Kübra Gümüşay née Yücel (born 28 June 1988, Hamburg)[1] is a German–Turkish blogger, author and net activist.
Kübra Gümüşay is the granddaughter of a Turkish guest worker in Germany. Her parents left Turkey because her mother was no longer allowed to work as a lecturer at Istanbul University in Turkey due to her headscarf.[2] Kübra Gümüşay studied political science in Hamburg and at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Since 2012, she has lived with her husband Ali Aslan Gümüşay in Oxford in the United Kingdom.[3] [4] She is a practising headscarf-wearing Muslim and describes herself as a German Turk and feminist.[5] [6]
Gümüşay started a blog in 2008 entitled A foreign dictionary, in which she wrote about the internet, politics, society, feminism and Islam until the end of 2019 and which was accessed up to 13,000 times a month.[7] With her blog, she wanted to "break down stereotypes" and "give a voice to those who are otherwise not in the media." 2011 wurde Ein Fremdwörterbuch für den Grimme Online Award nominiert.[8] The specialist journal Medium Magazin then voted Gümüşay one of the "Top 30 to 30" most promising young journalistic talents in Germany.[9] Ina Wunn listed Gümüşay under the headline New Paths for Muslim Women in Europe in Das Parlament among the Muslim feminist activists who "actively intervene in politics to address the discrimination of (not only) Muslim women."[10] In 2012, Deutschlandradio reported on Gümüşay in a series entitled "Formative Minds of Islam".
At the initiative of Daniel Schulz, head of department at Die Tageszeitung, Gümüşay told her stories from the world of a German Muslim woman wearing a headscarf in the regular Taz column Das Tuch from 2010 to June 2013. She compared this to the development in the women's movement. "First, a few would have to be specifically invited to participate in order to be visible and pave the way for others."[11] Matthias Matussek wrote in his debate article on integration for Spiegel Online that Gümüşay does not wear the headscarf out of submissiveness, but out of pride. She wanted to show her religion. It was her form of punk, her form of rebellion.[12]
Gümüşay was editor-in-chief of the Hamburg youth magazine Freihafen in 2008. As a freelance journalist, she has published on the topics of immigration and integration, including in Die Zeit, Migazin[13] and Mädchenmannschaft. She contributed to the debate on Thilo Sarrazin's book Deutschland schafft sich ab with a contribution to the anthology Manifest der Vielen - Deutschland erfindet sich neu edited by Hilal Sezgin.[14] In 2011, she interviewed Thilo Sarrazin as a guest on a radio program on the BBC.[15]
In 2010, Gümüşay co-founded the EU-funded network Zahnräder, which aimed to provide a platform for Muslims from business, politics, media, academia and the social sector to get to know and support each other.[16] [17]