Working for Social and Gender Justice

Abstract

This chapter deals with the women’s professional lives and shows the extent to which these educated women had agency in being a part of social transformation and worked for gender justice, particularly in Eastern Turkey. At the same time, it raises the challenges involved in their work, such as the cultural, economic, ethnic and political impediments to their own freedoms in different contexts and eras. It looks into numerous barriers limiting women’s capabilities, agency and their work for gender justice. These barriers include undeveloped infrastructure (such as poor housing, limited forms of transportation and lack of health services), environmental settings (such as climate or the geographical location of the towns) and prevailing socio-cultural and political factors (such as Turkish and Kurdish ethnic conflict, conservative neighbourhoods and lack of safety due to the armed attacks of the Kurdish insurgencies). The findings show the potential contribution that the women can make by using the benefits of education to address gender issues, to eliminate gender inequalities in education, to help other women and girls to expand their capability sets, to improve the quality of life of girls and to promote girls’ emotional, social, personal and academic development. Their potential to contribute to addressing these issues stems from their being closer to girls/women and their ability to identify with the gender inequalities that these girls have experienced. Thus, the chapter focuses on one of the key ideas of imperfect obligation in the capabilities approach, which is about improving lives or freedoms based on the fulfilment of our ethical responsibility to humanity.