Işıl Eğrikavuk
ISTANBUL
Although Turkey frequently makes the news for its lack of gender equality and cases of violence against women, the country gave birth to a mass Marxist feminist group in the 70s. ‘Red Feminists,’ tells their story
The Progressive Women’s Association, or İKD was also highly visible with its protest marches, especially in 1976-77-78, when thousands of women walked together to condemn the growing fascism in the country, carrying a poster ‘İKD cannot be silenced’. Photo courtesy of Emel AKAL
Although Turkey frequently makes the news for its lack of gender equality and cases of violence against women, a book called ‘Red Feminists’ tells the oft-neglected story of the Progressive Women’s Association, or İKD, a pioneering mass organization in Turkey’s women’s movement in 70s.
Legally active between 1975 and 1978 before going underground from 1979 to 1980, the Marxist İKD achieved success in swelling its membership numbers to over 12,000 women – most of whom were housewives are workers in different parts of the country.
“We were red feminists of the time, we went through Turkey by ourselves and organized women, and I now want to tell the next generations what we did through this book,” Emel Akal, a former İKD group member, historian and author of the new book, “Red Feminists,” recently told the Hürriyet Daily News.
At the time, the İKD did not consider itself a feminist group, Akal said, but added that they certainly appeared to be so when now looking back on the 1970s.
“At the time we considered ourselves as an alternative to feminism – we viewed feminism as a bourgeois ideology,” Akal said. “But ours was the first Marxist-feminist organization that was not under the dominancy of elite women, ours was the first mass women’s movement.”
Indeed, the book narrates the stories of many women who dedicated themselves to the İKD and even quit their jobs. “As there were so many things to do at the İKD, working at my job was like torture for me. I quit my job and started working at the organization,” said construction engineer Saadet Arıkan Özel. Not long after it was established in 1975, the group posted a number of successes in reaching thousands of women, workers, housewives, teachers and students.
“We went house by house and called people to our meetings. At that time, the left was a rising worldview and lots of people were interested in what we had to say. Many women, who had never heard the words ‘socialism’ or ‘economy,’ joined our programs,” Akal said.
Among the group’s activities were promoting equality in education and the workplace, finding jobs and accepting motherhood as a social function.
Soon, İKD also started publishing its own newspaper, Women’s Voice, which had a circulation of 35,000 at the time.
Protest marches
The İKD was also highly visible with its protest marches, especially in 1977, when 20,000 women walked together to condemn the growing fascism in the country; indeed, 849 were killed for political reasons in 1978 alone, many of them left wingers. In protest at the murders, the İKD organized its march with the slogan, “Mothers bear, fascists kill.”
“We were definitely progressive. We were on the side of all of the oppressed: the workers, women and the Kurds,” Akal said.
Still, with the rising chaos in the country, İKD was shut down during a period of martial law in 1979, and thousands of its documents were confiscated. The group continued as an illegal association for a while but its activities gradually petered out with the harsh military rule following the 1980 coup.
Speaking about contemporary women’s problems, Akal said the women’s movement today only revolves around individual groups and lacks an overall organization.
“Currently, women’s issues in Turkey only become visible [on certain topics] as there is no mass organization. If the women’s movement could be organized, state mechanisms could be pressured around Turkey on women’s issues, such as domestic violence,” she said.
(Source: www.hurriyetdailynews.com )