The politicization of rape as a consequence of western modernity and religious conservatism: Competing media narratives on gender

Through a feminist critical discourse analysis of newspaper columns from both secular/nationalist and religio-conservative outlets, this paper illustrates how the issue of increased violence against women that was made visible by the attempted rape and murder of a young university student, Özgecan Aslan, was instrumentalized by secular media outlets to critique the current government’s conservative family policies based on Islamic principles, while conservative pro-government media outlets used the murder both as a moral tale about the importance of a devout, humble life devoid of consumerism and other temptations of modern life that encourage lewd behavior. While patriarchy was not addressed as a root problem for rape, Özgecan Aslan ended up becoming a polarizing and tragic symbol of the consequences of either Western modernity or conservative Islamism, depending on the ideological composition of the media outlet in question, further helping both sides to legitimize their versions of patriarchy.