Having encountered many deep pot-holes along its long road to democracy since the 1960s, Turkey’s renewed efforts to secure EU membership as of the late 1980s allowed it to take advantage of externally funded initiatives focusing on gender equality, minority rights and civil society formation during the 1990s. By this means Europeanization as well as generation change and new communication technologies caused the formation of a new form of civil society, in which women are more present than ever and for the first time have the potential to alter the political system radically.