distinct ethnic groups, was by official definition
declared to be a “Turk.” The concept of minority in
a juridical sense was limited to non-Muslim and
thus religious minorities (Greek-Orthodox, Jews,
and Armenians).
From early on subsequent governments had
recourse to forced assimilation, and preferred mass
deportations as a means of Turkification. This
applied in particular to the Kurds, Turkey’s largest
ethnic minority who make up around 15 percent of
the population. Kurdish resistance movements dur-
ing the 1920s and 1930s, typically male dominated
movements with ethnic and religious elements, were
violently oppressed (Bruinessen 1992). Compul-
sory education, state controlled media in Turkish,
and general conscription, proved relatively effec-
tive for integrating Kurdish men into “national”
politics. Kurdish women were much less affected
by assimilation policies. Modernizing and emanci-
pating reforms such as obligatory primary educa-
tion for girls or rights guaranteed by legal marriage,
such as inheritance and child custody, also had very
little impact on their lives. In particular the lives of
Kurdish women in eastern and southeastern Tur-
key, which is often characterized as a semi-feudal
society relying on traditional and agricultural econ-
omy, continued to be ruled by customary and reli-
gious laws and traditional gender patterns.
Turkey suffered three military coups (1960,
1971, and 1980), of which the last had the most
pervasive effect on politics and society, inciting
both majority and minority women to activism in
the public sphere. Paradoxically, the period of
depoliticization of society after 1980 provided a
space for the development of a feminist movement
that questioned constructions of Turkish identity
and women’s “liberation” (Tekeli 1993, Sirman
1979). Gender related issues and notions of the
“ideal woman” also became part of an ideological
terrain on which issues of national, ethnic, and reli-
gious identities were being debated, as exemplified
by debates on the covering of women and the
Kurdish women fighters. The 1980s turned out to
be a watershed. Questions of identity and diversity
forged a process of fragmentation in society, for
example, Turks-Kurds, secularists-Islamists, Alevis-
Sunnìs and nationalists-leftists. Stress on Sunnì
Islam in official constructions of Turkish identity
further alienated the Alevis, a heterodox religious
minority consisting of both Turks and Kurds.
Political Islam, which locally has an important
Kurdish element too, emerged as a mass movement
and an important political force, gaining absolute
majority in the parliamentary elections in 2002.
A major development in the 1980s and 1990s580 political-social movements: ethnic and minority
was the rise of a Kurdish national movement in
Turkey and in Western Europe, headed by Abdullah
Öcalan’s Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK). From
1984 until 1999, the PKK fought a guerrilla war
against the Turkish state, which led to its partial
success but also caused massive destruction and dis-
placement in the Kurdish areas. The Kurdish
national movement drew considerable public atten-
tion owing to the high number of women militants
among PKK ranks (20 percent) and the prominence
of the so-called Woman Question in its political dis-
course (Yalçın-Heckmann and Gelder 2000). Stress
on women’s emancipation and gender equality
incited Kurdish women to become politically
active: Leyla Zana became first woman member of
parliament with a distinct Kurdish identity in 1991.
For the majority of women in the Kurdish area,
however, decades of war and economic crisis had
grave consequences. The armed conflict merely
strengthened the male-dominated structure of the
community through the increase of cooperation
between the military and Kurdish tribal leaders and
through the rise of militaristic values in society.
Incidence of gendered violence in the predomi-
nantly Kurdish areas is relatively high (Gökçeçiçek-
Yurdakul 2001). Yet, apart from literacy courses by
the state-run adult education centers (for example,
ÇATOM), no rehabilitation program for women
has been undertaken.
During the 1990s there was a significant degree
of liberalization of state policies. Legal constraints
remained, however, and liberalization coincided
with an unprecedented decline in standards of
human rights, exemplified by increased violence
against women during detention (Amnesty 2003).
Kurds, Alevis, and some smaller ethnic groups such
as the Laz and Circassians started cultural publica-
tions and organizations, and pro-Kurdish political
parties were established. Also Kurdish women’s
groups in the large urban centers began publishing
their own magazines (for example, Roza, Jujin,
Jin û Jiyan, and Özgür Kadın), addressing the posi-
tion of Kurdish and other minority women from
various points of view, ranging from feminist to
nationalist. Debates on differences (ethnicity, class,
religion) are nowadays common among women’s
movements in Turkey, inciting literary and scientific
production on multiple gendered identities (Altınay
2000).Bibliography
A. Altınay, Giriç. Milliyetçilik, toplumsal ginsiyet ve fem-
inizm, in A. Altınay (ed.), Vatan, millet, kadınlar, Istan-
bul 2000, 11–29.
Amnesty International, Turkey. End sexual violence
against women in custody, London 2003.