Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey Item Type Book Authors Marshall, Gül Aldıkaçtı DOI 10.1353/book.24199 Publisher SUNY Press Rights Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Download date 02/10/2021 22:25:31 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item https://www.sunypress.edu/p-5728-shaping-gender-policy-in- turkey.aspx Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey Grassroots Women Activists, the European Union, and the Turkish State Gül Aldıkaçtı Marshall Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2013 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Cathleen Collins Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aldıkaçtı Marshall, Gül. Shaping gender policy in Turkey : grassroots women activists, the European Union, and the Turkish state / Gül Aldıkaçtı Marshall. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-4771-1 (hbk : alk. paper) 1. Women’s rights—Turkey. 2. Sex discrimination against women— Turkey. 3. Feminism—Turkey. 4. European Union—Turkey. I. Title. HQ1236.5.T9M37 2013 305.4209561—dc23 2012040584 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For my parents Contents List of Tables ix List of Abbreviations xi Acknowledgments xiii 1 Conceptualizing the Actors’ Roles 1 Theorizing Women’s Visibility within the Configuration of the Grassroots Activism, the State, and the EU 7 Analysis of Strategies Used by Women’s Groups, the EU, and the Turkish State 13 Overview of the Book 15 2 Gender Equality, Women’s Rights, and Stipulations within the Enlarging EU 19 Framing Gender Equality through Hard Laws 20 Expanding the Meaning of Gender Equality 24 Women’s Rights and Gendered Citizenship 34 3 Before the 1999 Helsinki Summit: The State’s Gender Regime in Turkey 37 Ottoman Reforms and the Gendered Subject 39 Kemalist Revolution and the Gendered Citizen 43 Women amid Political Loyalty and Political Mobilization 47 Gender (In)Equality in Laws in the Republic of Turkey 49 The Implications of Laws and Women’s Lived Experiences, 1923–1999 53 viii Contents 4 Active Citizenship: Women’s Collective Response to the State’s Gender Regime in Turkey, 1980–1999 61 The Rise of the Feminist Movement 61 Diversity in Women’s Activism: Islamist and Kemalist Women 78 5 Aftermath of the 1999 Helsinki Summit: The Role of the EU and the Turkish State in Changing Gender Policies in Turkey 83 Brief History of the Relationship between Turkey and the EU 83 Europeanization, Conditionality, and Gender Equality 88 Emerging Picture of Gender-Equality Reforms 106 6 Women’s Grassroots Activism in Changing Gender Policies after the 1999 Helsinki Summit 109 Taking Advantage of the EU Membership Process 110 Relations with the EU 127 Utilizing the UN Meetings for Policy Changes in Turkey 132 7 Conclusion: Sustained-Pressure in Shifting Winds 135 Appendix A: Interviews 141 Appendix B: Names of Women’s Organizations and Journals in Turkish and English 143 Notes 145 References 149 Index 169 Tables 1.1. Trajectory of Political Opportunities for Feminist Activists and the National and Transnational Pressure Used by Feminist Activists 5 2.1. European Union Gender Equality Directives 21 6.1. The Relationship of the Turkish State with the European Union and the United Nations 111 6.2. Trajectory of Feminist Strategies 133 ix Abbreviations AK Parti Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) AP Anavatan Partisi (Motherland Party) CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women CHP Cumhuriyetçi Halk Partisi (Republican People’s Party) DP Demokrat Parti (Democratic Party) EEC European Economic Community EU European Union FP Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party) KEIG Kadın Emeği ve İstihdamı Girişimi (Women’s Labor and Employment Initiative) KHF Kadınlar Halk Fırkası (Women’s People Party) KSSGM Kadının Statüsü ve Sorunları Genel Müdürlüğü (Directorate General on the Status and Problems of Women) LGBTT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Transgender MHP Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Action Party) TKB Türk Kadınlar Birliği (Turkish Women’s Union) xi Acknowledgments This book benefits greatly from the participation of a dedicated group of activist women in my research. I first and foremost thank these activists for sharing their experiences with me. Without their contribution this book would have been partial. I want to acknowledge the hard-working civil servants in the library of the Directorate General of Press and Infor- mation in Ankara for kindly helping me find archival sources. Every morning they greeted me with smiles and offered me tea whenever they made some for themselves. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of my manuscript whose constructive comments motivated me to continue to improve my manuscript and Dr. Michael Rinella at State University of New York Press for supporting my work. My deepest gratitude to Ralph who has always believed in me and encouraged me. Thank you for reading the drafts of my manuscript, asking questions about the content of chapters, giving me valuable com- ments, and pushing me to clarify my writing to make it accessible to readers outside of my field. xiii CHAPTER 1 Conceptualizing the Actors’ Roles A couple of years after the accession, some activists from the new member states stated that they wished that the pressure in the accession process to adapt to EU standards on their countries had been as strong as it is currently on Turkey, because this is the magic moment when doors did open to them. —Roth 2008, 10 True to the accounts of those feminist activists from postsocialist coun- tries in Central and Eastern Europe, pressured by the European Union (EU), Turkey has been undergoing an economic, political, and legal trans- formation in order to qualify for admission to the EU. Taking advantage of this “magic moment,” women’s grassroots organizations, many of which are feminist, have been pressuring the state to amend gender dis- criminatory policies and to introduce new measures to improve women’s rights. This book aims to uncover how, why, and to what extent Turkish women, in addition to the EU and the Turkish state, have been involved in gender policy changes in Turkey. Turkey is a democratic republic with a multiparty, parliamenta- ry system. Its geographic area is larger than any current EU member country. With its close to 75 million citizens, about 93 percent of whom is under the age of 64, it is a dynamic and economically fast-growing country. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, which has been increasing steadily since 1998, is $10,444. Currently, the growth rate of the GDP is higher than most EU members. The majority lives in the urban areas. Those who are in the labor force engage in work primarily 1 2 Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey in the service industry and manufacturing sector. Once a significant eco- nomic component, agriculture now only accounts for 25 percent of the overall economy.1 Since its establishment as a republic in 1923 following the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has projected a place for itself among European countries. It became a member of NATO in 1952, and after the formation of the European Economic Community (EEC), which is now known as the EU, it applied for associate membership to the Community in 1959 and signed the Ankara Agreement in 1963 to construct “ever closer bonds” (Nas 2011, 47). The 1999 Helsinki Summit marked the beginning of the transforma- tion in Turkey as the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, officially recognized the country as a candidate for EU membership. On October 3, 2005, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, publicly announced the opening of the accession negotia- tions with these words: “Today is a milestone in the relationship between the European Union and Turkey. A stable, modern, and democratic Tur- key is an objective we should support actively in the European Union and in Turkey. This is why we are starting negotiations” (European Com- mission 2005). The announcement came about as a result of the passage of a number of reform packages in the Turkish Parliament in the early 2000s that led to the adoption of various EU standards, including some of the gender equality directives, and demonstrated the seriousness of the Turkish state in its quest for membership. The legislative changes continue, though at a slower pace, as I write this book. Some see this transformation process as the diffusion of European values (Risse, Green Cowles, and Caporaso 2001; Caporaso and Jupille 2001; Checkel 2001; Liebert 2003; von Wahl 2008), recognizing at the same time that internal institutional structures of countries influence “domestic adaptation with national colors” (Risse, Green Cowles, and Caporaso 2001, 1). In the case of gender policies, which are categorized within the field of social policy in EU governance, the EU affirms gender equality as a fundamental European value and expects both the member and candidate countries to transpose and implement the equality direc- tives (Roth 2008, 2007; Aldıkaçtı Marshall 2008; Kantola 2010). Obviously, the EU has more leverage over the candidate countries as it is holding the carrot of membership (Müftüler-Baç 2000; Lannon, Inglis, and Haene- balcke 2001; Schimmelfennig, Engert, and Knobel 2003; Roth 2008, 2007).