ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with women who associate themselves both with Kemalism and feminism not as a homogeneous group, but as a community of heterogeneous affiliations and relationships. The organic power of Kemalism in state apparatuses was undermined by the purge of Kemalist bureaucrats during the zal administrations. Approaching Kemalism idealistically, they think that Kemalism has been distorted under authoritarianism before being fully comprehended. With the rise of the identity politics in the 1980s and 1990s, Kemalism has evolved into a vocal political identity, and Kemalists positioned themselves as the defenders of laicism and the laic Republic. The reformists, in contrast, seek to rethink Kemalism under the guidance of Western democratic values, and argue that the freedom to wear religious attire in all spheres of life can be achieved only through the internalization of a liberal understanding of laicism by all segments of the society.
