History of the left in Iran and Turkey was written predominantly by the male members of the leftist organizations, which occupied a prominent place in politics and society in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite women’s significant contribution and participation in large numbers in the leftist organizations, their presence was mostly ...
(Show more)History of the left in Iran and Turkey was written predominantly by the male members of the leftist organizations, which occupied a prominent place in politics and society in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite women’s significant contribution and participation in large numbers in the leftist organizations, their presence was mostly forgotten due to the lack of documentation and negligence of their male comrades. The only exceptions are the recent appearance of memoirs, autobiographical novels and commentaries by women members of these illegal and underground leftist organizations. Thus, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of the history of leftists movements in particular and social movements in general in these countries. In this respect, a comparative study of women’s activism—especially their motivations, perceptions and experiences—in underground leftist organizations in Iran and Turkey, which benefits from the rich literature about Latin American guerrilla women, will be an important contribution. This study aims exactly at making this contribution.
Latin American guerrilla movements were a source of inspiration and model in the emergence of similar groups in other parts of the world, namely Iran and Turkey. Latin American slogans, strategies, and experiences set an example for those men and women who set their heart on guerrilla warfare against what they perceived as injustice, oppression, and exploitation of the authoritarian regimes in Iran and Turkey. However, even if they were following the ideal of Latin American guerrillas and trying to adopt their methods, the political and cultural context that they were fighting in was essentially different. Taking these social, political, and cultural factors into account, I compare and contrast the experiences of Iranian and Turkish women participated in illegal and underground leftist organizations with those of Latin American guerrilla women who were taken as the ideal examples.
There are many studies analyzing Latin American guerrilla women from various perspectives with regards to their motivations, backgrounds, and experiences. This comparatively rich literature provides us with various methodological and theoretical tools that we can employ in other cases. Not only do we have fair amount of information about women’s experiences in guerrilla movements from this literature, but we also derive insights into the methods to study women’s presence in such revolutionary movements.
With a comparison of Iranian and Turkish cases, against the methodological and historical backdrop of the Latin American experience, this paper questions if we can talk about a common gendered experience for women in underground revolutionary movements. It also sheds light on the differences in such experiences as a result of social and cultural settings. Memoirs and novels, in this sense, are especially important to include cultural, as well as personal, dimensions into the picture. By including this latter aspect of the question, this study provides us with a multi-dimensional analysis of everyday gendered experiences of women in such extraordinary circumstances.
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