Following Fırat’s statement that “the women of AKP did not become slaves to the feminist ideology?”, the founding president of the Başkent Kadın Platformu (Woman’s Platform of Capital) Hidayet Tuksal asked where Dengir Mir Fırat gets the right to talk for all of the women supporters of the Justice and Development Party?”  

Fırat stated yesterday (May 4) at the AKP Congress of Adana Provincial Woman Branches that “we are not for the philosophical belief, the medium of clash, which the feminist thinking creates.” 

Is this speech a threat?

“Is feminism an ideology banned to the women? Were the women to show interest in feminism with their permission? What does he know about feminism? Did he follow the feminist thinking? Does he know anything about feminism other than the motto of ‘man-hating’? Does he know what the feminist women watch, what they get upset at? Should we read this speech as a threat, a warning, to the AKP women who have established relations with the feminists?”

“These words are the expression of the ignorance about feminism”

Feminist activist Filiz Karakuş interpreted Fırat’s explanation as such:

"I think AKP is in panic. In recent months, opinions against the religious-conservative ideas upon which AKP stands, opinions that will upset an important part of the religious section, the articles that were published in the Religious Affairs and the Hasan Üzmez incident were published everywhere, including the newspapers that support AKP. These words are the expression of the panic that AKP feels about its own future and unity, wishing to discipline the women; they express the attempt to prevent the contradiction between religious conservatism and the women’s liberation from surfacing.” 

“The development of feminism threatens AKP’s future”

“AKP women do not see these incidents as isolated occurrences. There have been verbal, written, visible and invisible reactions pointing out that this is at the source of the male domination. In fact this is the result of the years of woman’s struggle. There were similar reactions when the prime minister told people that they should have three children. Dengir Fırat’s going against feminism emanates from his panic about the feminist element. Religious conservatism is very much opposite of feminism, but feminism has been successful in entering into every opinion. The development of a feminism that will enter into conflict with religious conservatism threatens AKP’s future. I regard this as a panic related to this and let them panic.”

For this report we called AKP Gaziantep deputy Fatma Şahin but we could not reach her. (NZ/GG/TB)