Women and trade unions: Participation and resistance in patriarchal organizations

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: NİHAN DAMARLI

Danışman: CANAN ASLAN AKMAN

Özet:

The purpose of this study is to examine unionist women‟s strategies of resistance to patriarchal power relations within trade unions through interviews conducted with a selected group of women unionists, in order to answer the question “how do women resist, survive, challenge, and overcome the manifestations of patriarchal power relations in trade unions?” Women unionists face certain restrictions that hinder their equal participation and representation in trade unions, develop individual and/or collective strategies of resistance, such as “carefully planning every move”, “prioritizing and planning each moment”, and “redefining and transforming unionism”, that aim at survival within hostile union environments, and/or at transforming those structures. Individual strategies are adopted by all women who aim to stay within trade unions, and the union movement in general. On the other hand, collective strategies that have the purpose of transforming trade unions into more women-friendly environments are adopted by the women who possess a level of feminist consciousness, which leads to the conclusion that feminism is the ideology that is required to be influential among union members and officials for the establishment of gender equality in trade unions.