Reading the Middle East through the Lens of Women’s Press in Turkey

Abstract

The Progressive Women’s Association (PWA), founded in 1975 under the auspices of the Turkish Communist Party (TCP) when second-wave feminism was on the rise in Europe, emerged as the largest and most significant women’s organization in Turkey’s recent history. However, the organization did not position itself within the feminist paradigm. Instead, it worked for women’s causes without a feminist lineage. Thus, one of the principal questions of this study is how and to what extent the women’s movement in Europe, particularly second-wave feminism, was reflected by the women who founded the PWA and mobilized thousands of women during its five-year existence before it was shut down following the military coup in 1980. By relying on the journal Kadınların Sesi (Women’s Voice) published by the PWA, this study attempts to analyze how and to what extent women of the PWA followed and interpreted Middle East politics and specifically the condition of women in the Middle East. Previous studies on the PWA and its role in the history of the Turkish women’s movement have focused on locating the PWA within the socio-political context of modern Turkish history in general, and Turkish women’s history in particular. This study departs from the existing literature and unpacks how these women reflected upon the world in which they lived by focusing on what they wrote about the Middle East and women in the region.