Sokaktan Akademiye: Kadın Hareketinin Kurumsallaşma Süreci

Kadınların yaşamlarınıanlamlandırmanın, toplumsal rollerini ve eylemlerini açıklamanın yanısıra kadın kimliğinin oluşumunda ve biçimlendirilmesinde de etkin rol oynayan feminist hareket ile bu hareketin akademide kurumsallaşma sürecine yönelik ‘bilimde kadın’ konusu günümüzde sosyal bilimler alan yazınında yoğun olarak tartışılmaktadır. Konuya ilişkin çalışmalarda akademide kadın varlığına işaret eden sayısal verilerin yanısıra feminist söylemlerin gelişim sürecinde biçimlenişi ve uğradığıdönüşümler de ele alınmaktadır. Kadınların 18. yüzyılda küçük gruplar halinde sokak eylemleriyle başlayan mücadeleleri günümüzde akademik çalışmalarla desteklenen, yerel, bölgesel ve uluslararasıorganizasyonlar çerçevesinde etkinlik sağlayan bir biçime dönüşmüştür. Bu dönüşümde kadının konumunun insan haklarıbağlamında iyileştirilmesini ve kadın erkek ilişkisinin toplumsal cinsiyet ayrımcılığının ötesinde sağlıklıyürütülmesini amaçlayan; kadınların eğitim düzeylerinin giderek yükselmesine, eğitmen, araştırmacıve bilim kadınıstatüsünde nicel ve nitel göstergelerin artmasına yol açan köklü oluşumların katkılarısöz konusudur. Bilimsel çalışmalarda kadın hareketine ilişkin temel kavramların ve kuramların giderek daha yoğun yer almasının yanısıra yüksek öğretim kurumlarında kadın araştırmalarına yönelik merkezlerin ve birimlerin kurulmasıda kuşkusuz kadın hareketinin kurumsallaşmasına ivme kazandırmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın çıkışnoktasını, feminist kuramların ortaya çıkmasında ve kadına yönelik sosyo-politik dönüşümlerin gerçekleşmesinde etkin olan kadın hareketi ile bu etkinlik düzeyinin yükselmesi açısından önem taşıyan bilim alanındaki kurumsallaşma süreci oluşturmaktadır.

Feminism is seen as a social movement, which concerns with woman’s problems; which criticizes her being excluded in the society; humiliated, dejected, alienated to herself; and in order for this situation to be corrected, which aims to struggle with the surviving patriarchal concept, norms and values Doltaş, 1991; 83 . An essay called “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’’ published by English Wollstonecraft, who took a reference the principles of French Revolution, in 1792 is accepted a starting point of feminist movement. The work draws attention that the each individual is born with his/her equality, independence and liberty rights; however, the dominant political and social order took wrongfully these rights of individual; the dominance of men on the female gender; and the negative affects resulted from this situation Rullmann, 1996: 266 – 270 . The first wave of feminism, which was increasingly strengthened in 19th Century and which mostly concentrated on public area and voting right, stabilized in 1920s Donovan, 1997: 121 . In the late 1960s, the process, which was flamed again and called “the second wave of feminism” began the marches toward acquiring the political rights and extended with the movements of civilian rights Whaley, 2003: 186 . In this period, it was seen that feminist agencies formed in the past were begun to go into action. The rapid growth economic development experienced in capitalist countries in postwar the Second World War prepared material conditions of the second wave of feminist movement. That a number of women work and participate in the feminist movement became effective on their concrete life practices and consciousness levels. However, the fact that that acquiring the basic rights was not sufficient to rescue the women from their subordinate position and did not modify both the distinct wages based on gender in the work life and the extra labor load in the house was begun to be seen from women. In 1970s, in the discussions of Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Postmodernism and so on and different opinion movements, it was seen that the arguments developed toward women’s problems and relationships between genders converged. The movement point of these thoughts and arguments is the political basis of problem, the effects of political phenomena and the effects of these effects on the individuals Kadıoğlu, 2005: 139 . In the other words, in this period, analysis was realized on the power balance between women and men. In USA and continental Europe, the ideological action of second wave of feminist movement beginning in 1960s and accelerating in 1970s shifted toward academic area in 1980s. Beginning from the early 1980s, in the departments and units focused on women research, sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists began to study the causes of falling of women to the subordinate position and their studies toward eliminating this situation, to become effective in academic area Özbudun, 1987: 16 . The women began to act in order to rescue the science from being an area specific to men, to make apparent the experiences of women, to produce knowledge for themselves and on the names of them Eroğlu, 2004: 26 . Development and institutionalism of feminist movements points out the change of approach toward “women” and women’s problem in a certain historical process. That the research of interest are included in the scope of academic discipline involved a difficult process. Delay in the participation of women in educational process and not being improved of togetherness of the science and woman required an intensive effort targeting to challenge the impediments toward the women. First started struggle toward the right of education and instruction, after acquiring the right of high education, reached the zenith with desire of women to demonstrate themselves in scientific areas. The desire of women taking place in high education process to proceed in the scientific areas conveyed the women movement, limited street demonstrations at the beginning, to institutionalism level in academic area. That the women realize high educational efforts and scientific researches has accelerated feminist researches and allowed to be regarded the women's problem with different perspectives and the concept social gender to take place its agenda. Feminist researches were realized toward reaching theoretical analysis and data, which increasingly have a practical and useful attributes. One of the objectives of feminism for institutionalizing is to form a method addressing to the quality of researcher, and in which the observations and thoughts of the researcher, and what is reached are considered, or to develop and renew the existing methods in this line. In the direction of this objective, the desire of feminist movements to take place in the scientific area, and to be effective leaded to emerge a new discipline called “academic feminism”. Academic feminism is accepted as an arm of feminist movement, its extension of it in the scientific area Hemmings, 2006