Feminine Consciousness In Turkey

feminine consciousness in turkey in turkey there is a distribution of space according to gender, restricting women to particular areas. ‘women are allocated separate ground space purely on the basis of gender, and institutional structures are social life and structure, the division of labour (usually referred to as a sexual division in western sociologies), emerges from the division of space according to gender and separation (that is, from purity law), not from economic factors or from specific material relations of production.’(marcus, 1992) in urban turkey, gender inequality results from the practice of islamic purity laws and further, that the moral community is based upon gender hierarchy and gender separation. in the male view, females must be under male control if the moral order of the community, that is, gender separation, is to be maintained. it is for this reason; marcus suggested that the moral community based on gender separation that could be shown like this: male = female is actually slipped onto its side become hierarchical, like this: male>female. feminine consciousness in turkey rose in each woman’s paradox of struggling and possessing their culture, class and political understanding. woman problem is seen in different classes, cultures and ideologies. feminism participated in the development of the society by emphasizing equality, difference and public autonomy (Çaha, 2004): in terms of equality, feminists want to enter the public space on the basis of law, economy and sociology. feminists believe that, woman should be differentiated than man. based on the french feminists arguments, they think that woman should have a different discourse and culture than man due to her life experience and physiological difference. difference means a revolution in patriarchic culture and in the meaning system to them. feminists want to pass over the private space obstacle that keeps woman away from public space. they want to differentiate themselves then men in the public space and live in female autonomous communities. turkish feminism has a dichotomy: it serves to the modernization trend of turkish state by its unique characteristics while forming a civil opposition to the state through its similarities with western feminism. the historical experience that the turkish women have is the basis of turkish feminists’ differences. there are two factors in this historical

background; the first is the private/public space separation that started in the ottoman period, the second is the limitation of woman to private space by giving meanings to sexuality parallel to the separation. public space, which was a masculine place in ottoman, was equal to rationality, science, power, independence, war, etc., whereas family life, which was a feminine place, was a place where man used to rest and have his sexual, physical and psychological needs satisfied. in other words, family, which is a feminine place in theory, is in fact a masculine place where man is reproduced, becomes ready for the other day. woman’s isolation from public space is the second historical experience that differs turkish feminists from western feminists. in ottoman big cities, women were kept in harems, where they were only with other women and were living in feminine communities. the ottoman women who were isolated from economic and political life held the first woman movement. there was no movement in other cities where there was no harem life. in these cities, there was a dominance of agriculture, and women used to have rights as much as men did have. the harem life explains why many feminists, especially in istanbul, are against lesbian relations and support sexuality freedom. one of the differences of turkish feminism lies in the ideal for sharing the public space (Çaha, 2004). the private space is accepted as a place of torture, violence in marriage, and the exploitation of woman’s work; it is the place where patriarchic culture and ideology of male dominance is created. public space is equal to equality and freedom. they support sexuality freedom. independence, which is the separation from male dominance in west, means sexuality for them; it is the sexual freedom. they want to get closer with men instead of having lesbian relations like western feminists do. sexual freedom means becoming closer with male body, which is banned in the traditional turkish culture. for some feminists, it means keeping all the rights of their own body including pregnancy, marriage, and sexual relationship before marriage. turkish feminists are secular, different than western feminists. they see the islamists norms and islamist way of living as a threat to them and prefer secularism to islamism. feminist movement is divided into two (kader, 2004): first wave feminism raised at the end of 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. in this first period woman protest showed the inequalities that women were facing in education, work life, social life, etc. the main idea behind this movement is giving the same rights, which the nation-

state gives to his citizens, to women. thus, first wave feminism is defined as the “equality feminism” due to women’s will of being equal to men. till 1960 woman obtained their civil, social and political rights. so there was a national and international silence. second wave feminism followed first wave feminism. it struggled with the rules of the sexist system in order to use the rights obtained with the law, in social, cultural, political and economic life. this second protest was developed to find solutions to the inequalities. despite the political consciousness of socialist women, woman problem was not a prior issue in 60s and 70s because of the prediction that its solution was the transformation of the whole society. though there was a “new role” and “new opportunities” provided by the reforms during republic period in the 1920s and 1930s, in 1980s women were still in a sexist system in which there was inequality, dominance and subordination in law system, education, economic and political life, and in family. for instance, the new civil law in 1926 secularized the family and improved the social status of woman, however it still contained patriarchic prejudices. according to this law, man was the leader of the home and his wife was his assistant. these kind of patriarchic judicial decisions could be changed after the outstanding the efforts of women in 2002. second feminist wave had a perspective in which ‘completeness’, ‘multiplicity’, ‘difference’ and ‘resemblance’ was dominant like in the other societies. in the first period, woman’s demand of being a citizen, in patriarchic relations, became a ‘rights declaration’ in education, law, economy, politics, etc. new wave on the other hand, criticized all of the institutions and mechanisms of the society in a sexist system, and demanded participation. women not only defended their feminist identities in feminist magazines but also criticized “sexist hierarchy”, “sexist division of labour”, “exploitation of woman work”, “sexual harassment”, and “violence” in a feminist perspective. the new woman movement not only marked the 1980’s politics but also played a determining role in forming a new and more democratic social culture in 2000s. in the modernization process of turkey, woman movement is also important due to being the fist democratic reaction of political system after 1980’s coup d’état. this movement developed a social opposition showing the problems of women; meanwhile it brought a critical perspective to the old relations and mechanisms in cultural, political, sociological and economic

fields of the society. this approach included questioning the society as a whole and constructing a new “democratic society project”. in 1990s, it was understood that in order to save women from male dominance new regulations in family, law, health, and education were necessary; private space public space separation should be ended. because besides providing man-woman equality, pressure and dominance relation that leave woman alone in the private space, should be changed. woman struggle was in need of an institutionalization. the modernization period in turkey provided an awareness and critical perspective; that is, the feminine consciousness. different sub-feminist groups rose regarding social, political, cultural, and ideological differences. feminists for equality were different in terms of their defense of kemalist ideology. they wanted women to be in the public space to have the same rights as men. radical feminists criticized sexist ways of kemalist ideology. for them, it was important to criticize politics, culture and law. socialist feminists goal was the transformation of the society and they saw the woman problem as a part of that transformation. islamist feminists defended woman’s right to cover her head in the public space, in the work place. however, ‘only a few of these women refer to themselves as “islamist feminists” mainly because the word feminism in islamist circles is equated with sexual promiscuity as well as hatred toward family and motherhood.’ (marshall, 2005) according to most feminists, islamist women are dominated by men; they think that ‘islamist men encourage islamist women to defend the right to cover their heads not because they want to see publicly active women but to further their view that every woman in that nation should cover her head.’(marshall, 2005) in 1990s kurdish feminists were born. thus, there was a transformation of feminism from its totality and monolithic content to a multiple content including class, ethnicity, language, religion, etc. regarding islamist feminists, another issue in the feminine consciousness is identity construction through veiling. ‘veiling is a term that comprises many different ways of covering feminine charms. mostly the term has been associated with the kind of clothing that conceals not only the bodily features but also most of the face. the type of clothing practices prevalent amongst turkish women during the last couple of decades is, however,

different from veiling thus understood. characteristic of the new, most popular understanding of tesettür (dressing according to islamic advice) is a wide scarf, which covers the hair and shoulders but not the face (başörtü), and a long wide coat (pardesü), which conjures away the features of the body. thus, in order to describe the recent headgear, the common turkish linguistic usage has not been "peçe", which literally means veil, but başörtü, which directly translated means head-cover or headscarf.’ (ozdalga, 1998) there are a couple of issues that have complicated the question of clothing in turkey. ‘the first, and most controversial one, is related to the fact that the present constitution (voted in by a referendum in 1982) on the one hand contains the well-known principles of liberty, namely freedom of thought and belief, and on the other hand, the principle of secularism.’ (ozdalga, 1998) these principles do conflict in the issue of veil. in this encounter, the islamists have invoked women’s right to veil themselves on the principle of secularism when justifying the ban against the veil at universities and other public offices. another complication is related to hat revolution, initiated by atatürk. the fact that this law was leveled at men’s, not women’s, garb has made it less significant during the latest conflicts over the veil. when the veil was banned in the universities and in the public offices, most of the headcoverers started to use wigs. although they feel alienated when covering their head with a wig, they prefer it rather than opening their heads. ‘you become very different in terms of appearance, and from that time on, your mood changes very much. when you put your headscarf again you become really happy…you relax, ‘this is me again’ say you. before buying that wig, i thought about opening my own hair, but my conscious always told me to buy the wig, because in a way i put that on to cover my hair, not to show my own hair in the name of religion.’ (a university student in ataman, 2001). some of these women cover their heads thinking that this is an order of their religion and some of them do it to protect themselves from men in the public space besides religion. ‘while modernist women at the end of the last century required the right to take the veil off in order to become recognized and visible, islamist women living a century later are demanding the right to veil in order to reach a similar objective, namely higher dignity and

status.’(ozdalga, 1997) they think that the only way of passing to the public space from private space is the headscarf. they think that covering the head and the body frees women from being a sexual object. ‘however because they see the female body as a sexual object, islamist women hide their bodies behind coats and turbans to make them visible. according to feminists, this attitude toward the body alienates women from being their own bodies.’ (marshall, 2005) they think that they are as modern as the ‘normal’ women, however, according to secularists there is no place for religion in modernity: ‘they are talking about modernity, but i think people’s ideas should be modern not their appearances. they think that they can modernize people by changing their appearances, however they can do that by enlightening them. if they think that they could change ideas by changing the physical appearance, this is ridiculous. yet, we don’t have any changes in our ideas. due to our head-cover, people think that all of our social activities, our emotions are covered as well. they are surprised when they encounter somewhere. why? i don’t know. for instance we go to theater and they say ‘are you coming as well?’ this doesn’t make sense; people do have different ideas in their minds about us.’ (a university student in ataman, 2001,). another question in the veiling issue is that, ‘ how is that young women who have been brought up under relatively secular conditions, suddenly change lifestyle and choose to undertake the obligation stipulated by strict interpretation of the koran?’(ozdalga, 1997). there was an image that has been flourished in turkish media. it represented the poor, innocent girl, who is enticed to turn to islam and take on an islamic-grab, thanks to the manipulation of certain reactionary and economically well-off groups. this may show that, veiling in this case, is a need for belonging. in muslim societies, women have been regarded as ritually unclean, due to childbearing and menstruation. traditionally, this led to the retiring role of women in religious life. men can do their prayers in the mosque whereas women do pray always at home. women are not expected to improve themselves in divine matters, religious learning is men’s responsibility. ‘these traditions are now being criticized by the new generation of veiling women, who by referring to koran, claim that god doesn’t recognize any difference between men and women.’(ozdalga, 1997)

feminine consciousness is trying to be increased by the institutionalization process of the problem as well. in this sense, many associations and formal offices work hard to find solutions to conflicts regarding woman. kssgm( kadın statüsü sorunları genel müdürlüğü), kadın emeğini değerlendirme vakfı, women studies and execution centers in universities, ka-der (kadın adayları destekleme ve eğitme derneği), kagider (kadın girişimcileri destekleme derneği), kamer (kadın merkezi), uçan süpürge, mor Çatı, başkent kadın platformu, are some of the examples of these institutions.

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