Turkey women's rights and media: Representation of Women's Day March 8 world press

This thesis aims to reveal how 8th March Women's Day, an international remembrance day, is presented in the national media tools of Turkey. For this purpose, six newspapers with different ideologies were reviewed. In the framework of descriptive analysis, the data of the last 10 years were analyzed through printed and internet media. The newspapers which were studied for 8th March International Women's Day, on which women are in the streets in an organised manner, are Hürriyet, Cumhuriyet, Yeni Akit, Yeniçağ, Türkiye and BirGün. With the transformation of social movements in 1960, social movements turned into an idedntity movement. Those acts which are named as new social movements also influenced women in the historical process. Considering the historical trace of women movement, it is seen that women who reached the consciousness of organizing thanks to the French Revolution actually started to question their unequal positions after the 13th century with printed tools. On the other hand, women's taking part in women movements after getting apart from social movements is seen in the 18th century. There have been different ideas about how 8th March International Women's Day, a symbolized day of world women act, emerged. However, it is generally thought that the day emerged after the demonstrations which were held for the female workers who lost their lifes in the fire which started after a strike in 1857. Although it was defined as an international day by the United Nations in 1975, the fact that 8th March was defined as a remembrance day was proposed by Clara Zetkin in the International Socialist Women Conference of The Second Socialist International in 1910. Regarding the women movement in Turkey, it is seen that women started to question their present situation with the renovation act which started in the Ottoman times. The women who expressed themselves through printed tools after the Imperial Edict of Gülhane became more visible after republic regime. Although there was seen a pause in women movements from 1935, when Turkish women entitled to vote, to the 1960s, it is seen that women movements in Turkey gained speed in 1980. The first 8th March celebration in Turkey occured in 1921 in a general women meeting which was organised by Süleyman Selim, the member of the Comunist Party. It is significant how Turkish media approach that worlwide known remembrance day in terms of perspective towards women acts. What is studied in this thesis is to focus on different perspectives towards International Women's Day by considering the news items of 8th and 9th March in the last 10 years. It was inferred from those ideologically different newspapers that women are represented with their gender roles, some newspapers never address to women acts whereas some newspapers make news about it and also some newspapers refer to that day with politicians.