Leaving Home, Claiming the Street: Exploring Women’s Challenges in Turkey’s ’68 Movement

Abstract

Despite worldwide interest in the history of the sixties—particularly in 1968—gender as a category of analysis has received little attention in the majority of academic research about them. Most national historiographies of ’68 have disregarded women’s political actions and their struggles with the gendered political culture. Like its counterparts, Turkey’s ’68 experience was also strongly gendered male. Given the underrepresentation of female historical agency and political subjectivity in the scholarship on 1968, this article aims to explore women’s accounts of Turkey’s ’68 experience with a particular focus on their struggles in leaving home and getting involved in political life.