Speaking in the international workshop, Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar said: “Muslim women’s agency, multifaceted identities, and intellectual contributions are largely ignored. Our goal is to bridge theory and practice to develop applicable, sustainable, and field-relevant policy recommendations.”
The international workshop titled “Bias and Women,” organized by the Women and Democracy Foundation (KADEM) in collaboration with the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS UK), is being held in Istanbul on August 5–6. The event addresses the multilayered biases faced by Muslim women through an interdisciplinary perspective.
Aiming to raise awareness about the biases women face, KADEM continues its efforts to promote knowledge production in this field and to provide a platform for interaction among researchers from different regions. The workshop, organized in line with this objective, is the first in KADEM’s International Policy-Making Workshop Series, launched to support ‘policy-making processes’ that aim to provide solutions to social problems by building bridges between theory and field experience.
The “Bias and Women” workshop, which explores in detail the biases faced by Muslim women in social, political, cultural, and academic spheres, addresses topics such as social exclusion, representations in popular culture, inequalities within the legal system, orientalist and Islamophobic discourses, and media’s homogenizing approaches.
The international “Bias and Women” workshop, organized with the participation of expert academics, researchers, and human rights advocates from various countries, aims not only to contribute to strengthening an approach that prioritizes inclusivity and justice in knowledge production but also to create an academic platform where the intellectual contributions of Muslim women are made visible and their plural identities are acknowledged.
KADEM Board of Trustees Chair Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, who opened the workshop, emphasized the following in her speech: “Today, Muslim women are still portrayed as either ‘incomplete,’ ‘overexposed,’ or ‘homogenous.’ Their agency, multifaceted identities, and intellectual contributions are largely ignored. At KADEM, we seek to challenge this invisibility… Our goal is to bridge theory and practice to develop applicable, sustainable, and field-relevant policy recommendations…
This workshop also marks the first step in preparing a comprehensive policy document that KADEM will publish on this issue. The knowledge, evaluations, and recommendations produced here will form the basis of long-term advocacy efforts, collaborative initiatives, and solution-oriented programs.”
At the event, KADEM Chairperson Atty. Dr. Canan Sarı responded to questions from the press and made the following statements: “In our workshop, titled Bias and Women, we discuss together how Muslim women are positioned within these multilayered systems of prejudice and how they face discrimination in law, media, cultural representation, academic production, and decision-making processes.
Each session introduced us to both new concepts and new questions. I believe that those in-depth discussions held over two days will contribute both to academic literature and to the intellectual diversity within the field of women’s rights. I also believe that this strongly reflects KADEM’s vision of supporting local knowledge production and fostering a space for critical thinking.”
KADEM’s General Manager Zeynep Demir included the following remarks in her opening speech: “Being part of a minority already means being familiar with bias. Being a woman doubles that challenge — and if you are a Muslim woman who expresses her identity openly, you step into a world that is ready to judge you without ever speaking to you.”
Demir also spoke about the reactions she encountered during her 38 years living in Germany:
“One of my teachers once asked me kindly if I was oppressed at home or if my father was going to force me into marriage. Of course, she was trying to protect me but it would never have crossed her mind to ask a German classmate whether she was oppressed at home — because in her mind, there was the cliché of the ‘oppressive Turkish father.'”
After the opening session of the workshop, the floor was given to researchers and activists from various countries around the world. Here are some of the contributors to the workshop held on August 5-6: Khaled Baydoun, listed among “The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World”; Dr. Anas Al-Shaikh-Ali, founder of the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR); Zara Mohammed, the first female Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain and recognized as one of the most influential women in the UK; Türkiye’s Ambassador to Kuwait Tuba Nur Sönmez; Jasmin Zine, Vice President of the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association (IISRA); Associate Professor Dr. Şule Albayrak; Palestinian lawyer Lamis J. Deek; and Bosnian civil society leader Sehija Dedović.
