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Falling from grace: Gender norms and gender strategies in Eastern Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Nerina Weiss
Nerina Weiss*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway, Nerina.Weiss@sai.uio.no
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Abstract

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This article calls for a critical scholarly engagement with women's participation in the Kurdish movement. Since the 1980s, women have appropriated the political sphere in different gender roles, and their activism is mostly seen as a way of empowerment and emancipation. Albeit legitimate, such a claim often fails to account for the social and political control mechanisms inherent in the new political gender roles. This article presents the life stories of four Kurdish women. Although politically active, these women do not necessarily define themselves through their political activity. Thus they do not present their life story according to the party line, but dwell on the different social and political expectations, state violence and the contradicting role models with whom they have to deal on a daily basis. Therefore, the status associated with their roles, especially those of the “new” and emancipated woman, does not necessarily represent their own experiences and subjectivities. Women who openly criticize the social and political constraints by transgressing the boundaries of accepted conduct face social as well as political sanctions.

Keywords

Kurdish movementwomen activistsgender rolesfeminist critiqueTurkey
Type
Dossier on Gender, Ethnicity, and the Nation-State
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 42 , Spring 2010 , pp. 55 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2010

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