Turkish Women, West German Feminists, and the Gendered Discourse on Muslim Cultural Difference

A striking aspect of contemporary European debates about immigrants is the focus on the Muslim woman as the key figure through which objections to Islamic cultural difference have been articulated. This article traces how sexual politics became central to German public debates about guest worker migrants. It shows how Turkish women became a central trope for representing the fundamental cultural differences between Turks and Germans and explores the somewhat surprising hand that feminists had in facilitating this line of thinking.