A Transnational History of Left Feminism in Turkey (1974–1979): Relations and Exchanges between the IKD and the WIDF

Abstract

This article presents a transnational history of left feminism in Turkey between 1974–1979 when international women’s movements gained momentum on a global scale with the designation of 1975 as International Women’s Year (IWY). With this article, my aim is to go beyond methodological nationalism in the established historiography on women’s movements in Turkey. I study in particular the local and international activities of the international activities of the Progressive Women’s Association (İlerici Kadınlar Derneği, IKD), the mass left-feminist organisation between 1975 and 1980 that engaged in left-wing women’s activism all around Turkey. I explore the bilateral relations, connections, exchange, interaction, and collaboration between the IKD and international women’s movements, particularly the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), which was a global coalition of women of the anti-fascist, pro-communist left. I use the term left feminism that, in my opinion, expands the definition of feminism by going beyond the liberal political goal of individual emancipation. Against the overarching premise that women’s agency cannot be actualised under state-socialism or within communist-socialist women’s organisations, my article shows the overlapping issues between communism and feminism as well as the diverse agendas that constitute history of feminism in twentieth-century Turkey from a transnational perspective.