Hasret Dikici Bilgin, "Pink but not Purple: From State Feminism to the Era of Tradwives"

ABSTRACT
Dating back to late 19th century, some states in Europe and the Middle East devised gender equalitarian policies which led to notable rise in education level and female participation to the labor force. It also paved the way for equal political and economic rights. Referred as state feminism, these policies also received serious criticism as it enabled the governments to define what is “proper” in terms of gender roles and relations. Half a century later, this time states with right-wing governments are now interfering in gender-related issues and re-defining what is proper and what is not. Famous public figures, including business entrepreneurs and actors display and promote traditional lifestyles. This paper compares and construsts the gender policies and ideologies across time in Europe and beyond with a specific focus on the intersection of gender and class.

BIO
Hasret Dikici Bilgin is an associate professor of political science at Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. She is currently serving on the executive board of the Turkish Political Science Association as the Secretary-General. Her research and teaching interests center around comparative political institutions with a specific focus on the pro-Islamist parties and elections in the Muslim majority countries. She also studies on the interactions between social class and religiosity as a dimension of electoral behaviour. She has been working at different levels of IPSA since 2013. She was a member of the LOC for the 2016 World Congress which was initially decided to be held in Turkey. After the re-placement of the congress to Poznan, she continued to work as the alternate member of the EC. In 2018, she was appointed as the program co-chair for IPSA's 26th World Congress of Political Science together with Bertrand Badie. She served in all aspects of the congress program. She was a member of the EC in the 2018-2021 period as Turkish Political Science Association's representative. She has co-edited a comparative politics textbook in Turkish, which has been awarded by the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2014. She has authored and co-authored several articles published in books and peer-reviewe