Development & Empowerment of Rural Women's Organizations in Turkey

This Study analyzes the conditions, problems and potential of rural women¿s empowerment through a sample of rural women¿s organizations (two women¿s cooperative, seven rural development cooperative and one village women association) with a socialist feminist perspective. In this study, it is stated that the agricultural sector policies and rural development policy were constructed in relation with the conditions of underdevelopment in Turkey. It is notable that these policies are formulated without taking precautions for the survival of small sized farming households in rural areas. Despite these general influences of underdevelopment to Turkish Agricultural Sector and patriarchal ideology, these women¿s organizations could be successful to some extent empowering their members with the recognized dimensions of empowerment such as; psychological, economical, social, organizational and political. With this study, it could be said that while economic empowerment and psychological empowerment are the base of all dimensions of empowerment, social empowerment and organizational empowerment are the most dynamic processes of empowerment and political empowerment is the hardest to achieve.