This book explores the politics of organised Muslim women in Turkey and analyses their coalitions with other—secular feminist, Kurdish, etc.—women’s movements from an intersectional perspective. It provides empirical evidence for significant changes in Muslim women’s politics under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and points to the increasing difficulty to build cross-movement women’s coalitions in the face of rising religious conservatism and authoritarianism under the AKP rule. While feminist Muslim women who display an intersectional understanding of structural inequality and oppression are found to be more resilient in the face of political pressure, conservative Muslim women dodge women’s coalitions and align with the government’s discourses and policies. Empirical evidence based on interviews with organised Muslim women also shows that prospects for coalition building largely depend on the specific societal and institutional (re-)configurations of patriarchy along with other relations of domination rather than mere ideological “difference” among women.
Book Presentation — Organized Muslim Women in Turkey: An Intersectional Approach to Building Women’s Coalitions
