‘Honour is everything for Muslims’? Vendetta Song, Filmic Representation, Religious Identity and Gender Politics in Turkey

Abstract

Although feminism and feminist media studies have, for some time, recognised the plurality inherent in the concept of Woman (as cut across by, for example, ethnicity, class, sexuality and more recently age), it has also been the case that those popular and academic conceptions of post-feminism have privileged the white heterosexual woman. In this regard, the ongoing discussion of difference (in this respect religion, nationality and gender politics) remains crucial in interrogating what the ‘politics of being a woman’ means across different national and political contexts. In all parts of the world women are tortured and murdered in the name of ‘honour’; the practice of female genital mutilation in the name of tradition takes lives; attempts to ban abortion continue; women’s bodies are sold and women are abused within everyday contexts. Different cultures, religious practices, and traditions impose different meanings on the idea of womanhood. The politics of being a woman shifts from one practice, one culture, and one nation to another within a global context. This chapter contributes to the related discussions by focusing on religion and gender politics in Turkey in the context of filmic representation. Films and women’s cultural production makes these issues visible and allows them to travel across the world. Women’s (and at times men’s) identities and bodies are violated in reality.

I am a feminist if women are still killed in the name of ‘honour’ and violence against women all around the world continues.