Democratic Backsliding and the Instrumentalization of Women's Rights in Turkey

This article examines the instrumentalization of women's rights and the transformation of the gender rights regime in the context of democratic backsliding in Turkey. I show how the Islamically rooted Justice and Development Party governments and their allies used women's rights in constructing authoritarian rule and promoting a conservative gender agenda. The governing elites had different needs at different political stages and instrumentalized women's rights to meet those needs. First, they needed to legitimize their rule in a secular context, so they expanded liberal laws on women's rights. Second, in the process of backsliding, they sought to construct and legitimize their conservative ideology, so they reinterpreted existing laws to promote conservative goals. Finally, they wanted to mobilize conservative women in support of the newly authoritarian regime, so they built new institutions and marginalized existing women's NGOs. The article contributes to the literature on regime types and gender rights by shifting the focus from regime type to regime change.

Rohingya Influx and Changing Gender Perception among the Host Community: the Context of Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh

The paper aims to understand the causes of changing gender perception in Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh after the Rohingya influx. Rohingyas have been playing a significant role in the life and attitude of host communities. The study revealed that Rohingya people and their culture are blending with the local people and culture which eventually is affecting the existing hosts’ tradition and practice. Even this blending is restructuring the socio-economic and religion-cultural practices of the host people. On the other hand, NGOs and INGOs are offering jobs to local women and girls. This opportunity though benefiting the stakeholders’ family is ultimately breaking the long-practiced social and religious structure of the society. By and large, the host people are conservative. Women and girls wear veils and they have no practice to work or job by going outside. So, this type of economic, societal, and cultural empowerment of women and girls sometimes contrasts with religious and social long drilled practices in the host area. Further, families who could not afford to manage any job in the camp feel frustrated and sometimes play a negative impression on the women's and girls’ mobility and job. Hence, the key question of the article is to know why the perception of gender in the host area is changing after the Rohingya arrivals. Methodologically, this is explorative research that followed the qualitative method instrumented with the Case studies, Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). The paper has also endeavored to address the changing nature of women’s empowerment and gender dimension in the host area that occurred after the Rohingya influx which is not explored yet. Therefore, this study can be a fairy source for posterior researchers.

Let’s Talk About Sexism: The Differential Effects of Gender Discrimination on Liberal and Conservative Women’s Political Engagement

As the 2016 election season and the Me Too movement have powerfully demonstrated, sexism is a pervasive force not just in American politics but also, more generally, in women’s everyday lives. While political scientists have focused on the impact of sexism on voters’ evaluations of female candidates and their electoral chances, we know little about the effect of personally experienced sexism on American women’s political engagement. This manuscript tries to address this gap. Using data from the 2016 ANES Pilot Study as well as a survey experiment, I demonstrate that women who have experienced gender discrimination report higher levels of political participation and a higher chance of voting in the general election. However, among conservative women, personal experience with sexism is not associated with this participatory impetus. These findings have implications for the equal representation of women from both ends of the ideological spectrum.

Women, Gender, and Red Scares in the Modern United States

The first Red Scare, after World War I, and the Red Scare that followed World War II, both impacted American women in remarkably similar ways. Many women found their lives hemmed in by antifeminism and the conservative gender ideology that underwrote anticommunist national identity in 1919, and then again in the late 1940s. This cultural nationalism tied traditional gender norms to the defense of American values and ideals, positioning the family as a bulwark against communism while making women’s performance of gender roles symbolic of national health or sickness. Within this gendered nationalism, the first Red Scare offered opportunities for conservative women to join the antiradical cause as protectors of the home. These same antiradicals maligned radical and progressive women for their feminism and their social activism. The second Red Scare played out in similar fashion. Anticommunism provided a safe platform for conservative women to engage in political activism in defense of the family, and in turn, they participated in broader efforts that attacked and weakened civil rights claims and the social justice efforts of women on the left. In each Red Scare the symbols and rhetoric of anticommunism prioritized women’s relationship to the family, positioning them either as bastions of American virtue or as fundamental threats to the social and political order. Gender proved critical to the construction of patriotism and national identity.