Introduction

The year of 2013 marks one of the most significant steps to reach reconciliation and achieve peace in the history of the Republic of Turkey's ethnically based “Kurdish issue”. However, as this process ceased in mid-2015, hopes of achieving a peaceful settlement were once again dashed, and the perspective on the Kurdish issue returned to the traditionally memorized perspective of the past, and security and nationalism perspectives came to the fore. At this point, how different groups in society imagine the past and mutual perceptions in inter-groups dynamics gain importance. Additionally, polarization among women acting in different civil society organizations became more visible. Among these groups, women's perspectives display a combination of gender roles alongside their memorization of the Turkish Republic's modernization history, and their polarized arguments regarding reconciliation represent how ethnically- and religiously-based identities have shaped counter-memories of women for years. Turkey's recent history is a history of modernization, and progress in gender equality is one of its significant aspects. In this regard, it is not easy to ignore gender when considering reconciliation initiatives in Turkey's recent history (Bora 2010, 9).

In this chapter, we scrutinize narratives on the Kurdish issue and gender roles of women enrolled in the civil society sector in Turkey as two significant sub-topics in our research project.