Berna Ekal

Over the last few years Turkey has seen a changed media visibility of gendered violence, mainly reflected in news and discussions about femicides (murders of women). Once treated as fait-divers, such news now appears on the first pages, or is given the status of ‘special news’. In this process, some cases have become what we call emblematic: stories given an importance reaching far beyond the individual case and thus important in the production of politics on violence against women. Analyzing the dynamics that create emblematic cases by way of the story of Ayşe Paşalı, we argue that not only important public figures, but also ‘ordinary’ people can gain iconic status in the media; this in turn enables the media to demand, on behalf of the women’s movement, that the state take action. Here the strategy of linking ‘ordinary’ cases was picked up by the media and contributed to push the state to show engagement.

In the literature, the discussions about women’s shelters are mostly based on shelters that are led by women’s/feminist groups or other ngos. The case of Turkey enables us to conceptualize another regime of shelters that I propose to call “regime of public-run women’s shelters”. In other words, establishing and managing women’s shelters is primarily perceived to be a “public responsibility.” The aim of this article, then, is to put forward the dynamics, i.e. the demands of feminists groups and the authorities’ responses, which led to this configuration.