Another reactionary Islamist campaign in Turkey: a women’s only university

A Twitter campaign initiated by an Islamist author calling for the foundation of a women’s only university in Turkey was supported by reactionary circles
Friday, 11 August 2017 07:43

 

İhsan Şenocak, known for infamous fatwas such as "nine-year-old girls should wear burqas since they provoke lascivious sentiments" and "seven-year-old girls can marry", has initiated a campaign on Twitter calling for the foundation of a women’s only university.

The campaign with the hashtag #İslamınKızınaKızÜniversitesi (Girls' university for the girl of Islam) was backed by reactionary Islamist circles in Turkey.

Following the new school curriculum aiming to raise a "revengeful and religious" generation, the demand for a women's only university is not surprising. As the education system is being reorganized with respect to religious references and rules, the position of women in society is accordingly dependent on those.

Among the supporters of the campaign are Kadir Mısırlıoğlu, an anti-Republican known for his reactionary views of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the founder of the Republic of Turkey), to whom the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan refers as "professor"; and Yusuf Kaplan, an Islamist columnist of the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Şafak. According to Yusuf Kaplan, "a secular lifestyle is guaranteed" in this country where obligatory religion courses prevail and women are attacked for wearing shorts.

The campaign initiator Şenocak had already launched a petition for the separation of the genders in faculties of theology in universities as "haremlik-selamlık" (the religious institutions separating male and female individuals in social life). Şenocak is also the editorial consultant of a journal in which a columnist had written that "one can marry 6-year-old children" in an article.