One way to silence the critics was to
increase the representation of women. Instead of being treated as an independent factor,
this should be evaluated as a part of strategic considerations of party leadership in
supporting women‘s representation. It can be speculated that if the AKP had not been the
ruling party, the progress in women‘s representation would have been slower, but
definitely it would have continued. Otherwise, we have to underestimate efforts of
conservative Muslim women and their agency.
As shown in the table, different mechanisms operate in Kemalist women‘s
political experience. It is important to state that since the 1920s, Kemalist women have
been considered the norm female citizens who are Turkish, ―modern and secular.‖ In the
1990s, Kurdish and conservative Muslim women, who were outside of these categories,
became visible; they were defined as ―others‖ and marginalized on the grounds that they
do not fit the ideal citizen type. Kemalist women began to invoke their identity since it
was threatened by the activism of conservative Muslim women; the Kemalist CHP
emphasized gender as a priority issue. However, the assertion of Kemalist women‘s
identity and emphasis on gender at the party level hardly translated into demands about
changes in women‘s representation. The factors explaining the changes can help us in
understanding the lack of substantive changes in Kemalist women‘s political
representation. These women did not encounter familial, societal, and systemic problems
due to their privileged status; the influence of intra-party and party-affiliated women‘s
organizations was limited, and there was no male leader who would support women for
249
pragmatic reasons. They had less motivation and fewer resources for initiating collective
political actions compared to Kurdish and Islamic women. Since Kemalist women were
often proud of being ―secular‖ and ―modern,‖ they were concerned about the rise of
Islamists and considered it the most ―urgent problem‖ because they believed that Islamist
would roll back the the status of women in the society as well as women‘s rights. These
urged Kemalist women to call for a second women‘s revolution. Other problems,
including not only the limited representation of women in Kemalist parties or in the
parliament but also problems about the substantive representation of women, did not
receive attention of Kemalist women. Thus, the low representation of women remained a
trivial issue and they did not attempt to increase the number of female representatives in
the CHP. An example of this lack of concern is the usage of a gender quota. The
Kemalist party introduced a quota in 1999 like pro-Kurdish parties. It was designed to
secure the percent of women in the party assembly. However, it did not extend to the
party‘s candidate lists or the party delegation in the parliament. Unlike pro-Kurdish
parties, there has not been intense lobbying initiated by women for the extension of the
quota‘s advancement.
Before moving on to discuss the implications of this dissertation, it is useful to
state its limits. First, as many scholars have proposed, I believe that politics is
everywhere. Thus, women influence and are influenced by politics and policy outcomes
through their grassroots activism, everyday politics, their work in the judiciary groups
and in the military. Due to certain limitations in terms of time, space, and logistical
resources, this study was limited to representation in formal politics, such as running for
250
and holding political office, or becoming involved in party politics either as activists or
party elites. I have discussed only briefly gender differences in political attitudes,
knowledge, and socialization and in women‘s participation in social movements, given
the fact that it precedes women‘s representation in political parties. Second, the issue of
women‘s voting behavior is not examined deeply in this dissertation. The data on
differences between male and female voting choices in Turkey is very limited, although
data on voting behavior based in ethnic and religious motivation exists. Third, although
women‘s substantive representation and the linkage between it and descriptive
representation are very important they are not examined in depth.
6.2 Implications
6.2.1 Theoretical Implications
This study makes contributions to different bodies of literature, specifically:
intersectionality and women‘s political representation. The main theses of these
literatures overwhelmingly rely on the experiences of Western European and North
American post-industrial countries, generating challenges in adopting theories in other
contexts. They have not been tested for many cases outside of these countries, yet such
testing will help determine whether these theories are applicable to other countries or
regions, and if so, how, and to what extent? These questions can be partially answered by
examining the change in Kurdish and conservative Muslim women‘s political
representation in Turkey. Such testing may broaden the explanatory power of
intersectionality. It may provide some insights for ongoing theoretical disputes regarding
the scope of intersectionality. While some argue that intersectionality is a theory of
251
marginalized subjectivity, such as that of Black women in the U.S., others argue that it is
a generalized theory of identity. This research supports the second argument by
illustrating that it is applicable to other contexts, so it is more likely to be a more
generalized theory of identity.
The findings of this dissertation support the main theses addressed in the majority of
the political intersectionality literature. One supported thesis is that gender is a valid
analytical category in examining political experiences. However, intersections of gender
with other identities have to be taken into account in an examination of political
experiences, as intersecting identities shape and, in effect, determine political outcomes
by exercising oppression and providing opportunities to actors. Evidence presented in the
chapters illustrated that Kurdish and conservative Muslim women‘s political activism
was shaped by their intersecting identities. They were affected by the multiple systems of
oppression due to the power relations in society and politics; however, this impact also
became an advantage on their way to greater representation. This finding is quite
important because Kimberly Crenshaw originally used the term political intersectionality
to discuss how inequalities and their intersections are relevant to political strategies; the
following studies focused on the negative consequences of these inequalities and their
intersections. However, limited number of studies acknowledged that inequalities are
dynamic problems that can be located in various distinct structures; thus, they are subject
to change. These studies argued that intersectionalities may also generate some positive
consequences in addition to negative consequences. This dissertation follows the second
approach and suggests that the intersectional approach helps us in carving out new
252
directions by searching for some possible opportunities that emerged out of changes in
inequalities. The evidences found in process tracing of the cases in the dissertation
showed that political intersectionality does not have only negative implications, but rather
both negative and positive meanings, as it enables us to acknowledge present
opportunities as well oppression.
The validity of another intersectionality thesis is shown through evidence drawn from
the case addressing Kemalist women. This thesis posits that cross-group and within-
group interactions in different political institutions may result in variations in political
outcomes (Weldon, 2006). Although Kemalist women have been the mainstream
women‘s group since the 1920s, the rise of the Islamic and Kurdish nationalist movement
changed power relations in society and politics. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s,
Kemalist women felt that their identities were being challenged and they were losing
their preeminence. The experience of Kemalist women shows that cross-group relations
results in variations in political participation and representation of all groups.
Although the intersectionality literature has emphasized cross-group relations, it
provides a limited discussion on responses of the mainstream, ‗norm‘ groups to the
increasing political activism of multiply subordinated groups. For example, how do
White women and Black men approach the increase in the number of Black female
representatives in the U.S. Congress or what do non-immigrant Dutch women or
immigrant men think about the political activism of immigrant women in the Dutch
parliament? Do they feel threatened, do they develop strategies to compete, or do they
seek collaboration?
253
Overall, the analysis of the three cases suggested a number of insights about the
specific conditions affecting women‘s intersecting identities and their political
representation, and how institutions and actors strategically interact in shaping women‘s
representation in political institutions. Theoretically, this study provided an opportunity
to broaden the scope of descriptive representation by systematically examining party-
related factors. Empirically, it contributed to data collection at the subnational and party
level in a non-Western European and non-North American countext.
Some of the perspectives used in this dissertation might be helpful in studying
gender and representation in general. First, although the current literature is more likely
to measure women‘s representation by the number of women in parliamentary office and
to underestimate the importance of their representation in party organs, this study used
both as indicators of women‘s representation. Second, this dissertation attempted to
develop a balanced process-oriented approach by considering both actor-based and
structure-based theories instead of prioritizing one over the other. It showed the presence
of a dynamic relationship between structure and agency and it suggests that this
relationship holds even during the process of institutional change as observed in parties‘
policies toward women. Third, this study aimed to analyze women‘s representation,
adopting cross-group comparisons and a longitudinal perspective. It avoids presenting
static snapshots and snapshots based on experiences of one group. Extending the
chronological coverage of existing studies was important because the Kurdish, Islamic,
and Kemalist movements have undergone serious transformations which influenced
254
women‘s political activism. Further, comparing across cases helped to highlight
interactions among groups, as is apparent in Kemalist women‘s political activism.
The findings of this research suggest that a number of factors play critical roles in
women‘s representation. These factors should be elaborated upon more as they may have
implications for advancing the representation of previously marginalized women‘s
groups in other contexts.
6.2.2 Implications for Improving Women’s Representation
As noted above, the gender gap in Turkish political institutions is worse than the
world average. Thus, examination of any change, regardless of its size, is of importance.
As many studies have pointed out before, parties are mainly responsible for this dramatic
gender gap. Thus, it is important to find ways in which parties can play a constructive
role in narrowing this gap. Experiences across the world demonstrate that the use of
gender quotas is the most effective means of increasing women‘s representation.
Therefore, a close examination of the characteristics that have influenced a change in
Turkish parties‘ approach to a gender quota can help us understand the conditions under
which other parties may become likely to adopt a voluntary party quota or legislative
quota. The following paragraphs discuss the possible implications of this dissertation in
this regard.
i. The role of party ideology
Many studies have pointed out that party ideology determines the party‘s policies
regarding women‘s representation. They found that parties that are further to the left on
the political spectrum are better advocates for women‘s representation than parties of
255
right. The findings of this dissertation suggest that party ideology has very limited
explanatory power regarding women‘s representation for two reasons. First, parties‘
behavior regarding women‘s representation is shaped by number of mechanisms, such as
the work of intra-party women‘s organizations in bargaining for better representation,
party leaders‘ support, and some other contextual factors. Second, parties are dynamic
entities; they might reposition their ideological stance due to the environment factors
such as the contagion effect or outside pressure. While at one point in time a party may
have been less likely to promote women‘s equal representation and may have put barriers
against advancing it, at another, the same party might change its stance and promote
greater women‘s representation. Thus, those seeking to improve women‘s representation
should try to develop strategies to force change regardless of the parties‘ ideological
stance.
The monitoring of parties‘ gender policies by NGOs or international organizations
may be one strategy. The results of their investigation should be publicized in the media,
particularly before election campaigns, allowing voters to become aware of the parties‘
attitudes toward women. This may put substantial pressure on parties that seek to widen
their base of support and want to be seen as progressive. In the Turkish case, the pressure
of the EU has been quite effective, as Turkey has the candidate state for the EU
membership. The existing literature is quite right to highlight the substantial role of the
EU‘s demands as seen through progress reports that not only shape the agenda and
debates but also have an impact on legislative reforms as observed amendments in the
Civil Code and Penal Code. However, an analysis of the EU progress reports between
256
2001 and 2010 reveals that there has often been only one sentence referring to
representation of women, and quotas have not been suggested at all. The findings of this
dissertation lead us to consider the influential role of domestic factors, including those
internal to the party: intra-party women‘s organizations and party leaders.
ii. The role of intra-party women’s organizations
Although there are competing hypotheses regarding the benefits of women‘s
organizations in advancing women‘s representation in parties, this research suggests that
women‘s organizations within parties play an important role. First of all, these
organizations made it clear that women serve parties by vote-canvassing and mobilization
during electoral campaigns. These benefits may facilitate the recognition of women as
actors in party politics by male elites of parties. Meanwhile, the organizations may
empower women through raising consciousness and developing a sense of women‘s
collective interests. Such empowerment may enable women to not only assert themselves
but also to put forward an agenda regarding women‘s interests which may be followed
by women‘s demands for gaining clout within the party.
Parties‘ women‘s organizations may also contribute better representation,
particularly if their demands are voiced assertively. Assertiveness may become possible
if women‘s organizations can build coalitions across parties to work on representation.
As suggested in the political intersectionality literature, collective action on the basis of
gender identity may lessen the threatening nature of other identities. Such coalitions
should also cooperate with non-party women‘s networks. This cooperation can result in
keeping the emphasis on representation despite the presence of other pressing issues in
257
party politics. In the case of Kurdish women‘s activism, this kind of collaboration has
been observed since the mid-2000s. Female activists in Kurdish parties acted with
Kurdish female activists in advancing women‘s status in general. Moreover, outside
organizations monitored the political activities of the parties to make them more sensitive
to women‘s interests. These mechanisms were influential in the process of increasing
Kurdish women‘s representation, which outpaced the growth in representation of
conservative Muslim women. On the other hand, there was very weak collaboration
between intra-party women organizations and those outside of the party in the case of
conservative Muslim women. This led conservative women to remain less assertive in
putting forward women‘s demands. Changes in the pro-Islamic parties with regards to
women‘s representation took place more slowly than did changes in pro-Kurdish parties.
iii. The role of male leaders
The literature on gender and politics emphasizes the role of parties‘ elite women
in narrowing the gender gap in representation. Few studies have systematically examined
the role of male party leaders. However, the cases studied in this dissertation show that
male leaders significantly influence the representation of women, not only in parties and
but also in elected bodies. If a leader is likely to support greater representation, he
increases the number of candidates who are nominated for winnable seats. If a leader
seeks to increase women‘s representation in the long run, he will be more likely to
promote a voluntary party quota. Decisions of party leaders may depend on their
leadership styles, pragmatic considerations, and power relations within the party.
258
Bearing in mind these characteristics, it seems that one addressee for women‘s
demands should be party leaders. If leaders are convinced, they could make changes. It is
critical to know how they can be convinced. Elite female cadres of parties, including
leaders of women‘s organizations, should play the role of interlocutors. They should
behave very strategically and frame women‘s demands in such a way that the leader
would conclude that better women‘s representation is vital for his leadership and the
success of party. Another path is to pressure national and international feminist NGOs
that are committed to the advancement of equal representation. Party leaders may
respond to their demands to present a more moderate image in order to reduce/deflect
criticism.
As a result, like many feminist scholars, I advocate for the descriptive
representation of women in all parties, elected bodies, and the government. The presence
of women from all social backgrounds in political institutions is important for the
political legitimacy of these institutions and for improving the quality of democracy.
Gradual change can also benefit women as incremental changes do; and they are better
than stasis.
6.3 Avenues for Future Research

This study suggests two fruitful directions. The first is to extend the scope of this
study and the second is to test hypotheses generated here in other cases by conducting
comparative studies.
259
This research can be expanded by studying other types of representation,
including substantive and symbolic representation in the context of Turkey. From the
perspective of substantive representation, an important follow-up research question is to
what extent increases in the proportions of Kurdish and conservative Muslim women in
elected offices and in parties lead to substantive representation of women? Do these
elected women serve the interests of other women? This can be traced in a number of
policy areas: combating gender-based violence against women, women‘s employment,
workplace equality, parental leave, funds for child care, and gender quota in politics.
These issue areas can be examined by collecting data on female MPs and party women‘s
attitudes and behavior. Then, this data should be categorized by party and over time.
Such a data set can be enriched by aggregating information regarding priorities,
strategies, and the effectiveness of these women in pushing for policy changes in these
areas. Analysis of these data will show how these various issues, actors, and contexts
interact in a way to serve women‘s interests (or not).
From the perspective of symbolic representation, a significant question is how
female ministers, MPs, female party members, (even wives of political leaders) are
represented in the media. Both quantitative and qualitative data drawn from newspaper
headlines, articles, and photographs can be used to reveal the usage of stereotypes,
gendered adjectives and traits. The symbolic presentation of women during election
campaigns can also provide interesting findings. Such an expansion focusing on
descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation together will enable us to cover all
dimensions of representation in a compherensive way. It may transcend several
260
subdisciplines of political science and may also be fruitful for sociology, political
communication, and media studies.
A second direction for further studies is to apply the model to understand
women‘s political experiences in other countries. For instance, how does the political
intersectionality manifest itself in other countries, to what extent it influences women‘s
representation? Which factors play a role in changes regarding the representation of
previously marginalized groups? The remaining part of this chapter provides a discussion
of some interesting cases that might be included in a future study, certain hypotheses to
be tested, and the direction for scope extension.
Two interesting sets of cases emerge as crucial for studying the role of political
intersectionality and party-related factors in women‘s representation: Kurdish women‘s
experience in Turkey can be compared with that of Kurdish women in northern Iraq, or
women of several revolutionary or ethnic movements (in Latin America, Northern
Ireland, and Spain). Conservative Muslim women‘s experience can be compared with
those of Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia. All of these countries
have Islamic political formations: the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, the Justice and
Development Party in Morocco, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, the Movement of the
Society for Peace in Algeria, the National Awakening Party in Indonesia, and the Pan
Malaysian Islamic Party in Malaysia. The Islamic parties of these countries have been
integrated into the political landscape, and some of them tended to become conservative
and centrist parties. Women of these political formations have been proven to be
effective voting recruiters similar to the cases discussed here (Abdellatif & Ottaway,
261
2007; Blaydes & El Tarouty , 2009). They also have women‘s sections. However, there
are very few studies on them. Such a comparative study of conservative Muslim women‘s
political representation should ask following questions:
1) What have the attitudes of these parties been toward women‘s political
participation? Have their attitudes changed over time along with the moderation
of their Islamic discourse? Under which conditions and when have parties become
eager to promote women‘s representation? Which factors trigger path-breaking
changes?
2) Has women‘s participation in Islamist movement benefited these movements in
the electoral participation? If yes, how? Which actors and institutions become
involve in the process going from social movement participation to the political
representation? How do actors‘ strategies vary? Which
dynamics/factors/mechanisms shape the variations?
3) To what extent have women‘s intersecting identities influenced their
representation? How do identities interact with system and party-related factors?
No doubt, responses to these questions will suggest both similarities and
differences across cases. An investigation of the causal mechanism behind women‘s
representation in each case may enable us to develop better theories about
conservative Muslim women‘s political experiences and the gender ideology of
Islamic parties.
In conclusion, the underrepresentation of women in political decision making and
their weak substantive representation continue in Turkey as of 2011. Although the
262
problem has received limited scholarly and public attention, it has been a serious factor
impeding Turkey‘s democratic consolidation and and hindering further improving it
human rights record. Solving the problem of the underrepresentation of women requires
first understanding the current situation, including the roots of problem, the driving forces
behind slight improvements as observed in the cases of Kurdish and conservative Muslim
women as well as taking effective measures. Progressive and inclusive changes in terms
of better representation of all groups necessitate efforts of both male and female actors
and instititutions. The various identities of actors and characteristics of institutions will
all shape the direction and the pace of change in the years to come.

263

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289
Appendix A: Interviews
Table 3: List of Interviews
Politicians
Names Title and Position Date of Interview Place of Interview
Ağırbaş, Ayşe Jale
DSP, Deputy of İstanbul
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 25,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Akat, Ayla
DTP, Deputy of Batman
(2007-2011). Reelected in
the 2011 elections
Interviewed on July 10,
2009
Batman, DSP
Gathering
Akşit, Güldal
AKP Deputy, Ankara
(2007-2007, 2007-2011)
A founder of AKP, Served
as President of Equal
Opportunity Commission
Served as Ministry of
Tourism (2002-2003) and
Ministry of State (2003-
2005)
Interviewed on June 16,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Aksu, Abdülkadir
AKP Deputy of İstanbul
(2007-2011), reelected in
the 2011 elections
Interviewed on June 24,
2009
Lobby of the
Parliament
Arıtman, Canan
CHP, Deputy of İzmir
(2007-2011, 2002-2007).
Interviewed on June 30,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Arslantaş, Şeyda
DTP, elected as the member
of City Council for Sur
Municipality in 2009
Interviewed on July 21,
2009
Diyarbakır, Sur
Municipality
Aşan, Aşkın
AKP deputy of Ankara
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 30,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Ayaşlı, Deniz
AKP, member of the
Diyarbakır Sur Municipality
Woman's Branch
Interviewed on July 20,
2009
Diyarbakır ,AKP
Sur City Center
Aydın, Kemalettin
AKP Deputy of
Gümüşhane, Served as the
member of Commissim of
Equal Opportunities for
Men and Women
Interviewed on June 30,
2009
His office in the
Parliament
Aytin, Fikriye
DTP, elected as the Mayor
of Lice, Diyarbakır in 2009
Interviewed on July 14,
2009
Diyarbakır Lice
Municipality
Bal, Şenol
MHP, Deputy of İzmir
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 30,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Baytok, Nesrin
CHP, Deputy of Ankara
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 23,
2009
Ankara, Her office
in the Parliament
Çakır, Serpil
AKP, Chair of the
Diyarbakır Provincial
Woman's Branch and
serving as the member of
Diyarbakır Provincial
council
Interviewed on July 17,
2009
Diyarbakır AKP
Provincial Center

290
Table 3: Continued
Politicians
Names Title and Position Date of Interview
Place of
Interview
Çakırtaş, Şeyhmus
DTP, Advisor of Leyla
Güven who is the female
mayor Viransehir, Şanlıurfa
Interviewed on July 15,
2009
Şanlıurfa,
Viranşehir
Municipality
Çapanoğlu, Petek E.
DTP, elected as the Mayor of
Egil, Diyarbakır in 2009
Interviewed on July 22,
2009
Diyarbakır, Egil
Municipality
Çoban, Hatice
DTP, Member of Party
Decision Making Boy
Interviewed on June 19,
2009
Ankara , DTP
Headquarters
Çubukçu, Nimet
AKP deputy of İstanbul
(2007-2011,2002-2007),
reelected in the 2011
elections. She is one of the
founders of JDP. Served as
Ministry of State (2005-
2007) and Ministry of
Education (2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 23,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in Ministry
of Education
Dedegil, Alev
AKP deputy of İstanbul
(2007-2011), reelected in the
2011 elections. Served as the
head of the Petition
Commission
Interviewed on June 24,
2009
Ankara,Petition
Commission
office in the
Parliament
Demirel, Çağlar
DTP, elected as the Mayor of
Derik, Mardin in 2009
Interviewed on July 15,
2009
Mardin, Derik
Municipality
Demirtaş, Abdullah
DTP, elected as the Mayor of
Sur Municipality,
Diyarbakır in 2009. .He also
served as mayor of Sur
before.
Interviewed on July 20,
2009
Diyarbakır, Sur
Municipality
Eraslan, Sibel
Former Chair of the RP‘s
Woman's Branch
Interviewed on August 5,
2011
İstanbul
Eroglu, Cemile
DTP, elected as the Mayor of
Bismil, Diyarbakır in 2009
Interviewed on July 13,
2009
Diyarbakır
Bismil
Municipality
Gökkan, Ayşe
DTP, elected as the Mayor of
Nusaybin Mardin in 2009
Interviewed on July 13,
2009
Mardin Nusaybin
Municipality
Güven, Leyla
DTP, served as the Mayor of
Viranşehir, Şanlıurfa
between 2009 and 2010. She
had served as the major of
Küçükdilli, Adana 2004-
2009.
Interviewed on July 15,
2009
Şanlıurfa,
Viranşehir
Municipality
Haspolat, Hacı
DTP, elected as the member
of City Council for
Diyarbakır Metropolitan
Municipality in 2009. He
also serves as the advisor of
the Mayor of Diyarbakır
Interviewed on July 21,
2009 and July, 23 2009
Diyarbakır
291
Table 3: Continued
Politicians
Names Title and Position Date of Interview
Place of
Interview
Ilıcak, Nazlı
Former Deputy elected from
the FP (1999-2001),
Journalist
Interviewed on July 31,
2009
İstanbul, Her
office
İpek, Hafize
DTP, elected as the member
of City Council for Yenişehir
Municipality in 2009
Interviewed on July 21,
2009
Diyarbakır,
Yenişehir
Municipality
Keşir, Ayşe
AKP, Media Director of JDP
Woman's Branch, serving as
the member of city council
and vice president of the
Woman's Branch as of 2011
Interviewed on June 24,
2009 and July 10, 2010.
Ankara,
Headquarters of
Woman's Branch
Keskin, Betül
AKP, Financial Director of
JDP Woman's Branch
Interviewed on June 24,
2009
Ankara,
Headquarters of
Woman's Branch
Kotan-Salman, Fatma
AKP deputy of Agrı (2007-
2011), reelected in the 2011
elections
Interviewed on June 18,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the
Parliament
Kurtulan, Fatma
DTP, Deputy of Van (2007-
2011). Served as DSP Group
Chair in the Parliament
Interviewed on June 26,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the
Parliament
Memecan, Nursuna
AKP Deputy of Istanbul
(2007-2011), elected as JDP
deputy of Sivas in the 2011
elections.
Interviewed on June 17,
2009
Ankara, Lobby of
Parliament
Müftüoğlu, Özlem
AKP deputy of Gaziantep
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 24,
2009
Ankara, Lobby of
Parliament
Orhan, Gülşen
AKP deputy of Van (2007-
2011), reelected in the 2011
elections
Interviewed on June 23,
2009 and June 25, 2009
Ankara, Lobby
of Parliament and
her office in the
Parliament
Orhan, Naci
Former Mayor of
Bahçesaray, Van and the
father of the Van deputy
Gülşen Orhan, AKP
Interviewed on June 25,
2009
Ankara
Parliament
Özkan, Mehmet DTP, Male Party Activist
Interviewed on July 15,
2009
Şanlıurfa,
Viranşehir
Municipality
Şahin, Fatma
AKP deputy of Gaziantep
(2007-2011), reelected in the
2011 elections. Served as the
chair of the Woman's Branch
at AKP Headquarters
Interviewed on June 25,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the AKP
Heartquarters
Şahinoğlu, Birnur
AKP Deputy of Samsun
(2007-2011). Served as
President of the Provincial
Woman's Branch in Samsun
Interviewed on June 17,
2009
Ankara, Lobby of
Parliament
Şahkulubey-Bekin, Gönül
AKP deputy of Mardin
(2007-2011), reelected in the
2011 elections
Interviewed on June 17,
2009
Ankara, Lobby of
Parliament

292
Table 3: Continued
Politicians
Names Title and Position Date of Interview
Place of
Interview
Saygın, Işılay
Former Deputy elected from
the ANAP (1995-1999),
Served as the Ministry of
Tourism, Ministry of State,
Ministry of Environment
Interviewed on August 5,
2009
İzmir, her house
Şeker, Esra
AKP, Member of the Ankara
Provincial Woman's Branch
and serving as the member
of Altındağ, Ankara city
council
Interviewed on June 20,
2009
Ankara
Provincial
Woman's Branch
Selamoğlu, Tülay
AKP, Chair of JDP Ankara
Provincial Woman's Branch,
elected as deputy of Ankara
in the 2011 elections
Interviewed on June 20,
2009
Ankara,
Provincial
Woman's Branch
Serter, Fatma Nur
CHP Deputy of Istanbul
(2007-2011). Reelected in
the 2011 elections
Interviewed on June 25,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the
Parliament
Seymenoğlu, Safiye
AKP Deputy ofTrabzon
(2007-2011), (2011-present)
Served as the president of
Provincial Woman's Branch.
She was also active in the RP
Woman's Branch
Interviewed on June 17,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the
Parliament
Sözen, Edibe
AKP Deputy, İstanbul
(2007-2011), One of the
Vice Presidents of the JDP
Interviewed on June 16,
2009
Ankara, AKP
Heartquarters
Tamaylıgil, Bihlun
CHP, Deputy of Istanbul
(2007-2011). Reelected in
the 2011 elections.Served as
one of the Vice Chair of the
Party
Interviewed on July 2, 2009
Ankara, Her
office in CHP
Headquarters
Türköne-Piltanoğlu, Özlem
AKP Deputy of Ankara
(2007-2011)
Interviewed on June 17,
2009
Ankara, Her
office in the
Parliament
Ulak, Süheyla
AKP, Chair of the
Diyarbakır Sur Municipality
Woman's Branch and serving
as the member of Sur,
Diyarbakır City Council
Interviewed on July 20,
2009
Diyarbakır AKP
Sur City Center

293
Table 3: Continued
Non-Politicians
Names Title and Position Date of Interview
Place of
Interview
Çağlayan, Handan
Author of a book on Kurdish
Women, Former member of
the Pro-Kurdish Party,
People's Democracy Party
Interviewed on June 25,
2009
Ankara
Genç, Yüksel
Member of Kurdish
Democratic Free Women
Movement , Former PKK
militant and columnist in a
pro-Kurdish dailies
Interviewed on July 31,
2009
İstanbul
Gül, Fatma
Member of Kurdish
Democratic Free Women
Movement
Interviewed on July 20,
2009
Diyarbakır
Matur, Bejan
Columnist and Author
overwhelmingly written on
Kurdish issue
Interviewed on July 24,
2009
Diyarbakır
NGOs
Ceren Kadın Dernegi,Yasemin
Bayram
Affliated with Kurdish
Nationalist Movement
Interviewed on July 16,
2009
Diyarbakır
Selis Kadın Dernegi
Affliated with Kurdish
Nationalist Movement
Interviewed on July 16,
2009
Diyarbakır
Ceren Kadın Dernegi-Yasemin
Bayram
Affliated with Kurdish
Nationalist Movement
Interviewed on July 16,
2009
Diyarbakır
Selis Kadın Dernegi, Batman
Branch
Affliated with Kurdish
Nationalist Movement
Interviewed on July 10,
2009
Batman
Barış Anneleri İnsiyatifi,
interviewed with three activist
women
Affliated with Kurdish
Nationalist Movement
Interviewed on July 21,
2009
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır Kultur Sanat Vakfı-
Fidel Balta
Independent NGO
Interviewed on July 24,
2009
Diyarbakır
Association of Support for the
Women Candidates, Chair of the
İzmir Branch-Meltem Onay
Independent Women's NGO
Interviewed on August 5 ,
2009
İzmir
Uçan Süpürge, Selen Doğan Independent Women's NGO Interviewed on July, 3 2010 Ankara

294
Appendix B. Party Related Statistics
Table 4: Number and ratio of female representatives by the
national election years (1935-2011)
Election Years Number of
representatives
Number of female
representatives
Ratio (%)
1935 395 18 4,6
1939 400 15 3,8
1943 435 16 3,7
1946 455 9 2,0
1950 487 3 0,6
1954 535 4 0,7
1957 610 7 1,1
1961 450 3 0,7
1965 450 8 1,8
1969 450 5 1,1
1973 450 6 1,3
1977 450 4 0,9
1983 400 12 3,0
1987 450 6 1,3
1991 450 8 1,8
1995 550 13 2,4
1999 550 23 4,2
2002 550 24 4,4
2007 550 48 8,7
2011 550 78 14

Source: Turkish Grand National Assembly
295
Table 5: The Number and Ratio of Male and
Female Candidates by Party in the
1995, 1999, 2002, 2007 National Elections

Female Candidates Male Candidates
Number Ratio % Number Ratio %
1995 Elections
HADEP 59 10.7 491 89.3
CHP 31 5.6 519 94.4
RP 0 0 550 100
Country Average 8.1
1999 Elections
HADEP 67 12.8 483 87.8
CHP 68 12.3 482 87.64
FP 17 3.09 533 96.91
Country Average 16.4
2002 Elections
AKP 31 5.6 519 94.4
CHP 42 7.6 508 92.4
DEHAP 103 18.7 447 81.3
Country Average 11.7
2007 Elections
AKP 64 11.6 486 88.4
CHP 50 9.1 500 90.9
DTP 9 15,0 51 85,0
Country Average 16.4

Source: Erol Tuncer, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2007 Milletvekili Genel Secimi
Sayisal ve Siyasal Degerlendirme, Ankara: TESAV Yayinlari.
296
Table 6: Gender Equality in the Political Parties at
the 2007 General Elections
NC: Nominated Candidate
UNC: Unnominated Candidate
CHP AKP DTP
The Total Number of UNC 199 39 275
The Total Number of NC 550 550 67
Female Candidates of UNC 246 454 45
Female Candidates of NC 55 62 9
Number of Elected Women 10 30 8
The Opportunity of Women for being UNC
(%)
12,35 11,66 16,36
The Opportunity of Women for being NC
(%)
22,36 13,66 20
The Opportunity of Women for being elected
(%)
18,18 48,39 88,88
Male Candidates of UNC 1.75 3.44 230
Male Candidates of NC 495 488 58
Number of Elected Men(8) 102 310 19
The Opportunity of Men for being UNC (%) 87,65 88,34 83,63
The Opportunity of Men for being NC (%) 28,35 14,18 25,22
The Opportunity of Men for being elected
(%)
20,60 63,52 32,76

Source: KA-DER, 2007; pp. 82-86 ve www.ka-der.org.tr.
TÜSİAD, 2008 Report
297
Table 7. Women’s Representation in the Local Elected Offices
(1984-2009)
Year Position Number of Women Number of Total Ratio of
Women
1984 City Councilor
103 17549 0,6
1989 Mayoress
5 2388 0,02
1991 Mayoress
No data avaliable
City Councilor
177 24307 0,7
Member of Provincial
Assembly
20 2653 0,8
1999 Mayoress
20 3.216 0,6
City Councilor
541 34.084 1,6
Member of Provincial
Assembly
44 3.122 1,4
2004 Mayoress
18 3,225 0,56
City Councilor 799 34.477 2,32
Member of Provincial
Assembly
56 3.208 1,75
2009 Mayoress
26 2.903 0,9
City Councilor
1.471 32.392 4,5
Member of Provincial
Assembly
115 3.281 3,51

Source: KA-DER and Gülay Talaslı (1996)

298
Table 8: Female Ministers (1923 – 2011)
The Name of Female Minister The Name of Ministry Tenure Government
1 Turkan Akyol
Ministry of Health and Social
Welfare 03.1971/12.1971 33rd
2 Hayriye Ayşe Nermin NEFTÇİ Ministry of Culture 11.1974/03.1975 38th
3 Işın Çelebi Ministry of State 12.1987/11.1989 46
4 Imren Aykut
Ministry of Labor and Social
Security 12.1987/11.1989 46
5 Işın Çelebi Ministry of State 11.1989/06.1991 47
6 Imren Aykut
Ministry of Labor and Social
Security 11.1989/06.1991 47
7 Imren Aykut Ministry of State 06.1991/11.1991 48
8 Tansu Çiller Ministry of State 11.1991/06.1993 49
9 Guler Ileri Ministry of State 11.1991/06.1993 49
10 Turkan Akyol Ministry of State 11.1991/06.1993 49
11 Turkan Akyol Ministry of State 06.1993/10.1995 50
12 Aysel Baykal Ministry of State 03.1995/10.1995 50
13 Işılay Saygin Ministry of State 10.1995/10.1995 51
14 Işılay Saygin Ministry of State 10.1995/02.1996 52
15 Işılay Saygin Ministry of Environment 02.1996/03.1996 52
16 Ayfer Yilmaz Ministry of State 03.1996/06.1996 53
17 Imren Aykut Ministry of State 03.1996/06.1996 53
18 Işılay Saygin Ministry of Tourism 03.1996/06.1996 53
19 Tansu Ciller Ministry of Foreign Affairs 06.1996/06.1997 54
20 Ayfer Yılmaz Ministry of State 06.1996/06.1997 54
21 Meral Akşener Ministry of Domestic Affairs 06.1996/06.1997 54
22 Işılay Saygın Ministry of State 06.1997/01.1999 55
23 Işın Çelebi Ministry of State 06.1997/01.1999 55
24 Imren Aykut Ministry of State 06.1997/01.1999 55
25 Melda Bayer Ministry of State 05.1999/11.2002 57
26 Tayyibe Gulek Ministry of State 05.1999/11.2002 57
27 Aysel Celikel Ministry of State 05.1999/11.2002 57
28 Guldal Aksit Ministry of Tourism 11.2002/04.2003 59
29 Guldal Aksit Ministry of State 04.2003/06.2005 59
30 Nimet Cubukcu Ministry of State 06.2005/08.2007 59
31 Nimet Cubukcu Ministry of Education 08.2007/05.2009 59
32 Nimet Cubukcu Ministry of Education 05.2009/12.2011 59
33 Selma Aliye Kavaf Ministry of State 05.2009/12.2011 59
299
Table 9: Women in the High Decision Making Organs by Party
(2007-2011)
DTP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio
of
Women
Central Executive Committee 21 10 47,6
Member of Party the Grand Congress 80 28 35,0
Central Discipinary Committee 11 6 54,5
Chairmen of the Provincial
Organization
47 22 46,8

Source: DTP Headquarters, March 2011

MHP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio
of
Women
Central Administrative Committee 75 5 6,6
Party Aseembly 15 0 0
Central Discipinary Committee 9 0 0
Chairmen of the Provincial
Organization
81 0 0

Source: www.mhp.org.tr, March 2011

AKP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio
of
Women
Central Executive Committee 20 3 15,0
Central Decision Making Committee 51 13 25,4
the Central Discipinary Committee 11 3 27,27
Chairmen of the Provincial
Organization
81 0 0

Source: AKP Headquarters, March 2011 www.akp.org.tr

300
Table 9: Continued
CHP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio
of
Women
Central Decision-Making and
Executive Committee
18 3 16,6
Party Assembly 81 20 24,6
the High Discipinary Committee 15 4 26,6
Chairmen of the Provincial
Organization
81 2 2,4
Source: CHP Headquarters, March 2011 www.chp.org.tr

SP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio of
Women
Başkanlık Divanı 17 1 5,8
General Administrative Committee 79 3 3,7
Discipinary Committee 11 0 0

Source: www.sp.org.tr, February 2011

DSP Total Members
Women
Members
Ratio of
Women
Başkanlık Kurulu 14 3 21,4
Party Assembly 68 8 11,7
Discipinary Committee 15 0 0
Chairmen of the Provincial
Organization
81 7 8,6

Source: DSP Headquarters, March 2011

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The underrepresentation of women in political decision making and their weak substantive representation continue in Turkey as of 2011. The dissertation examines the timing, direction, and mechanisms of slight changes in the representation of three women’s groups in Turkey, namely Kurdish, conservative Muslim, and Kemalist women, between 1990 and 2010. It seeks to answer two primary questions: why was there a change in Kurdish and conservative Muslim women’s political representation in the parliamentary offices and parties’ decision-making organs between 1990 and 2010, while there was almost no change in the representation of Kemalist women

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sahin, Zeynep (author)

Core Title The political representation of Kurdish, Kemalist, and conservative Muslim women in Turkey (1990-2010)

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Politics and International Relations

Publication Date 11/17/2011

Defense Date 11/17/2011

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag intersectionality,Islamic women,Kurdish women,OAI-PMH Harvest,Political parties,political representation,Turkey

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Brand, Laurie (committee chair), Rorlich, Azade-Ayse (committee member), Tickner, Ann J. (committee member), Wong, Janelle (committee member)

Creator Email zeynep.sahin@gediz.edu.tr,zsahin@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-209167

Unique identifier UC11291453

Identifier usctheses-c3-209167 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SahinZeyne-414-0.pdf

Dmrecord 209167

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Sahin, Zeynep

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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