Contributing to the Feminist Movement Through Empowering Feminist Discourse on Family

Diğer Ülkelerdeki Kamu Kurumları Tarafından Desteklenmiş Proje, 2022 - 2022

Proje Türü: Diğer Ülkelerdeki Kamu Kurumları Tarafından Desteklenmiş Proje
Başlama Tarihi: Mayıs 2022
Bitiş Tarihi: Aralık 2022

Proje Özeti

For the last two decades, neoliberal and conservative policies which promote the discourse of “saving family values'' claimed to be “in crisis” have significantly increased. This family discourse recognizing women in the public space primarily in the context of their responsibilities in their families permeates the details of the social policies developed by the state. Along with the laws sought to be implemented by the state, different platforms and NGOs were established in order to advocate the pro-family discourse which assumes the sacredness and inviolableness of the institution of the family and puts the family values against women’s rights and gender equality.

The feminist movement in Turkey has long challenged these discourses and policies by promoting women’s rights and gender equality thanks to its strong capability. However, we think that the feminist challange is mostly inadaquate to give a strong response and develop a policy embraced by ordinary women, by assuming the women independent from their related others and undermining the ways in which women are related to their families as well as their desires, priorities, concerns and necessities. These assumptions prevent feminists from understanding ordinary women’s experiences in their families and constructing a shared language accepted by them. This also creates strong prejudices against feminism and leads feminists’ voices not to be heard by ordinary women.

In this project, we seek to contribute to the feminist movement and spread the feminist approach among ordinary women by challenging both the conservative discourse of sacred family and the feminist assumption of autonomous family-free woman.