Struggles of security and secularism in Turkey and its impact on gender issues

The process of securitization reflects the dominant security understanding, the forces that play on this security understanding in a country. In Turkey the process of securitization is experienced in close relation to militarization. Turkey has gone through an intensified process of militarization that has affected the process of securitization. These processes are constructed, but claimed to be “natural” for the securitization to work smoothly. This construction is based on a gendered understanding and discourse especially with the way that the security agenda is constituted, that helps for consolidation of the dominant security understanding. With the effect of militarization on the process of securitization, security agenda is formed with the state as the sole referent object, and this results in the individual security being taken for granted. The state can also be a source of threat for individual security within this relationship of securitization and militarization. The militarized understanding of security and the close relationship between the processes of securitization and militarization results in a hierarchical attitude towards events, developments where individual security in general and the security of women, in particular, are neglected. This paper analyzes the relationship between the securitization and militarization and shows their gendered construction in Turkey.