Mobilizing for women’s organizations: getting into activism

This paper focuses on women activists. It centres on the activists’ perceptions and experiences of becoming and being activists in women’s organizations in Turkey. Turkey has witnessed a gradual increase in the number of women’s organizations since the 1980s. While increasing political and cultural diversification shaped Turkish politics in general throughout the 1980s, women with diverse socio- cultural backgrounds and particular political, religious or ethnic affiliations started to mobilize in women’s organizations. Respecting this, this paper explores how and to what extent the process of becoming and being a woman activist is shaped by the activists’ backgrounds and affiliations.