The Kurdish Female Politicians in Turkey and Their Areas of Interest

Abstract

This article focuses on the female deputies of the pro-Kurdish BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, The Peace and Democracy Party). The activities of the Kurdish female deputies were studied through Hürriyet (Liberty), a Turkish national newspaper with one of the largest circulations. Within the period ranging from a month before the last national election of June 2011 to the end of October 2013, Gültan Kışanak, Aysel Tuğluk, Sebahat Tuncel and Emine Ayna are the female deputies of the BDP that appear in Hürriyet most often. These female politicians generally follow their party’s line, and they support both the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan. They criticize the conservative-democratic AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, The Justice and Development Party) and its single-party government. They perceive “democratic autonomy” of Kurds as a “woman’s project”. The female deputies of the pro-Kurdish BDP embrace both their Kurdish and their female identity.