rights, women, mostly mothers whose sons “disap-
peared” in police custody, also expanded the para-
meters of democratic participation and civil rights.
They gathered regularly every Saturday in a central
meeting place in the heart of Istanbul, from May
1995 for more than three years, to protest at the
lack of information on more than 300 lost sons or
relatives. The Saturday Mothers, as they were com-
monly known, assumed a political role as mothers
to make their individual claims against the state.
They did not merely challenge the realm in which
mothers could define their predicament but they
also defied the statist understanding of “the com-
mon good” by redefining their own interests in
their own words.
Independently of Turkish women and feminists,
Kurdish women made their mark on civil society in
Turkey with their journals Yaçamda Özgür Kadın
(Free women in life, January 1998–March 2000),
the feminist Roza(March 1996–2000), and Jujin,
brought out by feminists who split from Roza
(December 1996–March 2000). Yaçamda Özgür
Kadınfocused on women’s place in the Kurdish
nationalist struggle, while the latter two adopted a
Kurdish feminist posture analyzing problems of
Kurdish women in relation to Kurdish men as well
as Turkish feminists. In these feminist journals,
questions of assimilation, the prohibition of Kur-
dish as a public language, and the relationship of
Kurdish women to the Turkish state and its popu-
lation control policies were widely discussed (Açık
2002). Kurdish women, though they might have
been few in numbers, were critical in challenging
the discourse of homogeneous Turkish nationalism
and Turkish feminism in defense of their demo-
cratic rights.
Islamist feminists as members
of civil society
Perhaps the most visible and active group of
women who had their voices heard in defense of
their rights in opposition to the state were the
Islamist women. Even though women who gath-
ered informally and mostly spontaneously to seek
their right to attend universities wearing head-
scarves, as they claimed Islam dictated, were most
visible, there were other Islamist women’s organi-
zations dispensing charity or promoting an Islamic
way of life. The latter were mostly organized
around three coalitions founded in the mid-1990s
that were quite short-lived and rather amorphous:
the Gökkuça(ı Istanbul Kadın Platformu (Istanbul
women’s rainbow platform), the Baçkent Kadın
Platformu (Capital city women’s platform), and the
turkey 57Güneydo(u Kadın ve Kültür Platformu (Platform
of women and culture of the Southeast) organized
in Diyarbakır.
Women who organized spontaneously or as part
of human rights associations such as Mazlum Der
(Headscarf commission), to protest the ban on
headscarves in universities constituted a radical
challenge to state secularism. The Turkish state had
secular laws and the women who covered their
heads did so in obedience to Islamic law. The women
who protested the ban on headscarves challenged
the nature and boundaries of state secularism in
defense of their rights of religious observance. Even
though the ban remains in force, the nature and
limits of Turkish secularism is keenly disputed.Conclusion
Women of diverse ideological positions who
came together in formal associations, foundations,
or informal groups and initiatives expanded the
boundaries of a democratic society in Turkey. Not
only did these groups bring to public debate diverse
issues that radically challenged the principles on
which Turkish democracy was expected to be built,
but they also allowed those women who became
members of civil society to empower themselves as
individuals whether they espoused an Islamist or a
secular feminist ideology. The unprecedented issues
they brought to public debate and the individual-
ism they cultivated promoted a culture of liberalism
that could nurture a democracy respectful of differ-
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