The emergence and growth of women’s movements is one of the primary means for achieving women’s empowerment. By organizing and/or joining women’s groups, women can become aware of their oppression and seek structural changes in power relations between men and women. The strategies through which women’s movements seek empowerment, however, vary from one context to another, since women’s agency is shaped by different political, historical and cultural contexts. Thus, certain theoretical insights can be gained from comparing the emergence and evolution of different women’s movements. A comparison permits us to ask questions about the conditions that inspire struggles for empowerment, the strategies employed, the meaning and content of ‘empowerment’, and whether empowerment always implies a ‘bottom-up’ process, or can states also promote women’s empowerment? And, perhaps most importantly, does the discourse of ‘women’s empowerment’ include all women, regardless of class, ethnic and religious distinctions?
We advance two theoretical propositions. First, explaining the emergence of movements that promote women’s empowerment requires an understanding of particular patriarchal contexts, including ways women often (creatively) draw on existing gender ideologies to expose certain contradictions and mobilize support for their demands. Attention to historical context sheds light on the construction of the term ‘empowerment’ by movement actors. Second, understanding the outcomes of movements requires more attention to the type of state confronting women. There are two compelling reasons for this concern. First, many states in the South are currently engaged in processes of neo-liberal adjustment, including greater integration into global economic processes. This affects their strategies and responses to the demands of women’s groups. Second, empowerment is not always a ‘bottom-up’ process. States have sometimes taken a leading role in the promotion of (a particular version of) women’s empowerment. In such cases, women’s movements have had to struggle to construct their own meaning of empowerment, along with the strategies to achieve it. State–society relations also tell us much about the debates and divisions about empowerment within movements because they play a key role in the construction and maintenance of social, ethnic and religious cleavages that cross any society.
To that end, Chile and Turkey provide contrasting experiences for understanding the way struggles for women’s empowerment are affected by state–society relations. In Chile, the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic state provided an ‘opening’ for women to place their demands on the public agenda of the incoming government. Consequently women in Chile have made substantial gains, although these have declined since the democratic transition, in part due to the adoption of a neo-liberal economic model that has exacerbated class differences among women. In Turkey, the 1980 military coup, paradoxically, enabled women to organize and set their own agenda. The history of ‘state feminism’ has led women’s groups to seek autonomy from the state. Yet, their capacity to define and control empowerment continues to be undermined by a paternalistic state. Furthermore, state-supported initiatives to empower women have often ignored differences among women, thus empowering some while disempowering others.
Amrita Basu argues that ‘[p]atriarchal domination is no more apt in and of itself to provide a catalyst to women’s activism than class exploitation is likely in and of itself to stimulate class struggle’ (1995: 10). Consequently, while an awareness of how patriarchy functions is crucial to understanding women’s exclusion from social and political life in various contexts, this factor alone cannot account for why women’s movements emerge at particular points in time. In other words, we need to go beyond the traditional explanations offered by feminist theory, particularly the assumption that men dominate the public realm and women the private, ‘apolitical’ sphere.
In fact, the gender ideology underpinning the public/private divide often plays a crucial role in women’s struggles for empowerment. Women draw on existing gender discourse and ideology in order to construct sets of shared meanings and to mobilize support for their goals. The existing gender ideology forms part of the ‘political opportunity structure’ in which women’s activism emerges, especially when there are contradictions between the prevailing ideology and women’s daily life. For example, in Chile, women mobilized under the dictatorship to expose the contradiction between the violence and deprivation in their daily lives and the military regime’s pro-women discourse (as mothers and wives). In Turkey, women exploited the contradictions between the official Kemalist discourse stressing gender equality in the public sphere and the daily realities of women’s subordination in their homes.
In constructing a framework to explain women’s activism, one needs an international or global perspective. First, the global political economy affects women in different ways. Neo-liberal restructuring and insertion into the global political economy have shifted the boundaries between public and private spheres as states increasingly rely on the private sector, including the family, for social services and basic welfare. This often occurs alongside the intensification of female labour, as states attempt to compete in the global economy.
Second, the international women’s movement has profoundly affected women’s movements around the world. As Nelson and Chowdury explain, ‘[t]he international spotlight on women, the impetus to gather and compare data, to hold their governments to account, and the occasions for international coalition building represented by the three U.N. women’s conferences … all catapulted the international connections among women to a qualitatively different level’ (1994:9). In Turkey, feminist groups organized a petition campaign in 1986 urging the state to implement the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Turkey had ratified in 1985, albeit with reservations. In Chile, Beijing conference preparations inspired collaboration among women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The resulting Grupo Iniciativa Chile, a permanent network of eleven NGOs, continues to pressure the Chilean state to honour its international agreements (Valdés 1998: 107–9; Grupo Iniciativa Chile 1994). Thus, international forces can strengthen women’s groups.
We also need conceptual tools to explain the evolution of women’s movements, and the impact of more institutionalized political actors on their goals and strategies for empowerment. Sometimes a more or less unified women’s movement emerges out of a host of smaller groups that began to organize collectively for various reasons (e.g. economic survival, nationalism, struggles against authoritarianism, or gender or racial oppression). However, this unity is normally short lived. As certain goals are achieved, and institutionalization increases, divisions often occur. Why has this trajectory been so common?
One answer is that women’s movements often emerge in times of crisis and change, which provides certain momentum and purpose. When the crises are resolved, conditions for women’s activism become less hospitable. As West and Blumberg observe, ‘[r]ole boundaries may dissolve at the crisis stage, but later tend to be rapidly reinstated’ (1990: 24). Women’s incorporation into the formal political sphere on the basis of crisis-inspired activism is by no means assured. Instead, women are often expected to return to the private realm of the family once crises pass.
In addition, after key ‘crisis periods’, many women’s movements become institutionalized and ultimately fragment. In many cases, leading activists migrate into state agencies or NGOs that either work closely with the state, or act as intermediaries between states and grassroots women’s groups. Sonia Alvarez, for example, refers to the ‘“NGOization” of Latin American feminism’ (1998: 294–5). Furthermore, many states set up ministries, bureaux or agencies specifically dedicated to women’s issues and empowerment. This raises questions about the potential for ‘co-optation’ and highlights the need for a framework that is sensitive to gendered state processes and their impact on women’s movements.
No single feminist theory of the state exists. Moreover, much feminist theorizing on the state has been grounded in Western, industrialized welfare states, and thus ignores the impact of colonialism and various interpretations of modernity (Charlton et al. 1989: 10; Rai 1996: 5). While liberal feminists see states as neutral, socialist feminists emphasize their class functions. Others emphasize their ‘relative autonomy’ and consequently their openness to political pressures (Alvarez 1990: 31; Charlton et al. 1989: 5; Pringle and Watson 1998). However, all feminists acknowledge the fundamentally male-biased nature of states.
Some writers emphasize the fragmented nature of states, especially in the South where state capacity may be weaker, and thereby less able to implement women’s empowerment programmes (Rai 1996). Likewise, states are also constrained by global economic processes (Randall 1998: 196). The Chilean state, for example, is providing child-care support for some women workers because they enhance Chile’s global competitiveness. Consequently, the strategies employed by women’s movements are shaped to a great extent by the type of state(s) they deal with, the context they operate in and their willingness and capacity to respond to women’s demands.
In most cases, women’s movements equate women’s empowerment with more inclusive politics. They concentrate on giving women a voice and presence in the centres of power. However, not all women’s movements pursue this goal through the state. Some become institutionalized while others struggle to maintain their autonomy from the state. The resulting fragmentation undermines attempts to transform politics and empower women. As a result, women working within the state are deprived of outside support, such as public demonstrations and other forms of solidarity, which can pressure the state to be more responsive to women’s demands (Waylen 1997). Concerted action from within and outside the state is required to transform political practice. Furthermore, the institutionalization of portions of the movement can increase inequalities and ‘uneven power relations among women’ (Alvarez 1998: 295). Women with access to the state can set the terms of citizenship, with its attendant rights and duties, in the name of all women (Schild 1997). Thus, empowerment for some women can occur at the expense of disempowering others. The following case studies of Chile and Turkey illustrate these propositions.
A ‘first wave’ of feminism swept Chile in the first half of the twentieth century. Mostly middle- and upper-class women formed study groups, women’s clubs and a suffragist movement. Chilean women won the vote in municipalities in 1934 and nationally in 1949. The conservative governments granted them the vote, believing the prevailing gender ideology emphasizing women’s roles as mothers would ensure their support.
Indeed, women remained socially, politically and economically subordinate to men largely due to this ideology. As Elsa Chaney notes, the ‘characterization of woman as sacrificial mothers sums up what Latin Americans consider the most positive aspect of the image of woman’ (1979: 47). Moreover, ‘[t]he suffrage movement fostered rather than challenged the feminine stereotype by emphasizing how the women’s vote would infuse society with the womanly virtues’ (1979: 76).
A long ‘feminist silence’ followed between 1953–78. Autonomous women’s groups ceased as most activists shifted their allegiance to political parties. Class-based politics predominated during this period, inhibiting women from raising gender issues within the parties, especially on the left (Kirkwood 1986).
In the 1960s, the government began promoting a particular vision of women’s empowerment as part of a wider social project to empower previously marginalized social groups. However, Chilean women were mobilized on the basis of their social roles rather than as citizens. For example, President Eduardo Frei’s (1964–70) ‘Revolution in Liberty’ set up ‘mothers’ centres’ to encourage collective organization among the poor. While these state-sponsored centres brought women together, they reinforced their subordinate social roles by focusing on domestic labour (Valdés et al. 1993). Under Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–90), the mothers’ centres became even more explicitly ideological. They, along with a National Secretariat for Women, were headed by Pinochet’s wife and staffed by a cadre of mostly upper-class women volunteers (Serrano 1992: 207). These networks and organizations reinforced a conservative gender ideology stressing women’s roles in the production of another generation of patriotic (and pro-Pinochet) citizens (Molina 1989: 61–74).1 How did this gender ideology shape the emergence of a women’s movement in Chile, with its particular understanding of women’s empowerment?
The social and political policies of the Chilean military ‘regime’ and their brutal repression against the left provoked contradictions in women’s roles. In order to protect and provide for their families, many women were compelled to leave the private realm to find employment. This brought unexpected changes as women began to recognize their capacities. Their new self-confidence disposed them to public actions where they demanded other rights as well, most notably the right to find out about family members who had ‘disappeared’ under Pinochet’s rule (Molina 1989: 74–9). Eventually, they began to demand a fully democratic regime, moreover, one where women’s empowerment would be based on their citizenship rights rather than their social roles. Hence, for these women, empowerment meant a transformation of the prevailing gender ideology as well as the political system.
During the 1980s a strong, fairly unified women’s movement emerged, comprising human rights groups, economic organizations such as communal kitchens and producers’ and shoppers’ co-operatives, and feminist groups (Valdés and Weinstein 1993; Gaviola et al. 1994). Changes in the global political economy and Chile’s place within it, as well as the brutal repression of the military regime, inspired this expansion. Moreover, when Pinochet banned all political parties, women, often for the first time, were able to organize collectively in women-only settings. They set their own goals, determined their own agendas and, perhaps most importantly, discussed and discovered their shared experiences of and opposition to gender subordination. Second, women could act collectively, at least initially, without fear of persecution because ‘the dictatorship allowed women’s organizations to survive and grow while repressing other sectors of civil society’ (Valenzuela 1998: 50). Their maternalist rhetoric did not seem to challenge conservative gender ideology. After the economic collapse in 1981–2, women’s groups joined other groups in a more concerted and unified opposition. Feminist goals began to coalesce with broader demands, demonstrated by the movement’s slogan ‘democracy in the country and in the home’, which challenges the ‘traditional’ boundary between public and private spheres. Moreover, the movement also adopted the slogan ‘without women, democracy won’t work’, demonstrating their belief that Chile’s future as a democracy depended upon women’s empowerment as citizens.
Opposition to the dictatorship grew throughout the 1980s, culminating in the vote against Pinochet in the 1988 referendum. Women’s groups gained notoriety for their role in this victory (Valenzuela 1998; Frohmann and Valdés 1995). When the centre and left opposition parties coalesced into the Concertación por la Democracia (CPD), women formed the Concertación Nacional de Mujeres por la Democracia (CNMD). Autonomous from the CPD, it included party members, feminists and women from NGOs (Valenzuela 1998: 56). In 1989, the CNMD recommended some gender-specific policies to the incoming democratic government. Indeed, many were introduced, most notably the Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM), a state agency with a ministerial-status director and a commitment to improving women’s position in Chile’s new democracy.2
SERNAM has improved the status of women in Chile. In 1993, it proposed the Equal Opportunity Plan for Women soon incorporated into Eduardo Frei’s government (1994–2000). ‘The Plan’ promotes the redistribution of power and resources among men and women, and equal value for men and women’s social roles (SERNAM 1998: 8). It focuses on legislation, family, education, culture, labour, health, participation and institutional frameworks. The recently elected government of Ricardo Lagos has adopted a second plan (2000–10). Other successes for women include laws against domestic violence, programmes for women heads of households and temporeras (seasonal female workers in the agrifruit industry), and more rights for women within marriage (Comisión Interministerial para la IV Conferencia Mundial sobre la Mujer 1995: 22).
Thus, the return of democracy has brought state promotion for women’s empowerment, but with a key difference. This time women are increasingly constructed as ‘citizens’ with equal social, economic and political rights. However, the focus on gender equality masks the growing inequalities among women, and illustrates the need to ask, ‘Empowerment for whom?’ Middle- and upper-class women are, indeed, gaining from these new opportunities, while poor women, who suffer both gender and class discrimination, receive little from a discourse that ignores class and ethnic subordination. In fact, a group representing rural and indigenous women formally complained to SERNAM because the equal opportunity plan said nothing about the specific problems they faced. In sum, since 1990, the tensions inherent in seeking women’s empowerment through a patriarchal and neo-liberal state are becoming increasingly evident.
These tensions are evident in the problems experienced by the Chilean women’s movement since the return of democracy. SERNAM’s efforts to improve women’s lives have faced significant obstacles. Not being a ministry in its own right, it has to rely on other agencies to implement its recommendations. Given the socially conservative climate in Chile and the power of the Catholic Church, SERNAM must balance its promotion of women’s rights with support for the family. Consequently, certain issues, such as reproductive rights, cannot be raised at all.3
Moreover, many strategies to empower women require radical reforms in state structure. Attempts in 1997 to introduce quotas for women on candidate lists for parliamentarians and in the decision-making structures of each party faced strong opposition. Women remain poorly represented in all spheres of decision-making. In the 1997 elections, women were 15 to 18 per cent of the candidates, yet only about 10 per cent were elected (Moltedo 1998: 7). The coalition parties support affirmative action but for internal rather than representative positions.4 Few women have held executive positions although Ricardo Lagos’s election as president has brought about improvements. His government has five women ministers (out of sixteen), and almost a third of his sub-secretaries are women.5
Attempts to promote women’s participation in decision-making spheres are also constrained by the reassertion of the distinction between the political and social realms, with women dominating the latter.6 Since the transition, women’s activism has shifted back to the social or community sphere. Women hold only 10 to 15 per cent of national and municipal leadership posts but are 36 per cent of the juntas de vecinos (neighbourhood councils) leaders (Valdés and Gomariz 1995). Both SERNAM and PRODEMU (Fundación para Promoción y Desarrollo de la Mujer – a semi-public institution under the direction of the president’s wife) promote women’s leadership skills. However, most participants use these skills for community activism rather than challenging the status quo in the political arena. In 1998, 1,919 women participated in SERNAM’s school for women leaders. Only seventy-five identified themselves as ‘political leaders’ (SERNAM, n.d.).
Women are also starting to appreciate the tensions inherent in state-supported programmes for women’s empowerment when the state retains patriarchal features. For example, SERNAM has created empoderamiento (empowerment) programmes for women – by establishing Centros de Información de los Derechos de la Mujer (CIDEM – Women’s Rights Information Centres). These programmes assume women’s empowerment derives from knowledge of and demands for their rights (Weinstein 1997). However, knowledge about legal changes, such as the law against family violence, does not change the cultural context working against this law (Provoste and Silva 1998: 38–9). Other programmes, such as the one to help women heads of households find employment, can do little to combat the mechanisms working against women’s employment. Employers can still legally ask the sex and ages of applicants, so they can avoid hiring women in their fertile years (Provoste 1997).
Women’s groups are also beginning to confront the limits of achieving empowerment through a neo-liberal state. The return of democracy has increased class tensions and fragmentation within the women’s movement. The professional (mostly middle- and upper-class) segments of the movement have largely migrated into state agencies, or to the numerous women’s NGOs that often work for the government. At the same time, activist women, especially in rural or poor communities, have very little contact with the more institutionalized segments of the women’s movement. Most contact takes place through the numerous workshops offered by SERNAM, PRODEMU and other NGOs, which aim to promote women’s empowerment by providing information and technical knowledge. Despite PRODEMU’s emphasis on grassroots women, its programmes largely follow a top-down model of empowerment.
However, these tensions are beginning to be recognized and steps are being taken to address them. Two umbrella organizations have been created with the hopes of rebuilding a movement based in civil society: Red de Mujeres de Organizaciones Sociales (REMOS) and Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (ANAMURI). Both organizations link smaller women’s groups throughout the country. They are staffed by women with direct experience of the poverty, discrimination and violence lived by rural, indigenous and pobladora women. Both organizations are pursuing gender equality and challenge class and ethnic discrimination faced by women.7 However, SERNAM is not adequately addressing or promoting the goals of these organizations. This is partly because their goals demand support for the very workers whose low wages are required by the government’s neo-liberal economic model.8
The current fragmentation has led some to claim the women’s movement no longer exists. This ignores the many women involved in activities both within and beyond the formal political sphere. Also, serious attempts are being made to strengthen linkages between organized women and the state. SERNAM tried to make the process of writing the second equal opportunity plan more participatory by consulting with civil society actors.9 The process was not without problems, but represents an important step forward, given that the first plan was written without any input from organized women in civil society.
Moreover, the creation of REMOS and ANAMURI demonstrates that the process of linking various groups has begun – although in a different form. In the 1980s, women united for a common purpose – the return of democracy. Today, however, more diverse demands are being voiced. The movement is currently in transition, but conflict and some fragmentation are likely to continue as the limits of achieving women’s empowerment through a patriarchal neo-liberal state become increasingly evident.
Since the 1980s, the emergence of a women’s movement in Turkey has publicized issues such as female sexuality, sexist discrimination and domestic violence against women. Women’s issues, however, had been debated in the past. The ‘woman question’ has been central to the debates on the changing nature of the Ottoman polity and later on the question of Turkish national identity (see Kandiyoti 1989, 1991a). The first wave of debates on women’s issues and the family dates back to the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries when male intellectuals advocated women’s emancipation by criticizing the practices of arranged marriages, polygamy and the segregation of the sexes. They also called for reforms in women’s education, emphasizing the need for educated mothers to raise the next generation of enlightened citizens (Sirman 1989: 5). Upper-class Ottoman women, mostly the wives and daughters of the ruling class, actively participated in these debates through their writings in the daily press and women’s periodicals (Sirman 1989; Zihnioğlu 1998, 1999).10 Although they demanded equal status in the family and the right to education and employment, they did not challenge women’s traditional roles as mothers and wives (Sirman 1989: 9).
The ‘woman question’ re-emerged in the early years of the Turkish Republic when the republican elite viewed women’s emancipation as part and parcel of their modernization/Westernization and nation-building projects. They introduced a series of legal reforms to improve the status of women, such as the law for secularizing the educational system and recognizing equal rights in education for men and women. The Turkish civil code, adopted in 1926 and based on the Swiss civil code, outlawed polygamy and gender inequality regarding divorce, custody of children and inheritance. The clothing reform allowed women to abandon the veil. Women were also ‘granted’ the right to vote and to stand in municipal elections in 1930 and in general elections in 1934.
These reforms were an integral part of the Kemalist struggle against the political and religious structures of the Ottoman polity (Tekeli 1981; Kandiyoti 1989, 1991a), and of the attempt to create a new secular political community based on Turkish national identity. The new ‘Turkish woman’ not only symbolized the new Western secular Republic but also embodied the cultural essence of the new Turkish nation. Thus, the Kemalist elite assigned women two important roles/missions: to signify modernity, and to guard and transmit Turkish national culture. The new ‘Turkish woman’ was needed both as a modern citizen and as a mother and wife, dedicated to raising and educating the next generation of patriotic citizens.11 Hence, while the Kemalist project of modernity introduced women to the public sphere as citizens, it did not challenge existing gender relations and sex roles in the private realm. Furthermore, the public sphere of the new republic remained a male domain and, as Kandiyoti reveals, women’s entry to the male-dominated public life was ‘legitimated through the projection of an “asexual” or even slightly masculinized identity’ (1995: 315).12 Turkish women had to conceal their femininity in order to take part in public life as citizens. Male domination in the public sphere was ensured by male control over female sexuality.
Likewise, the nationalist discourse both encouraged and constrained women’s agency. Turkish nationalism (Parla 1995) circumscribed women’s emancipation since women’s (as well as men’s) interests were subordinated to the needs and interests of the nation. Women had to articulate their interests within the boundaries prescribed by the nationalist discourse (Kandiyoti 1991b). During the early Republican period, before women’s suffrage, a group of women attempted to establish a Women’s People’s Party in 1923 to struggle for their political rights. The state rejected the proposal (Toprak 1988a). In 1935, the state disbanded the Turkish Women’s Union, arguing that women’s full equality no longer required autonomous women’s organizations (Kandiyoti 1991a: 41–2). The official discourse on gender, therefore, led to contradictions in women’s identities and roles.
Until the early 1970s, few women participated in political life. During the 1970s, many young women were politicized and joined leftist movements struggling against class exploitation and domination, although ignoring gender oppression (Berktay 1995). An independent women’s movement only emerged in the early 1980s. Changes in the ‘political opportunity structure’ (Tarrow 1994) opened up a space for the movement. When the 1980 military coup declared all political parties illegal and crushed the left, women activists on the left came together and started to discuss women’s oppression apart from class oppression (Tekeli 1990). For these women, empowerment required organizations autonomous from the male-dominated leftist movements and traditional political actors. The elimination of the leftist movements thus provided women with the opportunity to voice their needs, to define their own priorities and organize around their own demands without being subordinated to other struggles. Furthermore, the Kemalist discourse concerning gender equality, which previously hindered women’s autonomous activism, also provided a legitimate political space for women’s mobilization (Y. Arat 1991). Women activists exploited the tensions within the prevailing gender discourse, thus reducing their perceived threat to state authority.
However, the women’s movement attempted to break not only with the left but also with Kemalism. In the 1980s, feminist scholars and activists started to assess the limits of the Kemalist reforms for women. Some pointed to their strategic nature (Tekeli 1981). For Kandiyoti (1989: 139), the emancipation of women was one of the ‘symbolic pawns’ in the Kemalist struggle to break with the Islamic institutions and laws of the Ottoman polity. Gender inequalities in the civil code were also criticized, particularly articles stating that the ‘husband is the head of the family’, ‘the wife is required to obtain her husband’s permission to work’ (abolished in 1992) and ‘the wife uses the husband’s family name’ (Tekeli 1992: 140–1). The Kemalist discourse of gender equality thus obscured unequal and hierarchical power relations between men and women within the family. Since the movement developed partly in opposition to ‘state feminism’ (Tekeli 1986) of Kemalism, it has had little interaction with the state.
Domestic violence against women and sexual harassment occupied a central place on the agenda of the women’s movement in the late 1980s. Women’s groups, feminist and non-feminist, organized the campaign ‘Solidarity against Battering’ to draw attention to domestic violence against women. They also launched the ‘Purple Needle Campaign’ to stop sexual harassment of women on the streets and in the workplace. These campaigns enabled women’s groups to challenge the traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres by turning so-called ‘private’ issues into political ones. They not only expanded the content of the political but also introduced new ways of doing politics. Furthermore, collective mobilization and political activism empowered many women through their challenges to Kemalist nationalist discourse. It allowed them to define their own priorities, set their own agendas and, more importantly, to challenge unequal power relations between women and men.
New identities emerged from these struggles as well. As Alberto Melucci argues, identities do not pre-exist movements but are constantly being formed within them through interaction with wider social and political structures, including conflict and negotiation among different actors (1996: 68–86). In Turkey, through protests, campaigns, meetings and alternative publications,13 women’s groups, especially feminist ones, have demanded full control over their bodies and sexuality. They have criticized the Kemalist project of modernity and challenged the asexual constructions and representations of the ‘Turkish woman’ in the public sphere. They have rejected political control over women’s bodies and sexualities. However, while feminist groups have problematized the organicist, collectivist and gendered aspects of the Kemalist national identity, they have not questioned its secular and ethnic dimensions. Although they have recognized differences among women and their multiple sources of oppression, they have projected a homogeneous, essentialized identity to publicize women’s oppression.14 This has enabled feminists to challenge the dominant gender discourse, but, at the same time, it has marginalized women’s groups with different agendas. This practice has been challenged of late, both by Islamist women and Kurdish feminists.
Veiled Islamist women became visible in the public sphere in the 1980s as active participants in Islamist movement(s).15 Their demands to enter the secular public sphere in Islamic dress have challenged the principle of secularism underlining the Kemalist project of modernity (Göle 1996). Islamist women have also accused both Kemalist women and feminists of being Westernized upper-class women who do not speak for the masses of Turkish women. They rejected both Kemalist and feminist claims made on behalf of women. Yet, by stressing the feminine nature of women, Islamist women have constructed their own essentialized notion of ‘womanhood’. However, it is important to note that they have gained agency through their political activism, demanding their right to participate actively in all spheres of life, asserting their difference and seeking recognition and inclusion as legitimate actors in the public sphere (Göle 1996). In other words, they have become empowered through Islamist movement(s).
However, as Göle argues:
there is a covert tension, a paradox, in this mode of empowerment through Islamism: they [Islamist women] quit traditional life roles, making their personal life a matter of choice, pursuing a professional and/or political career, yet they acquiesce in incarnating the Islamic way of life, Islamic morality, and Islamic community. Thus, Islamism unintentionally engenders the individuation of women while simultaneously restraining it.
(1997b: 73)
In other words, Islamism both encourages and constrains women’s agency. Most of the time, Islamist women’s discourse and activism take place within the ideological parameters established by Islamism. However, some Islamist women refuse to submerge their voices in Islamism’s collectivist vision (Göle 1997b: 75–81) and attempt to renegotiate their identities and roles with Islamist men.16
Kurdish feminists have posed another challenge to the Kemalist national identity and to feminist representations of ‘women’. During the 1990s, they started to problematize the ethnic dimension of Kemalist nationalist discourse while at the same time criticizing Turkish feminists for privileging patriarchy over ethnicity (Roza 1996 (1): 4; Ayşegül 1996; Kayhan 1998a). Kurdish women claim Turkish feminists ignore their double oppression from both gender and ethnic subordination. They have formed autonomous Kurdish women’s groups and begun to publish their own journals, such as Roza and Jujin. However, for Kurdish feminists, autonomy means independence not only from the Turkish women’s movement and male-dominated political organizations, but also from Kurdish men,17 who want them to give priority to Kurdish national interests (Yaşar 1996; Zelal 1997). They argue that ‘while Turkish women want us to forget our Kurdish identity, Kurdish men want us to give up our femininity’ (Yaşar 1996; author’s translation).
The 1990s also witnessed the institutionalization of some segments of the women’s movement. For example, in April 1990, a group of feminists founded the Women’s Library and Information Centre, which collects books, periodicals, articles, documents, statistical data and newspaper clippings related to women’s issues. The Library also carries out projects such as the Women’s Oral History Pilot Project. In 1990, feminists also founded the Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation in İstanbul, which provides shelter and protection for women exposed to domestic violence (Arat 1998). In addition, the foundation provides psychological and legal advice, and skill and vocational training. Recently, a group of female lawyers founded a consulting centre (Kadýn Haklarý Uygulama Merkezi) within the İstanbul Bar Association to provide legal advice for women.18
In March 1997, a group of feminist and non-feminist activists founded Kadýn Adaylarý Destekleme ve Eğitme Derneği – KA-DER (the Association for Support and Training of Woman Candidates) in İstanbul with the motto ‘equality in politics, justice in representation’ (KA-DER Bülteni, 1997 (1)).19 KADER seeks to increase women’s representation in political decision-making structures, especially in the parliament, by supporting women candidates who embrace its principles, including a commitment to eliminating discrimination against women and giving greater voice to women’s concerns. Women supported by KA-DER must sign a contract based on these principles.20 KA-DER also launches campaigns and organizes workshops to inform women of their political rights.
However, feminists who are sceptical about achieving women’s empowerment through a patriarchal state have criticized KA-DER for helping women enter the male-dominated parliament without challenging the existing gender hierarchies (Savran and Tura 1997: 10–11). They argue that the abstract notion of equality adopted by KA-DER ignores structural inequalities, based on gender, class and race, which constrain women’s political activity. They also criticize KA-DER for lacking a clearly specified programme for women’s representation (Savran and Tura 1997: 11; Bora 1997: 5). Furthermore, the diversity of women’s interests complicates representation. Some critics believe the women’s movement must remain autonomous in order to avoid co-optation (Bora 1997: 5). Others, however, call for affirmative action strategies, such as the introduction of quotas for women (Savran and Tura 1997), or the creation of a feminist political party.21
Most of the women’s groups in Turkey, then, do not view the state as an agent for women’s empowerment. Given the history of ‘state feminism’ and the male-dominated political parties and movements, they have consistently sought to defend their autonomy and distance themselves from institutionalized politics. However, this does not mean that women’s groups have no relationship with the state (or with other social movements for that matter). In fact, they have engaged with the state to influence policies concerning women. In 1990, protests by women’s groups led to rescinding reduced sentences for men who rape prostitutes and to the need for a husband’s authorization before a woman could work. In December 1989, Aile Araştýrma Kurumu (the Family Research Institute), affiliated with the state, was set up to protect and strengthen ‘the Muslim-Turkish family’ from disintegration due to women working outside the home (Berik 1990: 93–4). Women’s groups and associations protested the establishment of the Institute and its policies (N. Arat 1991; Koçali 1990). In 1990, thirty women applied to courts for divorce to protest the state’s attempt at strengthening the traditional family (Pazartesi 1995 (7): 22). During the same year, feminists protested statements by state minister Cemil Çiçek, such as ‘feminism is perversity’ and ‘flirting is not different from prostitution’, by blowing whistles on the streets of İstanbul (Pazartesi 1995 (7): 23). In January 1998, pressure from women’s groups helped bring into effect a law against domestic violence (Resmi Gazete 1998), although many are concerned about its effectiveness since the police often discourage victims from using the law.22
The state also created the Kadýnýn Statüsü ve Sorunlarý Genel Müdürlüðü (KSSGM – Directorate General on the Status and the Problems of Women) in 1990, mainly as a response to the recommendations of the Nairobi Conference of 1985. Affiliated with the Prime Ministry, KSSGM was established as a national mechanism for formulating policies and programmes to empower women and promote their equality with men in social, cultural, economic and political life. Women’s groups, however, criticized KSSGM’s intention to regulate and control the activities of independent women’s associations and forced a revision of the original bill (see Berik 1990). However, many women’s groups and associations have remained sceptical about achieving women’s empowerment through KSSGM.23 For instance, they demanded the resignation of Işýlay Saygýn, the minister of state responsible for woman’s issues, who publicly supported state virginity tests, which had led some young women to commit suicide (KA-DER Bülteni 1998; Pazartesi 1998: 11).
KSSGM has carried out several important projects to enhance women’s empowerment in economic and social life.24 The Micro Enterprises Project, financed by the Japanese through the World Bank, examined the credit policies of the banking sector and the difficulties women entrepreneurs encounter when applying for credit. The Women’s Employment Promotion Project (WEP), supported by the World Bank, aimed to improve policies to enhance women’s employment opportunities.25 Based on the studies conducted within the framework of WEP, the KSSGM has recommended positive discrimination for women and the elimination of legal barriers that discourage their entry into the work-force.26 KSSGM also founded an information centre that helps women facing violence and needing marketing facilities for their handicrafts.
Despite these successes, KSSGM has not been very effective in influencing government policies and programmes to challenge structural inequalities facing women. With its small staff and budget, KSSGM lacks both the power and the means to ensure its policy recommendations are implemented. Furthermore, most of the time, KSSGM’s and the state’s empowerment discourse ignores women’s diversity, thereby reinforcing existing social, ethnic and religious cleavages among women.
A state-initiated project called Çok Amaçlý Toplum Merkezleri (ÇATOM – Multipurpose Community Centres) is a case in point. ÇATOMs, which have been established as a part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoðu Anadolu Projesi – GAP)27 by the Regional Development Directorate of GAP in co-operation with the Turkish Development Foundation, stirred a debate among women’s groups. ÇATOMs are located in eastern and southeastern cities, which are mostly populated by Kurds. They emphasize women’s traditional tasks, aiming to empower women through courses on household economics, maternal and child health, nutrition, birth control and income-generating activities such as handicrafts and carpet weaving.28 Although women are claimed as participants, the declared aims of ÇATOMs, such as helping women gain self-confidence and identify their problems, imply women are passive objects requiring top-down state-led assistance.
Some feminists criticize ÇATOMs for focusing on poor women who can be exploited for regional development (Düzkan 1998). Moreover, they argue that the emphasis on women’s traditional tasks perpetuates their traditional roles and subordination, rather than challenging prevailing gender hierarchies. A prominent Turkish feminist, Ayşe Düzkan, believes ÇATOMs aim to assimilate Kurds (1998: 2–3). However, she also claims that, in the long run, Kurdish women may be empowered by learning Turkish. Kurdish feminists, on the other hand, view ÇATOMs as a state vehicle for assimilating the Kurdish population (Kayhan 1998b; Sema 1998; Canan 1998). Ironically, they argue, Kurdish women’s subordination in the family may have protected the Kurdish language (Canan 1996). Thus, they attach political significance to women’s traditional roles as mothers within the family. Kurdish feminists criticize Turkish women for deciding on behalf of Kurdish women whether ÇATOMs are advantageous or not. Both Turkish and Kurdish feminists, however, remain sceptical about state-planned top-down development programmes. The debates about ÇATOMs are instructive since they show that particular initiatives can be empowering or disempowering depending on where particular women stand in society.
Since the 1980s, the women’s movement has been struggling to carve out its place in the Turkish political scene, rejecting the identities and roles assigned to women by different social and political projects. Many women have become empowered through participation in the women’s movement (as well as in other social movements). They have gained agency and established visibility in the public sphere. They have also challenged the communitarian discourses that assign women particular missions and identities. Thus, in the Turkish context, women’s struggles for empowerment have also been struggles for redefining their identities. In other words, women’s groups are struggling not only for a ‘freedom to act but [also for] the freedom to be’ (Melucci 1996: 135 [author’s emphasis]). In addition, by participating in the women’s movement, many women have begun to feel empowered enough to publicize gender subordination and to organize action against the dominant sexist cultural codes and norms. Thus, they have rejected the empowerment discourse promoted by the state that reinforces unequal power relations between men and women. However, the movement needs to develop strategies to reconcile women’s diversity in order to challenge and transform the prevailing gender discourse. The fragmentation and institutionalization of the women’s movement during the 1990s does not mean the movement has been co-opted or that it has disappeared. Rather, it has been undergoing a transformation, the effects of which remain to be seen.
The path toward women’s empowerment clearly begins with the emergence of women’s movements. Our cases illustrate the need to begin an analysis of the emergence of women’s movements with an examination of the nature of patriarchy in a given context. Moreover, this analysis must understand how the prevailing gender ideology often sets up contradictions that women can exploit for their demands. In Chile, the gender ideology emphasized women’s status as mothers and their roles as protectors and providers for their families. When the policies of the military regime threatened their capacity to fulfil their social responsibilities, women mobilized against the regime. However, they did so on the basis of an identity that was legitimate and (initially) non-challenging. In Turkey, the gender ideology that emerged out of Kemalism constructed women’s identities in contradictory ways: they were at once the modern and emancipated symbols of the new Western secular republic and the guardians and transmitters of Turkish culture and morality – a morality based on patriarchal norms. Again, women exploited this tension. Because the (paternalist) state had ‘given’ them certain rights, most notably the right to enter the public domain, women were able to politicize the contradictions of a gender ideology supporting public emancipation with subordination in the family. Additionally, in both Turkey and Chile, the ‘political opportunity structure’ was shaped by the imposition of military regimes that temporarily closed the political arena and banned political party activity. This created a space for women to come together as women, without having their interests subordinated to struggles based on class or ethnicity.
However, the two cases differ. The type of state each movement encountered, as well as their particular relationship with the state, has shaped these differences. In the Chilean case, although some women’s groups supported the military regime, most opposed it. However, once democracy returned, the state was no longer seen as an ‘enemy’. The democratic opposition, which had been supported by the most visible parts of the movement, became the government in 1990. The state was no longer seen as a threat to the women’s movement, but as an ally. This led to the incorporation of the movement into the state. In contrast, the movement’s relationship with the Turkish state has been more complex. Given the history of ‘state feminism’, women’s groups have tried to keep their distance from the state. The movement has become institutionalized in recent years, but largely outside formal state structures.
Also, in both cases, the nature of the state has affected divisions within the movements. In Turkey, the modernizing projects of the nationalist and secularist state have made ethnic and religious identity the main dividing axes within the movement. In Chile, women are confronted with a state committed to modernization based on neo-liberal principles. This exacerbates the tensions and divisions between those parts of the movement that work within the state and benefit from globalization, and those (rural, indigenous and working-class) women whose lives are negatively affected by neo-liberal social and economic policies. In both cases, neo-liberal restructuring projects have inspired state programmes aiming to further incorporate women into labour markets, programmes that often claim to be empowering. Both cases illustrate, however, that the states’ goals in this respect are often aimed more at improving its global competitive position (by relying on low-wage and flexible female labour) than at empowering women as a group by challenging gender hierarchies.
However, the existence of institutionalization, division and even fragmentation does not mean that women’s movements have ceased to exist in Chile and Turkey. In both cases the need to confront and address the differences among women is recognized and is being debated within the different segments comprising the movements. Thus, many women recognize the problems inherent in seeking ‘women’s’ empowerment, without taking into account the different ways in which women experience gender subordination. The nature in which these issues are resolved is likely to determine the future shape and strength of these movements in promoting not only women’s empowerment, but also class, religious and ethnic equality.
The authors wish to thank Rianne Mahon, Jill Vickers, Antonio Franceschet, Veysi T. Kondu, Kathy Staudt and Jane Parpart for their very helpful comments.
1 Much debate has taken place in Chile over the ‘indoctrination’ women received through the mothers’ centres. Valdés and Weinstein (1993) argue that there was always a large gap between the social control the military wanted to impose through the centres and what they actually achieved.
2 The CNMD decided to fold after two years partly due to the success they had achieved and also because they did not want to become a ‘ghetto’ for women’s issues.
3 Chile has one of the highest rates of abortion in Latin America (approximately 35 per cent of all pregnancies) (Grupo Iniciativa Chile 1994: 17), even though therapeutic abortions are illegal. A woman who aborted for health reasons was given a three-year jail sentence (Núñez 1998: 11).
4 One of the left parties has committed itself to quotas to determine candidates for representative positions as well.
5 El Mercurio, 29 January, 4 February, Santiago, Chile.
6 This is evident in the posts assigned to female ministers. With the exception of Soledad Alvear, External Affairs Minister, women were appointed to lead the ministries of Health, Education, Planning and Co-operation, and, of course, SERNAM.
7 Interview with Francisca Rodríguez, ANAMURI, 31 August 1999, Santiago, Chile.
8 Labour reform legislation that would have benefited these women was recently defeated in the Senate, which remains dominated by the conservative right (Molina 1999: 2).
9 Interview with Delia Del Gatto, Jefa de Sectores, SERNAM, 20 August 1999, Santiago, Chile.
10 For Ottoman women’s discourses, periodicals and associations, also see Toprak 1988b; Kandiyoti 1991a; and Çakýr 1994.
11 On ‘Kemalist female identity’, see Durakbaşa 1987.
12 For a detailed analysis, see Kandiyoti 1988 and Durakbaşa 1998. In a similar vein, Fatmagül Berktay points to the repression of sexuality and individuality of the women active in the Turkish left (1995: 252–4).
13 During the 1980s, two feminist periodicals, Feminist and Sosyalist Feminist Kaktüs, reflected particular trends within the movement. Radical and socialist feminists gathered around the journal Pazartesi, which began publication in April 1995.
14 Socialist feminists, for instance, argued that ignoring differences among women and accepting any essentialist and homogenizing understanding of ‘womanhood’ undermines the possibility of feminist politics (Sosyalist Feminist Kaktüs 1988 (1): 13). For them, an autonomous women’s movement is only possible when different feminist and non-feminist groups, solidarity networks, and research teams come together (1988 (1): 13).
15 For an analysis of ‘the veiling movement’ in post-1980 Turkey, see Göle 1996. For analyses of Islamist women’s discourses and their identity, see İlyasoðlu 1994; Alankuş-Kural 1997; and Göle 1997a and b).
16 In Kadýn Kimliği, an Islamist women’s periodical, Mualla Gülnaz (1997) criticizes Islamist men by pointing to domestic violence and injustices in Muslim families. She argues that there is a ‘man’s question’ rather than a ‘woman’s question’ in Muslim societies. See also Gülnaz 1996 and Toros 1997.·
17 Interview with Fatma Kayhan, 15 July 1999, İstanbul, Turkey.
18 Interview with Filiz Kerestecioğlu, 29 July 1999, İstanbul, Turkey.
19 In Turkey, women are under-represented in parliament and other decision-making bodies. In the last general elections (April 1999) only twenty-four women (4.3 per cent of the 550 MPs) were elected to the parliament.
20 For details, see Kadýn Adayları Destekleme ve Eğitme Derneği. Tüzük, March 1997
21 Interview with Ayşe Düzkan, 1 July 1999, İstanbul, Turkey.
22 Interview with Filiz Kerestecioğlu, 29 July 1999, İstanbul, Turkey.
23 Interview with Ayşe Düzkan, 1 July 1999, İstanbul, Turkey.
24 For details on these projects, see KSSGM 1996 and KSSGM, Projects, December 1999 (available at http://www.kssgm.gov.tr/projeeng.htm).
25 In Turkey, the economic restructuring of the 1980s did not increase female employment. Çağatay (1994) argues that even high female employment rates in home-working manufacturing do not indicate ‘urban feminization’. For an analysis of structural adjustment policies and changing forms of women’s labour in Turkey, see Ecevit 1998.
26 See KSSGM, Women Employment Project, December 1999 (available at http://www.kssgm.gov.tr/engpro.html).
27 The GAP is the largest regional development project implemented in nine provinces of Southeastern Anatolia. It aims to redress regional disparities between Turkey’s western and eastern regions.
28 For more on ÇATOMs, see KSSGM, Periodic Reports of States Parties to CEDAW, December 1999 (available at http://www.kssgm.gov.tr/cedeng.htm).
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