Turkish Civil Society: A reading of Kadin Gazetesi through a Gramscian Lens

This paper introduces the Turkish debate about the concept of civil society. Whereas the academic field has been dominated by liberal approaches and critical investigations, following Marx and Gramsci’s approaches, uneven relations of power are taken into account. According to this view, the Turkish Republic built the tools of its consent in line with the dominant class's hegemony. Starting from Gramsci's notion of civil society and using a historical-political perspective, I will analyze articles from Kadın Gazetesi, a feminist weekly founded in 1947 by a group of intellectual women. A deep reading of them reveals populist Kemalist undertones in the debate over women's rights and shows how state ideology can find a place in civil society