Beyond the culturalization of the headscarf : women with headscarves in retail jobs in 2000s Turkey

Ankara : The Department of Political Science, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2014.Thesis (Ph. D) -- Bilkent University, 2014.Includes bibliographical references leaves 268-283.This dissertation studies the roles and meanings of the headscarf in the lives of lower middle class, non-university educated women working in private sector retail jobs. The study critically discusses the extent to which the dominant framework of politics of cultural difference, identity and a focus on Islamic/ secular divide in society in Turkey accounts for the connotations of the headscarf in low status and insecure private sector employment. The study problematizes the overemphasis on issues of cultural difference and identity in post-1990 studies on women, Islam and headscarves in Turkey and suggests an analytical framework that accounts for social inequalities rather than cultural difference. Secondly, it problematizes the reification of Islamic group identity in previous literature, and complicates the dichotomous categorization of ‘secular’ and ‘Islamic’ identities as two ‘oppositional’ sources of belonging. The study relies on in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted with saleswomen, as well as participant observation in five cities in Turkey: İstanbul, Ankara, Denizli, Gaziantep and Kayseri. The findings are twofold: (1) In the retail sales job market, women with headscarves are constructed as a labor force more inclined to settle for insecure, dead-end, low-paid jobs. The discriminatory employment policies that disadvantage women with headscarves are embedded in the problems of workplace democracy, and problems of unqualified, insecure women’s labor; (2) Lower middle class, nonuniversity educated women with headscarves formulate the practice of wearing the headscarf as a continuously negotiated practice, with meanings contingent upon class and status cleavages, instead of formulating it as a matter of deep religiosity, identity and cultural difference.Cengiz, Feyda SayanPh.D

From the “regime of the brothers” to the “regime of the tyrant brother”: authoritarian right-wing populism, liberal democracy and gender

Otoriter sağ popülizmin yükselişinde, anti-feminist ve reaksiyoner söylem ve politikaların etkili olduğu, sağ popülist liderlerin siyasi iletişim ve üsluplarında da erkeklik vurgusunun yoğunluğu, popülizme toplumsal cinsiyet perspektifinden bakan araştırmacıların sıklıkla vurguladığı bir nokta olagelmiştir. Bu çalışma, otoriter sağ popülist liderlerin, liberal demokrasiye itiraz ederken, neden agresif bir maskülinist söylemi merkeze aldığı sorusuna yanıt aramaktadır. Otoriter sağ popülizm, liberal demokrasinin temsil ve çoğulculuk anlayışına karşı çıkarken nasıl bir toplumsal cinsiyet tahayyülüyle hareket etmektedir? Bu soruya yanıt ararken, feminist teorinin liberal demokrasi eleştirisinden ve analitik bir araç olarak aile metaforundan, özellikle de “kardeşler arası ilişkiler” metaforundan yararlanıyoruz. Çalışmada, otoriter sağ popülizmin, halkı homojen bir yapı olarak, lideri ise halk ile yekvücut olarak kurgulayışına odaklanıyor ve farklılıklara karşı takınılan agresif tavrın temelindeki toplumsal cinsiyet tahayyüllerinin analizini sunuyoruz.Researchers of populism have long noted the anti-feminist and reactionary discourses of authoritarian right-wing populist leaders, along with their aggressively masculine political performances. This study attempts to answer the following questions: Why do authoritarian right-wing populist leaders ground their objections to liberal democracy on a masculinist discourse? What kind of gendered imaginations do they act upon while attacking liberal democratic understanding of representation and pluralism? In order to answer these questions, we employ feminist theory’s critique of liberal democracy, and metaphors of family, particularly of relations between siblings, as an analytical tool. By focusing on the authoritarian right-wing populism’s construct of “the people” as a homogeneous entity, and the leader as the embodiment of that entity, we analyse the gendered imaginations that underlie the populists’ aggressive attitudes concerning plurality and difference.Publisher's Versio

On resilience and response beyond value change: Transformation of women's movement in post-1980 Turkey

This study examines the nature of, and reasons for, the transformation of the women's movement in Turkey in the post-1980 period by focusing on the origins, rationale, organization of two women's organizations and their interaction with political institutions. It seeks to answer two questions: in what ways do the post-1980 women's organizations differ from those of pre-1980 in Turkey? What factors have played a role in this transformation? In addressing these, this study critically examines two propositions put forward in the general literature on transformation in movements: emergence of postmaterialist values and changing political opportunity structures. Relying on evidence from Turkey, this study proposes three alternative factors adding nuance to these propositions in the general literature: the restrictions imposed by the 1980 coup on social movements bearing new frames of reference by activist women, the changing values and ideas of second wave feminism, and the limits of state-centered modernization for the women's movement in Turkey

Performances of Populist Radical Right and Political Masculinities: A Comparative Study of Orbán and Wilders

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the study of populism, with increas- ing scholarly attention to the discursive, stylistic and performative aspects of different populisms. This study discusses the “discursive and stylistic turn”1 in populism studies and highlights the centrality of performances of masculinities to the populist reper- toire. Upon this framework, we explore the ways in which masculinities play out in shaping the discursive, stylistic and performative repertoires of European populist rad- ical right (PRR). The conceptualisation of political masculinities is used as an analyti- cal lens that helps us see the gendered structure of discourses and performances in two dissimilar cases of PRR leaders, namely Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) of the Netherlands. We employ a comparative perspective so as to identify how performances of masculinity work in radical right populisms of dissimilar historical trajectories in terms of the loca- tion of gender in culture. We focus on Orbán’s and Wilders’ narrations of themselves; of their understanding of ‘the people’ whom they claim to represent; and of their relation with ‘the people’. A re-reading of the use of narratives, metaphors, gestures, emotions through an analysis of the two leaders’ interviews, speeches, texts and media performances reveal their masculinist ‘brave bad boy’ performances, the ways they draw boundaries between ‘outsiders and insiders’, and the ways in which they claim to embody the people, and to be ‘men of the people’

Married to Anatolian Tigers: business masculinities, relationalities, and limits to empowerment

This paper examines business masculinities and relationalities of empowerment in the everyday life experiences of male entrepreneurs and wives of entrepreneurs in three urban centers in Turkey: Gaziantep, Konya and zmir. We take gendered power inequalities as structural and relational, and empowerment as a complex, multifaceted process. Based on a relational understanding of gender roles, we scrutinize men's and women's decision making areas in an attempt to understand normalized and internalized patriarchal values and assumptions, as well as explicit or implicit challenges against such values. We argue that gendered experiences of entrepreneurs and women married to entrepreneurs offer a complementary analysis of nuanced empowerment strategies in the background of seemingly contradictory currents such as economic globalization, transforming masculinities, rising conservatism and reinforced gender hierarchies