Flying Broom

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The Flying Broom (Turkish : Uçan Süpürge) is a feminist organization in Turkey. Founded 1996 in Ankara, the organization aims to raise consciousness for gender equality while providing information and training to empower women.

Turkish language Turkic language (possibly Altaic)

Turkish, also referred to as Istanbul Turkish, is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around ten to fifteen million native speakers in Southeast Europe and sixty to sixty-five million native speakers in Western Asia. Outside Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official language, even though Turkey is not a member state.

Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social gender equality. This includes fighting gender stereotypes and seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men.

Turkey Republic in Western Asia

Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Greece and Bulgaria to its northwest; Georgia to its northeast; Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south. Istanbul is the largest city, but more central Ankara is the capital. Approximately 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority; the size of the Kurdish population is a subject of dispute with estimates placing the figure at anywhere from 12 to 25 per cent of the population.

Most recognized for its annual International Women's Film Festival, the Flying Broom has launched several projects in different areas within Turkish civil society. It was particularly influential in the 2005 amendment of the Turkish penal code, turning violent crimes against women into crimes against the victim itself rather than against crimes against property of the family or society. [1]

The Flying Broom International Women's Film Festival is an annual Ankara-based film festival celebrating women's contributions to filmmaking.

Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere. By other authors, "civil society" is used in the sense of 1) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens or 2) individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government.

The organization was founded in 1996 by Halime Güner  (tr ) and two feminist academics Filiz Kardam  (tr ) and Yıldız Ecevit  (tr ) to revitalize the stalling Turkish feminist movement of the 1990s. Since 1998 it has published the bimonthly magazine Uçan Haber ("Flying News"). [2]

The organization's projects include:

Middle East Technical University university

Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. The university puts special emphasis on research and education in engineering and natural sciences, offering about 40 undergraduate programs within 5 faculties, and 97 masters and 62 doctorate programs within 5 graduate schools. The main campus of METU spans an area of 11,100 acres (4,500 ha), comprising, in addition to academic and auxiliary facilities, a forest area of 7,500 acres (3,000 ha), and the natural lake Eymir. METU has more than 120,000 alumni worldwide. The official language of instruction at METU is English.

The organization also prepared reports on the situation of women in Turkey for the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995 in Beijing. [2]

United Nations Intergovernmental organization

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that was tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding international law. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. In 24 October 1945, at the end of World War II, the organization was established with the aim of preventing future wars. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN is the successor of the ineffective League of Nations.

Currently, the organization is lead coordinator of the EU funded Civil Society Dialogue project "Watch Your Shadow" (Gölge Meclis), which aims at increasing the participation of women in local politics. [3]

European Union Economic and political union of European states

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2 (1,728,099 sq mi) and an estimated population of about 513 million. The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where members have agreed to act as one. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. For travel within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished. A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002 and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency.

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Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender equality, forced marriages, honor killings and in Iraqi Kurdistan also female genital mutilation (FGM).

LGBT rights in Turkey

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Turkey face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT persons. Same-sex sexual activity was legalised in the Ottoman Empire in 1858 and in modern Turkey, homosexual activity has always been a legal act since the day it was founded on 29 October 1923. LGBT people have had the right to seek asylum in Turkey under the Geneva Convention since 1951, but same-sex couples are not given the same legal protections available to heterosexual couples. Transsexuals have been allowed to change their legal gender since 1988. Although discrimination protections regarding sexual orientation and gender identity or expression have been debated legally, they have not yet been legislated. Public opinion on homosexuality has generally been conservative, and LGBT people have been widely reported to experience discrimination, harassment and even violence in recent years.

KAOS GL, short for Kaos Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity Association, founded in 1994, is one of the oldest and largest LGBT rights organisations in Turkey. In 2005, the Ankara-based organisation became the first Turkish LGBT organisation to be legally registered as an association, after their application was initially appealed by deputy governor of Ankara. The organisation has been publishing the journal KAOS GL since its founding. The group operates the KAOS Cultural Center, which hosts cultural activities, meetings, and showings of films. The centre also houses a LGBT history library.

The Faculty of Political Science of the University of Ankara is the oldest faculty of social science in Turkey, being the successor of the "Mekteb-i Mülkiye" which was established in Istanbul on February 12, 1859, under the reign of Sultan Abdulaziz, then moved to Ankara in 1936 under a new name, and was incorporated to Ankara University on April 3, 1950, under its current name. The Faculty of Political Science provides higher education in the fields of Social Science, Public Finance, Economics, Public Administration, Labor Economics, Business Administration and International Relations. It is considered to be one of the most influential institutes in the political life of Turkey.

Melih Gökçek Turkish politician

İbrahim Melih Gökçek is a Turkish politician who served as the Mayor of Ankara from 1994 to 2017. From 1991 to 1994, he was an MP. Gökçek has won municipal elections in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, and was controversially also declared the winner in 2014. He is a member of the governing Justice and Development Party.

Women in Turkey

The role of women in contemporary Turkey is defined by an ongoing gender equality struggle, contributing elements of which include predicate conditions for EU membership candidacy, prevalent political tides that favour restrictive patriarchal models, and woman's rights activism. Women in Turkey continue to be the victims of rape and honor killings; furthermore research by scholars and government agencies indicate widespread domestic violence in Turkish population. That being said, there are many historical records of brave inspirational Turkish women fighting to make a difference.

Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) is an autonomous women’s non-government organization (NGO) founded in 1993 in Turkey. The group aims to promote women’s human rights and to supports the active and broad participation of women in the establishment and maintenance of a respectful democratic order at national, regional and international levels. WWHR has developed a multi-pronged approach in its programming, seeking to eliminate discrimination against women and women's human rights violations. The NGO's national and international programs combine action-research, training, production and dissemination of awareness-raising materials and publications, advocacy, lobbying and networking. WWHR was elected as one of the few NGOs worldwide to deliver a statement at the United Nations March 8 Global World Conference in 1998, in recognition of its advocacy and lobbying efforts towards the adoption of a protection order law against domestic violence in Turkey. WWHR was also awarded the 1999 Leading Solutions Award by the Association for Women in Development (AWID), in recognition of its contributions to advancing gender equality and social justice. Its Human Rights Education Program for Women (HREP) has been elected as one of the “best tactics in human rights” in an international program by the Centre for Victims of Torture and Helsinki Citizens Assembly. In 2007, co-founder of WWHR - New Ways was awarded the Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights for her work with WWHR-New Ways and the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR).

13th Flying Broom International Womens Film Festival

The 13th Flying Broom International Women's Film Festival was a film festival held in Ankara, Turkey, which ran from May 6 to 13, 2010.

Feminism in Thailand is perpetuated by many of the same traditional feminist theory foundations, though Thai feminism is facilitated through a medium of social movement activist groups within Thailand’s illiberal democracy. The Thai State claims to function as a civil society with an intersectionality between gender inequality and activism in its political spheres.

Feminist Ofenzyva is an independent feminist group, which was founded in autumn 2010 in Kiev. According to the group's principle of female separatism only those who have an experience of being a woman in society can become a member of the initiative and can make decisions during group's meetings. Feminist Ofenzyva's first activities were march-demonstration, film festival and feminist conference dedicated to 100th anniversary of the International Women's Day celebrated on March 8, 2011. Group consists of more than twenty members from different fields. Feminist Ofenzyva acts to overcome discriminatory social order and legal system as well as patriarchal forms of power which include sexism, ageism and chauvinism.

Belçim Bilgin is a Turkish actress of Kurdish descent.

The feminist movement in Malaysia is a multicultural coalition of women's organisations committed to the end of gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence against women. Having first emerged as women's shelters in the mid 1980s, feminist women's organisations in Malaysia later developed alliances with other social justice movements. Today, the feminist movement in Malaysia is one of the most active actors in the country's civil society.

Şemsa Özar(Þemsa Özar) is a professor in the Department of Economics at Boğaziçi University, Turkey and past president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), her tenure was 2015 to 2016.

Doğuş Derya is a Turkish Cypriot activist and politician. She was elected a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Northern Cyprus in 2013.

Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan Civelek turkish suffragist

Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan Civelek (1893-1964) was a Turkish women's rights advocate, suffragist, journalist and founder of the first feminist women's magazine and Muslim women's rights organization in Turkey. The magazine was the first to publish a photograph of a Muslim woman.

Damla Sönmez is a Turkish actress.

The women's liberation movement in Asia was a feminist movement that started in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Women's liberation movements in Asia sought to redefine women's relationships to the family and the way that women expressed their sexuality. Women's liberation in Asia also dealt with particular challenges that made the liberation movement unique in different countries.

References

  1. ↑ Jane Kamerling; Fred Gustafson (2012). Lifting the Veil: Why They Hate Us. Carmel CA: Fisher King Press. p. 112 f. ISBN   978-1-926715-75-9.
  2. 1 2 Ömer Çaha (2013). Women and Civil Society in Turkey: Women's Movements in a Muslim Society. Farnham: Ashgate. p. 98 f. ISBN   978-1-4724-1008-5.
  3. ↑ "Grant contracts awarded during September 2014". Central Finance and Contracts Unit . Retrieved 26 October 2015.
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