Toward a democratic society: The women's movement in Turkey in the 1980s

Abstract

This article explores how the women's movement in Turkey contributed to the process of democratization in the 1980s. The movement did not merely give more women the opportunity to participate in politics through grass roots organizations, but also helped create the political milieu conductive to the establishment of a political democracy. The movement extended the political space allotted to civil society. In the context of a statist polity, feminist women organized independent of and in opposition to the state. They generated power through civil society as they established feminist institutions. Their movement was a secular front against Islamic revivalism, one that mostly tolerated and even influenced the Islamists. consequently, by the end of the 1980 decade, political parties which worked to consolidate political democracy in Turkey had heard women's voices, even though their response was far from satisfactory.