The Kurdish Women in Turkey: Agency in the Face of Oppression

نوع المستند : الدراسات

المؤلفون

1 El-Shrouk- Suez Road

2 The British University in Egypt

المستخلص

Various scholarly contributions touched upon the role of women in resisting oppression and voicing their demands loudly. There is an overemphasis in the literature, however, on the peaceful responses by women, even in conflict contexts, which portrays an incomplete picture of women realties and prevent us – as researchers- from investigating the motives which make women resort to peaceful over non-peaceful means of resistance and agency. In this paper, we provide some insight on the resilient and resisting roles they played in responding to society and state oppression in Turkey. In this article, we seek to investigate how the different forms of oppression inflected upon Kurdish women has shaped their responses. The article finds that, the oppression which Kurdish women suffered due to their gender, but more, their ethnic identity motivated them to become active fighters in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against the Turkish state and Turkish institutions as well as leaders in the PKK, thus reflecting their agency rather than submission or victimhood.

الكلمات الرئيسية