An analysis of discourses and policies on violence against women in Turkey

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyze discourses and policies on violence against women. Violence against women has become a significant issue in Turkey’s agenda after 1980s with the struggles of feminist women. Although the “women question” had always been an important matter of debate in accordance with the modernization process, violence against women had never been part of it. This thesis aims to analyze violence against women as constitutive of women’s place in the family as well in the society through focusing on different state policies and feminist theory and activism. In the thesis, the dialogical relation between the state and the feminist movement that determined the context in discussions on violence against women is analyzed. The role of different discourses in determining the way violence against women is analyzed. In this respect, the legal and medical discourse in constituting the framework of discourses and policies on violence against women are discussed. In addition, seeing violence against women as the "other’s" problem and the implication of such an understanding is analyzed.