TY - JOUR
T1 - “If women stop, the world stops”
T2 - forging transnational solidarities with the International Women’s Strike
AU - Çağatay, Selin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/2/14
Y1 - 2023/2/14
N2 - Having roots in women’s struggles in different world regions, the International Women’s Strike (IWS) has, since 2017, generated a global wave of feminist mobilization against attacks on gender equality and sexual rights, neoliberalism’s multiple crises, and authoritarian, fundamentalist, and neo-nationalist politics. This article discusses the IWS from the perspective of transnational solidarities, with a focus on its manifestation in Turkey. First, differentiating between supra-political and left-leaning currents in transnational feminist politics, I outline the guiding principles of the IWS campaign as an acknowledgment of the systemic dynamics of gender oppression, a broad definition of women’s labor, and an intersectional understanding of solidarity. Second, drawing on field-based and digital ethnography, participatory action research, and interviews with activists from the coalition Women Are Strong Together, I discuss how the IWS principles overlapped with political dynamics and conflicts of interest between different women’s groups, hindering the possibility of a women’s strike in Turkey. The article demonstrates the tensions and transformations occurring at the intersection of the supra- and sub-national levels in feminist politics and contributes to the understanding of how different currents in transnational feminism dovetail with different imaginations and practices of solidarity.
AB - Having roots in women’s struggles in different world regions, the International Women’s Strike (IWS) has, since 2017, generated a global wave of feminist mobilization against attacks on gender equality and sexual rights, neoliberalism’s multiple crises, and authoritarian, fundamentalist, and neo-nationalist politics. This article discusses the IWS from the perspective of transnational solidarities, with a focus on its manifestation in Turkey. First, differentiating between supra-political and left-leaning currents in transnational feminist politics, I outline the guiding principles of the IWS campaign as an acknowledgment of the systemic dynamics of gender oppression, a broad definition of women’s labor, and an intersectional understanding of solidarity. Second, drawing on field-based and digital ethnography, participatory action research, and interviews with activists from the coalition Women Are Strong Together, I discuss how the IWS principles overlapped with political dynamics and conflicts of interest between different women’s groups, hindering the possibility of a women’s strike in Turkey. The article demonstrates the tensions and transformations occurring at the intersection of the supra- and sub-national levels in feminist politics and contributes to the understanding of how different currents in transnational feminism dovetail with different imaginations and practices of solidarity.
KW - International Women’s Strike
KW - Turkey
KW - Women Are Strong Together
KW - intersectional solidarity
KW - transnational feminism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148353629&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14616742.2023.2170259
DO - 10.1080/14616742.2023.2170259
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85148353629
SN - 1461-6742
VL - 25
SP - 637
EP - 663
JO - International Feminist Journal of Politics
JF - International Feminist Journal of Politics
IS - 4
ER -