Women’s headscarves in news photographs: A comparison between the secular and Islamic press during the AKP government in Turkey

Abstract

This article compares the visual representations of the female headscarf in Islamic and secular newspapers in Turkey during the 10-year rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)). This study is based on a content analysis of all visuals from three election periods (November 2002, July 2007 and June 2011) and two neutral time frames outside of the elections (August 2002 and August 2012). It also includes a qualitative analysis of the news articles that showed pictures of successful women wearing headscarves. The results show that the number of women wearing headscarves increased in both Islamic and secular newspapers between 2002 and 2012. The increase is not only more prominent in Islamic newspapers but the valence attached to headscarves and to the women wearing them is also qualitatively different. This article argues that the Islamic newspapers have created an image of a new ideal conservative woman that ignores the worsening conditions for women in general and AKP’s increasingly restrictive gender politics specifically.

Keywords

Gender Islam Turkish media veil visuals

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