Kadem's Vision of Gender Justice and Neopatriarchal Masculinity in Illiberal Turkey

Abstract

Women's and LGBTI + rights have always been under attack in Turkey, but recent developments in AKP's attempts to consolidate a pro-family, pro-birth, and Islamist gender regime based on the 'moral' regulation of women and LGBTI + creates an atmosphere that must be examined in detail. KADEM, a women's GONGO established in 2013, plays a crucial role in this anti-gender backlash context, positioning their line of action as a challenge to the global feminist attempts to impose Western standards on Turkish society while advocating for women's rights from a culturalist position. We analyse KADEM's construction of men and masculinities in the materials on their website to understand their strategies of legitimisation of a form of neopatriarchal masculinity along the traditional 'family values' to see how KADEM serves as a transmitter of an Islamic neopatriarchal culture, with its implicit justifications of men's patriarchal roles and duties in a neoliberal society.