The European standard of gender equality in Turkey: Harmonization, cross-fertilization or reputational reforms?

Intra-conservative Bloc Contestations on Gender Equality in Turkey – Norm Reception in Fragmented Normative Orders

“…They even questioned the traditional interpretations of Islam on gender and defended appropriating modern egalitarian values based on both equality and women’s difference (Aksoy, 2015: 156; Arat, 2016; Simga and Goker, 2017). However, such an appropriation was not welcomed by all conservatives, who are acting as the members of anti-modernist social forces stamping every step taken for the sake of women’s empowerment as a cultural decline since the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman era, the initial point of Turkish modernization (Scotti and Roma, 2021: 3–4).…”

“…Reforms for EU membership carried out on the basis of gender mainstreaming approach (Uzgören, 2021: 118) and they clearly symbolized a new phase regarding women’s rights in Turkey, primarily with the changes in the legal framework, namely in the Penal Code, Civil Code, Labour Code, Family Law, and Municipality Law (Bozkurt, 2007: 24–25). A lot of progressive steps, such as the supremacy of men within family ended and the penalties given to the sexual offences were severed, were taken to eliminate the patriarchal norms from the existing legislation (Scotti and Roma, 2021: 5). The freedom zone of women extended extensively with these democratic reforms pioneered by AKP (Koyuncu and Özman, 2018: 1).…”