Description
The landscape of International Studies has historically been surveyed through Euro-centric, androcentric, ethnocentric, and gendered lenses, sidelining the voices of women until the late 1980s. By taking the opportunity from the predicament to explain the end of the Cold War by the traditional realist paradigm, students of gender and feminist research spotlighted women as essential knowledge producers in International Studies and their experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge. However, a noticeable limitation persists in the knowledge production by women, primarily confined to the perspectives of the Global North. This study aims to shift the focus to evaluate and acknowledge the merits of women's activism in the Global South concerning gender equality and political inclusion. Specifically, it explores the phenomenon of maternal activism, wherein women utilize their identity as mothers to organize politically, either to effect change or protect the existing status quo. Maternal activism is one of the phenomena that creates a fierce debate among students of feminist research, as critics concern about the potential co-optation of women’s movements by patriarchal institutions and the reinforcement of traditional gender roles. By revisiting the renowned feminist slogan "the personal is political and international," this article contends that maternal activism can yield significant gender impacts at both individual and societal levels, particularly in the Global South in which women’s everyday experiences and practices are constructed by conflict, violence, and gender-based oppression. The primary case study focuses on the Saturday Mothers in Turkey, a group of women whose loved ones disappeared during the 1980s and 1990s. Through semi-structured interviews with the members of the Saturday Mothers and analysis of their weekly protests since 1995, the article argues that despite initial divergence from broader feminist movements and goals in Turkey, a nuanced exploration of the country's historical and socio-political trajectories unveils the discernible impact of the Saturday Mothers and their protests on gender relations at both individual and societal levels.
Keywords: gender, feminist international studies, maternal activism, women’s movements in Global South, Saturday Mothers
