In face of religious-Islamist politics, manifesting in constitutional and policy-oriented interventions of the ruling party, women in Turkey face a great backlash against existing secular constitutional and juridical rights. As one of the most vibrant, progressive, and pro-democracy resistance movements against the rising Islamic policies in politics and culture in Turkey, the country’s women’s movement continues to resist, at all levels, efforts to take away their hard-won legal rights. Here, structural changes in a country such as Turkey, and individual and collective activism intertwine, and provide fruitful grounds for research regarding activism, institutional bargaining, and overall strategies against backlash against women’s rights, secularism, and equality. Feminists in Turkey fight their battles against the Islamist attacks on women’s rights on multiple fronts. These fronts include education, judiciary, ethnicity, sexual orientation, migration, racism, femicides, women’s poverty, sexual assault and abuse of girls and women. In this presentation, I discuss examples women’s, labor, other civil society organizations and individual actors’ individual and collective resistance on two of these fronts: in the court system and in public education. Given the resurgence of Islamist regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is vital to learn from the experiences of resistance to the Islamist politics of gender and religion. The women’s organizations in Turkey have been fighting daily and serve as one of the most noteworthy contemporary bulwarks against prevailing Islamic regimes and state policies.

Under the governance of the Islamic Republic, women have been systematically deprived of many of their basic human rights, and outdoor exercise including cycling has been particularly constrained. The right of women to cycle has been entangled with Islamic morality, a contentious point subject to scrutiny and restrictions imposed by societal norms and governmental policies. It was in this context that I wondered if such restrictions are placed on women in other Muslim-majority countries. In this paper, I briefly explore the history of bicycle and cycling in Iran to shed light on the public discourse on women’s right to cycle in Iran which is in practice to place restrictions on their participation in public space and public roads. I will explore the multifaceted challenges we face as women, examining the societal and regime’s ideological and religious perspectives that contribute to their attempt to restrict women’s autonomy and access to the public. Given that Islam frequently has been invoked as a justification, I also examine the situation of women's cycling in two other Muslim-majority countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. By delving into the current situation in Iran and the authorities' stance on women cycling, I hope to contribute to a broader understanding of the obstacles that women face in their struggle to establish their rights as equal citizens and claim their fundamental human rights and freedom.

How do feminist organizations respond to the authoritarian politics of gender that are often imbued with religious discourses and policies? What organizational and political strategies do they employ to counter the backlash against women’s human rights? This presentation, based on a forthcoming chapter in a book, answers these questions through a case study of the Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK), a novel organization founded during the pandemic in Turkey to counter the increasing attacks on women’s rights. Comprising more than 300 women's and LGBTI+ organizations, EŞİK brings together activists who have been involved in the women's movement for decades (and also those newer to the movement). It builds and expands on past experiences of women working across ethnic, religious and political and other differences. EŞİK includes organizations and individuals that live in all corners of the country and participate in the group's weekly meetings and advocacy work. Focusing on EŞİK’s defense of the Istanbul Convention, and the group's support for the international feminist campaign to end "gender apartheid" in Afghanistan, this presentation argues that in a national and global political conjuncture that disadvantages them, women’s rights activists adopt a “defensive feminism” to protect their hard-won rights from an authoritarian assault led by Islamist political actors. Defensive feminism is a political strategy that looks to the past, the present and the future simultaneously. In that sense, it entails a defense that is situated, embodied and imaginative. It aims to protect rights and to keep alive the struggle for a more egalitarian, democratic, and feminist future.

The Veil as the Iconography of Islamist Gender Ideology: A Comparative Analysis of Gender Politics in Turkey under the JDP and Iran under the Islamic Regime This presentation will discuss the veil as an overarching frame of Islamist gender ideology, regardless of the different political contexts it operates from, by comparing the gender politics of Iran, under the Islamic Republic, and Turkey, under the Justice and Development Party. My comparative analysis aims to capture how Islamist gender ideology positions the veil not only as an iconographic item of clothing but also as a social system, a lifestyle that enforces a ‘culture of modesty’ and ‘culture of hejab’, wholistically implying sartorial, spatial and behavioural stipulations for women. Accordingly, the veil does not remain as a mere concealing garment. Yet, it indicates a social system and a culture of modesty that targets limiting, if not omitting, women’s public presence and social and political participation altogether. A crucial finding of my analysis is that the veil as a concealing garment is inseparable from the veil as a social system imposed or favoured by the Islamists. Accordingly, the veil, as a concealing garment, utilizes women’s bodies as the walking banners of the regime to propagate its Islamic ideals at the cost of women’s agency and liberties. However, despite its potent non-verbal communicative aspect, the veil, as an item of clothing, merely constitutes the visual aspect and tip of the iceberg of Islamist gender ideology. It is because Islamist gender ideology rests on ‘gender complementarity,’ which is presented as an Islamist alternative to gender equality, attributing a sacred domesticity to women and thus consolidating men’s superiority. My analysis reveals that regardless of the political distinctiveness of Iran and contemporary Turkey, the ideal femininity yearned by the Islamists bears striking similarities that are expressed by a holistic understanding of the veil and navigates the Islamists in both contexts to similar policy paths.