Political vigilance in court rooms: feminist interventions in the field of law

Abstract

This thesis scrutinizes feminist activism in the field of law in Turkey. Focusing on the litigation of court cases of male crimes against women, I aim, in this thesis, to figure out how the feminist movement challenges the reproduction of women’s subordination in the practice of law. Based on interviews with feminist activists and on my observations throughout litigation processes, I attempt first to reveal how women encounter in different stages of law with multiple forms of male domination while trying to escape battering, publicize sexual assault or expose rape experiences, and secondly, how feminist interventions in law are of significance to contest patriarchy by and large. Relying on a comprehensive observation of litigation processes in women killing and sexual assault cases, I convey how law deals with these crimes around the notions of women’s sexuality and family, and accordingly maintains men’s domination over women. In so doing, dwelling on the notions of testimony, evidence, medical reports that figure in complaint, trial and decision processes, I show the structural content of patriarchy that is reified in the field of law. With a careful inquiry about organized litigation of cases, I expose what is not been appended to court records but has vital consequences on women’s daily lives. In this thesis, thus, by narrating stories of battering, rape, and murder, I highlight the contribution of law in the perpetration of male violence and how it is reproduced at the ground level, and argue, for that very reason, it is a political space of intervention for feminists that they challenge and change.