Conservative Women in Power: A New Predicament for Transnational Feminist Media Research

Abstract

Özcan explores the similarities between conservative women’s movements in Turkey and the United States. She argues that the designation of conservative women’s activism as “Islamic feminism” in Turkey has eclipsed the similarities between these women and the conservative women’s movements elsewhere. The chapter focuses on how Turkey’s conservative women, so called “Islamic feminists,” have aligned with the authoritarian policies of the Justice and Development Party, supported the elimination of rights and freedoms, and institutionalized anti-feminism. The author suggests that transnational feminist scholarship pays more attention to how networks of conservative women in different parts of the world ally with misogynist men in power and contribute to the marginalization of feminism.