Contesting State-Led Patriarchy—The Drivers, Demands and Dynamics of Women’s Participation in the Gezi Uprisings in Turkey 2013

Abstract

The Gezi Park protests in Istanbul (Türkiye) gained worldwide attention in 2013. Both men and women took part in the protests, which were heavily cracked down on by the government. The present study examined 273 Turkish women’s attitudes and motivations for taking part in the protests. The results show that the following variables had a significant impact on protest participation: lifestyle threats posed by religious values/norms and by the government; feelings of marginalization as a woman; political dissatisfaction; gender discrimination; and affiliations with feminism. Regarding the impact of attitudes on women’s political participation and discrimination, this study provides insights into the state of research on gender discrimination and feministic identity.

1. Introduction

Due to increasing global challenges, such as growing levels of social inequality or the rise of nationalist and fundamentalist groups as well as ideologies, social movements have become increasingly visible in the last few years. Consequently, social research focuses increasingly on the emergence, mobilization, aims and means of those movements. During this process, one of the major flaws within contemporary forms of social activism has been revealed: the issues of gender equality and women’s rights often appear to be neglected within the agendas of social movements. Such movements, however, often instigate processes of societal transformation that aim to establish just and fair forms of social organization. Disregarding gender equality as a fundamental prerequisite to social justice undermines the transformative potential of social activism, as it commonly means that issues such as gender justice are deferred until after protest actions, and even remain as low priorities within transformative processes. Manjima Bhattacharjya and others argue in this regard that hierarchies of rights and demands are still common within social movements and emphasize that “(g)ender justice and women’s rights still tend to get pushed downwards these hierarchies” [1]. This article starts from the assumption that acknowledging the complexity of gendered structures within social activism is a key driver of change, as gender inequality is central to all other forms of injustice that social movements intend to overcome.

In order to gain an understanding of the gendered structures of social activism, we conducted a study on the participation of women in the Gezi protests in Istanbul. The events surrounding the Gezi Park protests were extensively reported in the media worldwide. In the scientific studies on this, either gender-typical aspects were not deepened in the few empirical studies or socio-psychological theories on protest participation were focused on [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Furthermore, there are mainly descriptive analyses or theoretical considerations regarding the role of women in the protests [8,9,10]. For the first time, this study investigates the drivers and dynamics of women’s participation in the protests. Moreover, we will explore in this paper in how far the Gezi protests were utilized as a platform to articulate female demands and concerns. Finally, we will examine if and how those demands relate to Turkish women that did not participate in the protests. Therefore, the differences between both groups about their political opinions, demands and wishes for the socio-political transformation of Turkish society are being investigated. Unfortunately, due to the research design, this article can only address the situation at the time of the Gezi Park protests. Regarding the subsequent developments in Turkey, reference must be made to, for example, Gokemenoglu, who refers in detail to Turkey’s 2017 constitutional referendum [11].

2. The Gezi Protests and the Visibility of Women

On 27 May 2013, the first Caterpillars arrived at Gezi Park to raze it to the ground. The destruction of the park, which was to be replaced by Ottoman-era military barracks hosting a shopping mall, was just one of many urban transformation projects in Istanbul that have been instigated under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) since 2002. Others include the building of a third Bosporus Bridge, a new airport and the Marmaray subway [12]. All of those billion-dollar projects were planned and designed behind closed doors and without civilian consent, and reveal the “neoliberal politics of space”, which characterized the agenda of the Turkish government under Prime Minister Erdogğan [13]. The political priorities of the AKP government provided for an increasingly authoritarian form of governance, as well as a growing corruptive political elite that gradually lost sight of the discontent that disseminated throughout society. Consequently, when, on 31 May, the police were entitled to literally force out a small group of environmental activists that occupied the park by setting their tents on fire and utilizing high-pressure water cannons and large amounts of tear gas, more than ten thousand people gathered in Taksim to demonstrate their solidarity with the attacked protestors [12]. Therefore, what started out as a low-profile environmentalist protest soon turned into a public manifestation of discontent with the arbitrary style of governance of the AKP rule. The Gezi protests became the long-aspired platform for Turkish citizens to articulate their dissatisfaction about various aspects of Turkey’s political regime.

According to a KONDA poll ¹, 51 percent of the protest participants were women, and their visibility soon became a popular issue in the media coverage of the protests. The appearance and courage of these women attracted the world’s attention, and some of them were even chosen to become the symbols of the peaceful protests that patiently and bravely contested the violent state apparatus: there was the woman in the red dress who was head-on “tear-gassed” by a police man; there was the woman in a black dress who stood bravely in front of a TOMA to contest police violence; and there was the so-called “riot-granny” who was arrested for showing her support to the protesting crowd by catapulting stones at police vehicles. Despite the attention that the high visibility of women in the societal upheavals around the country received, only very few scholars have given input on the actual contents of female protest participation in the Gezi Park uprisings so far. Bilal and Nahrwold, for example, discuss a feminist perspective on citizenship in the context of the Gezi Park protests and argue that the protests gave an opportunity to women and other marginalized groups in Turkish society, such as the LGBTIA+ community, to enter the male-dominated public space and claim their rights as citizens [14]. Erhart, moreover, briefly examines the implications of biopolitics on the Gezi Park protests [15]. Erhart argues that the political interventions on female body and personal life-style decisions such as sex and reproduction motivated women to participate in the protests, and claims that the Gezi protest will have a long-term effect on Turkey’s politics with reference to women’s issues. Lastly, Acar and Ulug argue that the Gezi Park protests provided a great opportunity for female activists to articulate their demands, but that, more importantly, the protests were a unique feminist project, as they instigated the politicization of the social identities of women in Turkey [16].

While the presented literature offers insightful and thought-provoking arguments on the motivation and contents of women’s participation in the Gezi uprisings, it appears to lack empirical support. The current study aims to fill this gap by providing empirical data that reflects the voices of the research subjects, namely female protest participants, themselves. Moreover, this study contributes a particularly interesting component to the academic debate on the issue by comparing the perceptions and aspirations of female protest participants to women that did not participate.

3. Gezi Protests: A Space of Opportunities and Agency for Women in Turkey

The Gezi protests shine a light on the many challenges that Turkey is facing today in terms of the democratization process of the country. The increasing patriarchal structures that are inherent within Turkish society, however, have only received little attention within the political debate around the uprisings. Nevertheless, it is crucial to assess the link between the gender equality discourse and the democratisation process in Turkey, as the public discourse in the country is increasingly dominated by patriarchal norms and values that reinforce the concept of male superiority and female inferiority, and therefore pose major obstacles to the democratic hallmarks of Turkish society. Dönmez argues in this regard that “Turkey’s democratization process is problematic due to the masculine nature of the state and its political regime, by which the state perceives itself to be the guardian of society” [17]. This masculine nature is revealed within statements such as “I am calling on those sisters who are devoted to our cause. Come, please donate to this nation at least three children”, by PM Erdoğan [18]. Erdoğan in particular embodies a type of masculinity which aims to create unity amongst the broad masses of his advocates, and which results in the perception that society needs to be protected by him. “With an aggressive, uncompromising, and domineering “personality”, he aspires to act as every citizen’s father, brother, and husband”, putting “protected populations (i.e., women and children) in a subordinate position of dependence and compliance” [17,19]. This patriarchal discourse is being reinforced through political interventions that are directed at women’s bodies, sexuality and role in society, such as a proposed ban on abortion, which has partially translated into action without even being officially passed in parliament. The participation of women in the popular uprisings around Gezi Park therefore can be seen as an articulation of women’s discontent with the state-led patriarchy.

Arat’s “democratic paradox” provides the overarching theoretical framework to this study, as it helps us to gain an understanding of the context within which the study takes place. Arat argues that the expansion of religious freedoms in Turkish society, fostered through patriarchal societal structures and values, led to a cultural transformation that undermines gender equality by “confining women to the domestic realm” and “compromising women’s agency” [20]. Further, Arat argues that the conservative and patriarchal mindsets, which are being reproduced within the political sphere in Turkey, resonate particularly well with “orthodox interpretations of religious texts, encouraging maternal roles and restricting substantive opportunities for women” [20]. Kandiyoti also discusses the issue of patriarchy, claiming that, in environments within which the patriarchal value system rests on shaky grounds, reinforcing female subordination functions as means to secure male hegemony [21]. For the case of Turkey, one can argue that the traditional patriarchal structures of society have been challenged first and foremost by the legislative progress that took place in terms of women’s issues since the establishment of the republic in the 1920s. Moreover, as Kandiyoti argues, the visibility of women in the public sphere, as well as their aspiration to achieve educational and professional attainment and increase their political participation, managed to contest the patriarchal hallmarks in Turkey over the last century. Thus, the reinforcement of patriarchal structures through the propagation of religious values is an attempt to revitalize male hegemony. Kandiyoti calls this process “masculinist restoration”, and argues that it “requires a higher level of coercion and the deployment of more varied ideological state apparatuses to ensure its reproduction” [21]. In the case of Turkey, it appears that what Arat has identified as a cultural transformation within the country increasingly takes the form of a masculinist restoration pushed forward through the reinforcement of patriarchal religious values. This article therefore investigates how far female protest participation in Turkey can challenge and contest what Kandiyoti called elsewhere “patriarchy-as-governance” [22].

Moreover, Bodur and Franceschet argue that the exclusion of women from the social and political spheres of society, reinforced through patriarchal values and norms, does not sufficiently explain why women participate in movements or protests at certain times [23]. Rather, the authors argue that the participation of women in social upheavals requires a “political opportunity structure”, within which the demands and concerns of women can be articulated and activism can emerge [23]. Moreover, the authors argue that the gender regime in a country forms parts of the political opportunity structures, and female protest emerges predominantly if the prevailing gender ideologies are not consistent with the lived experiences of women. Regarding the Gezi Park protests, this approach indicates that women felt the need to participate in the protests to articulate their frustration about the rising gap between the existing legislation and their individual social realities. This appears plausible regarding the increasing “gender gap” within most spaces of Turkish society, which is an issue that is hardly being addressed by the ruling party under Erdoğan. On the contrary, and as mentioned earlier, the prime minister himself has continuously enraged women in Turkey by calling on them to confine themselves to their traditional gender role as mothers, which is provided by the patriarchal conservative value system that he represents. Moreover, women in Turkey are facing a substantial gap between the rather progressive legislation of the country and women’s lived experiences. Issues such as domestic violence, honour crimes and economic insecurity dominate the social realities of women all around the country. As reports have shown, the murder rates of women in Turkey increased by 1400 percent between 2002 and 2009 [21]. Between 2013 and 2022, the femicide rate continued to rise, with a total of 3.035 women being killed [24]. Moreover, Kandiyoti claims that investigations of those atrocities clearly indicate that “female disobedience and insubordination” (ibid.) are motivations for violence against women, underlining the fact that Turkey’s societal structures rely strongly on patriarchal values that perpetuate female subordination while reinforcing hegemonic masculinity [21]. Thus, the high visibility of women during the protests is assumed to be responsive to those developments and carry a strong political meaning against the political agenda of PM Erdoğan and the ruling party that continues to marginalize women within Turkish society.

While Bodur and Franceschet’s approach offers an insightful perspective on the emergence of female protest, we argue that it lacks an understanding of the aspect of agency within political actions. In this article, we therefore seek to investigate the relationship between structure and agency and its effects on women in social movements. Based on Moghadam, who claims that there is an interactive relationship between structure and agency in times of social change that necessitates the link between structural changes taking place within societies and the consciousness of the actors involved, we argue that female protest participation in the Gezi uprisings was triggered by the growing awareness of the marginalization of women within the public sphere in Turkey, as well as women’s increasing conscious of their own agency within the given societal structures [25].

4. Research Design and Methodological Approach

This study is based on data collected during fieldwork research in Istanbul over a period of four weeks in May 2014. It utilizes a cross-sectional survey design to assess the drivers of female protest participation in the Gezi Park protests and to gather a comparative perspective on participants and non-participants. In particular, for the analysis of the special motivating features of the protest participants, a sample is required that shows differences in participation (none, partial and intensive). The surveys (59 items) were distributed by hand via the so-called “snowball” principle during the time of the investigation in Istanbul. Moreover, an online version of the survey using the Internet-based survey creator freeonlinesurvey.com (accessed on 5 May 2014) was produced. All questions provide multiple response options and most of them are rated on a four-point Likert-type scale (e.g., strongly agree/agree to some extent/slightly disagree/strongly disagree). The following content was queried: socio-demographic background; personality; locus of control; interest in and attitudes towards politics; current social, religious and political problems; feminism; equal rights and government; discrimination; experiences of (sexual) violence; and experiences during the protests, personal participation in the protest and feminist attitudes (see Supplementary Materials). One open-ended question at the end of the survey was included to give the respondents the opportunity to express their aspirations in terms of gender equality in Turkey in their own words. A total of 271 women participated in the survey. The socio-demographic background of the sample is presented in

Table 1. Demographic background.

Item	Frequencies (%)
Age	14–20	21–25	26–30	31–40	>40
	29.5	40.1	15.2	6.6	8.5
Religion	Atheist	Alevi	Islam	Christian	Other
	45.4	1.5	43.9	0.8	8.4
Gezi Park protest Involvement (N = 281)	Very strong	Somewhat strongly	Not very strongly	Not at all
	39.5	29.9	17.4	13.2
Education	No formal ed.	Primary school	Middle school	High school	College
	0.4	1.1	3.3	48.0	47.2
Relationship	Single	In relationship	Married	Divorced
	51.3	36.9	10	1.8
No. of Children	0	1	2	3	>3
	93.4	3.3	2.2	0.4	0.7
Living Situation	Alone	With partner	With children	Shared living	With parents
	14.8	11.8	1.1	28	44.3
Employment	Student	Employed	Employed	Domestic	Unemployed	Unable	Other
		Full-time	Part-time	Work
	66.4	22.5	4.4	1.1	1.8	1.5	2.2

. It shows that few women in the sample did not take part in the protests. For us, this subgroup represents a non-controlled and non-randomized comparison group. Therefore, non-parametric statistical analyses were used. During the violent situation at that time, it was not possible otherwise within the framework of field research.

The software program SPSS 21 was used for data processing and statistical analysis. In order to gain robust effects for the hypotheses, Spearman’s rank correlation was conducted to examine the assumed correlations. The nonparametric and robust Mann–Whitney U test was used to calculate group differences (e.g., participation vs. non participation).

Based on the findings presented, we have derived five hypotheses that aim to explain why certain women participated in the protests while others refrained from them:

• The more women consider religious norms and values as a threat to the current lifestyle of women in Turkey, the more likely it is that they participated in the Gezi Park protests;
• The more women feel restricted in their lifestyle choices by the current government, the more likely it is that they participated in the Gezi Park protests;
• The stronger women feel marginalized by and dissatisfied with the politics of the current government, the more likely it is that they participated in the Gezi protests;
• The more women feel discriminated against on grounds of their gender, the more likely it is that they participated in the Gezi Park protests;
• The more women in Turkey feel affiliated with feminism, the more likely it is that they participated in the Gezi protests.

5. Results and Theoretical Embedding

To make the complex results clear, they are placed directly into a theoretical and empirical framework. Accordingly, in the concluding discussion, only meta-theoretical and methodical classifications are addressed.

5.1. Results of Hypothesis 1

Based on Arat’s assumption that the increasing intertwining of religion and politics in Turkey is posing a threat to gender equality in the country, we generated the hypothesis that women who participated in the Gezi protests are likely to consider the expansion of religious norms and values within Turkish society as threatening regarding the current lifestyle of women in the country. Arat argues in this regard that the political decision-making apparatus within the ruling party in Turkey is influenced by a patriarchal religious value system that the party is obliged to. Many of the AKP leaders such as former PM Erdoğan, Arat reveals, received their education in religious institutions, such as “Prayer Leader and Preacher Schools”, which “promote maternal roles and the segregation of the sexes and sanction men’s control over women’s bodies as well as their ‘honour’” [20]. Moreover, the ruling party deploys large numbers of its male advocates and members into public institutions, such as civil service and schools, “infiltrating the state bureaucracy and the educational institutions” (ibid.) with conservative religious values that sanction a secondary status to women. The rather rapid expansion of religious values within Turkey’s political system thus fosters interventions into the personal lifestyle choices of women and, at the same time, legitimizes the political agenda of the AKP. It is then when the personal becomes political, as political decisions directly target the female body and are legitimized not through civil consent but in the name of religion. This directs to us towards the particular challenges that the increasing intertwining of politics and religion present to the lives of women in Turkey, as sanctioning women’s traditional role within the realm of the family limits their opportunities outside the home. With regard to the first hypothesis, our research indicates that 64.5 percent of the women who participated in the survey strongly agree that religious values and norms are threating the current lifestyle of women in contemporary Turkey (n = 271). However, utilizing the extreme group approach reveals that women who participated actively in the protests (mean rank = 62.95) perceive religion as a significantly greater threat to women’s lifestyles than those who did not at all (mean rank = 98.65; Mann–Whitney U Test = 913.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). Moreover, protest participation significantly correlates (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.25, p = 0.000, one-tailed) with the opinion that religious norms and values pose a threat to women’s lifestyles in contemporary Turkish society. These findings are thus supportive of the assumption that the contestation of the expansion of religious values and norms into personal lifestyle choices constitutes one of the major drivers of female protest participation in the Gezi protests. This assumption appears to be particularly common among women who are not committed to religious norms in a way that those norms affect their personal lifestyle choices, such as wearing a headscarf. Those women, who constitute the majority of women participating in the Gezi protests, consider religious norms and values as threats, as they fear that their own lifestyles will be exposed to increasing intolerance within Turkish society due to the expansion of religious freedoms. Arat argues in this context that “In Turkey, where about 70 percent of women cover their hair, secular women who do not can feel the pressure to do so, as head covering receives increasing legitimacy” [20]. This is also expressed within many of the responses to the open question in the survey, for example, the following:

“I don’t want us women to be restricted because of religion. I don’t want to be shut down or hidden. I want to feel comfortable when I wear a skirt or a dress. I want to feel beautiful without men looking at me with judgmental eyes or worse looking like a pervert”

(survey respondent).

While the study at hand supports Arat’s claim that the intertwining of religion and politics in Turkey “inevitably affects women’s opportunities”, it appears important to stress the point that there are different ways in which the teaching of Islam can be interpreted, and not all of them inevitably pose a threat to gender equality [20]. Nilufer Göle thus offers a different view on the implications of an increasing intertwining of politics and religion for women in Turkey [26]. Göle argues that Islamism in a Muslim country like Turkey also offers opportunities for women to enter the public sphere: “To a certain extent, Islamism provides ideological legitimacy for women’s newly acquired public roles” [26]. According to Göle, the more Islamist women are visible in the public sphere, the more they are able to break with traditional gender roles and claim their rights. Therefore, the intertwining of politics and religion can enable women to leave the isolated spaces of womanhood and take on new roles without relying on men. Thereby, Muslim women can turn the “categories of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ upside-down and subsequently disrupting gender relations within the community” [26]. Thus, Göle’s approach challenges Arat’s assumption of a general Islamization of society that eventually poses a threat to gender equality, by arguing that Muslim women do not simply accept the gender norms provided by religious authorities but “develop their own subjectivity and personal life strategies, breaking the pre-established boundaries of the all-encompassing category of the “generalized Muslim other” [26].

The findings of this research have shown that female protestors within the Gezi movement were not able to overcome the secular–religious divide, which has been utilized by the government at different occasions to polarize Turkish society into pious non-protestors and immoral protestors. For example, former PM Erdoğan used the rumour about an attack on a veiled woman by protestors in the district Kabataş as means to delegitimize the protests through statements such as the following: “They beat my girls wearing headscarves, they entered our mosques with their beer and their shoes” [27]. Moreover, investigations of the Gezi movement show that women wearing headscarves largely refrained from the protests [28]. Based on the research findings, it appears that the Gezi protests did not constitute the right platform for them to articulate their specific demands and concerns. One of the respondents, for example, even emphasized that she felt singled-out by the movement:

“What I wear should not be important for others. When I wear my headscarf, I don’t want other people to judge me by saying that I’m uncultured or bigot. This has happened to me three times since Gezi protests started. Gezi protestors only want things for their benefit, and they do not have any respect for religious people”

(survey respondent).

Therefore, the current study suggests that if the Gezi movement aimed to be a truly democratic project, it would have needed to find a way that plural and multifaceted demands, such as those of secular women as well as of those of Muslim women, can co-exist and flourish hand in hand. To use Göle’s words, “(d)emocracy depends on finding ways of cohabitation and sharing spaces (…) among different cultural programs” [26]. The active participation of women in social upheavals can play a vital role in bringing together the demands and concerns of women from different cultural understandings and religious backgrounds once this issue is addressed in the form of a dialogue between the groups.

5.2. Results of Hypothesis 2

As investigations of the gender equality discourse in Turkey indicate, women have been increasingly targeted by political interventions into their personal lifestyle choices before, during and in the aftermath of the Gezi protests. As mentioned before, politicians such as former PM Erdoğan increasingly took it upon themselves to turn their personal priorities into political decisions, for example, by publicly denouncing abortion as murder. Therefore, it is argued that the perceived restrictions on the personal lifestyle choices of women appear to be a major driver of female protest participation in the Gezi movement. The findings of the current study suggest that 64.4 percent of the respondents strongly agree that the current government is restricting their lifestyle to a great extent (n = 270). However, the extreme group approach indicates that women who participated in the protests (mean rank = 61.15) consider the government’s interference in their lifestyle choices a significantly bigger problem than those who did not (mean rank = 103.23; Mann–Whitney U Test = 718.500, p = 0.000, two-tailed). Moreover, the findings reveal a strongly significant correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.34, p = 0.000, one-tailed) between participation in the protests and the perception that the current government is restricting the lifestyle choices of women in Turkey. These findings are thus supportive of the proposed hypothesis and confirm Bodur and Francechet’s claim that the existing gender discourse constitutes a means of mobilization for female protest, “especially when there are contradictions between the prevailing ideology and women’s daily life” [23]. A representative of the Sosyalist Feminist Kolektif (SFK) in Istanbul, who participated in the current study, underlined this assumption by emphasizing that many women in Turkey perceive political intentions by the government, such as the abortion act, as interventions on their bodies. Accordingly, the increase in political interventions into the lifestyle choices of women constitute a contradiction to the underlying gender ideology, which is manifested within Turkey’s constitution and, theoretically, provides for the total equality of men and women. Therefore, it can be argued that the fractures within Turkey’s gender ideology, provoked through arbitrary political decision making, made up a large part of the political opportunity structures within which the participation of women in the Gezi protests emerged. At this point, it appears plausible to refer to the issue of female economic exclusion in Turkey, which indicates strongly how personal lifestyle choices are influenced, and in part determined, by policy-making processes in Turkey. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2013, Turkey’s gender gap in the sub-index “Economic Participation and Opportunity” is amongst the widest in the world, with Turkey ranking 127th out of 135 countries. In 2022, the global gender gap index for Turkey was 0.64. It increased from 0.58 in 2007 to 0.64 in 2022, growing at an average annual rate of 0.75 percent [29]. This also corresponds with the sub-index, the “Economic Participation and Opportunity index”, which ranked Turkey 134th out of 146 countries in 2022 [29].

Women are particularly disadvantaged in terms of labour force participation, as rates of female employment have decreased continuously since 1988 [29,30]. In contemporary Turkey, only 30 percent of women participate in the labour force [31]. Moreover, the gap between the estimated earned income of female and male labour is increasing strongly, with women earning an average of USD 8053, while men earned an average of USD 27,597 per year in 2013 [31]. One of the major challenges of female labour force participation appears to be the lack of welfare state facilities, such as childcare and social security, which is a direct result of Turkey’s commitment to neoliberal policies under AKP rule. According to Coşar and Yeğenoğlu, the intertwining of Turkey’s neoliberal premise and the predominantly patriarchal ideologies that are inherent within multiple levels of Turkish society constitute enormous obstacles for women to enter the labour market [32]. Coşar and Yeğenoğlu argue in this regard that the exclusion of women prior to the introduction of neoliberal policies to the country was merely “transformed into exploitation through partial/flexible inclusion with no room for security claim” [32]. In this way, women in contemporary Turkey are asked both “to enter the labour force and to stay at home” and eventually end up carrying a double burden to “adjust to the increasingly flexible market conditions, while maintaining the normalised wifehood and motherhood roles” [32]. This is also indicated by the fact that, according to data from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “57.2% of women are working in the agriculture sector and 50% of the women working in agriculture are part of family work force without wage” [33]. Through statements of respondents such as the following, the current research reveals just how pressing this issue is for many women in contemporary Turkey:

“Policies to avoid gendered division of labour should be developed by the state and society. In my opinion, as far as this division continues, emancipation of women and equality among men and women (can) not be achieved”

(survey respondent).

5.3. Results of Hypothesis 3

The various political interventions on women’s bodies and lifestyles by the AKP reveal the masculine nature of the political regime in Turkey. As the discontent regarding the marginal position within the political sphere amongst women in Turkey is increasing, we assumed that women who consciously experience and witness female marginalization from the male-dominated political arena felt a greater need to contest the patriarchal forms of governance through protest participation. The current study is supportive of this assumption, as the findings suggest a significant correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.83, p = 0.000, one-tailed) between female protest participation and the extent to which women in Turkey trust their current government (n = 271). Moreover, the extreme group approach reveals that women who did not participate in the protests (mean rank = 42.29) trust the government to a significantly higher degree than those who participated actively in the protests (mean rank = 80.69; Mann–Whitney U Test = 843.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). The findings also show a significant negative correlation between the extent to which women are satisfied with the present status of the democratic system in Turkey and their participation in the Gezi protests (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.29, p = 0.000, one-tailed, n = 271). This correlation indicates that the less women are satisfied with the current political environment, the greater was their involvement in the protests. Again, the extreme group approach shows that those women who did not participate in the Gezi protests (mean rank = 48.03) are more satisfied with the status of Turkey’s democratic system than those that did (mean rank = 78.89; Mann–Whitney U Test = 1038.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). Moreover, the findings show a significant correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.23, p = 0.000, one-tailed) between the perception that women are strongly discriminated against in Turkish politics and female protest participation (n = 271), while women who participated in the protests (mean rank = 64.16) consider the discrimination of women in the political sphere a bigger issue than those who did not (mean rank = 94.82; Mann–Whitney U Test = 1043.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). These findings thus support the above stated hypothesis and reveal that female protest participation in the Gezi protests needs to be discussed in the context of Turkey’s “gender-based democratic deficit” [34]. To exemplify this assumption, it appears plausible to elaborate on the development of gender policy under AKP rule. The party’s attitude towards women’s rights issues was rather open-minded and even collaborative in the beginning, motivated by the pro-EU reforms that the AKP was pursuing. However, as Coşar and Yeğenoğlu argue, “the party’s stance gradually evolved from an expressed willingness for cooperation to lack of interest, and at times, hostility toward feminist demands” [32]. For example, when women’s organizations rallied for the implementation of gender quotas in political institutions, the activists were met with hostility and resentment as they were accused of deepening the conflict lines between men and women by positively discriminating women. The vice-chair of the AKP, Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, argued in this regard that “We do not support the conflict that is created by feminist thought between women and men. The women of [AKP] have not been and never will be enslaved to feminist ideology” [32]. As outlined by Coşar and Yeğenoğlu, the ruling party under PM Erdoğan defines women’s rights primarily based on their role within the family. Consequently, the issue of gender equality is neglected strongly by the ruling party, as the political agenda regarding women’s issues is clearly set on family politics and, moreover, restricted to it. The decreasing emphasis on women’s issues within Turkish politics, for example, became obvious when, in 2011, the Turkish government initiated the replacement of the “Ministry of Women and Family” with the “Ministry of Family and Social Policies” [35]. Since 2021, the “Ministry of Family and Social Policies” has been renamed to the “Ministry of Family and Social Services”. While the previous ministry was dedicated to work on issues that directly addressed the social realities of women within Turkish society as well as family politics, the new ministry integrates issues concerning children, the elderly, the disabled, veterans and family as well as women. Gauri van Gulik, a women’s rights advocate and Human Rights Watch researcher, therefore contends that “The Turkish government’s decision to scrap the Ministry for Women flies in the face of research showing major shortcomings on women’s rights and horrendous violence against women. Women in Turkey need more determined action by the government, not less, to protect women’s rights in practice” [35]. Because of the strong marginalisation of women from the political sphere, women in Turkey feel increasingly disadvantaged in the political decision-making process, and many of them took their discontent to the streets during the Gezi protests.

5.4. Results of Hypothesis 4

The illustrated socio-political processes that facilitate the restoration of hegemonic masculinity within the public spheres of Turkish society implicate a further widening of Turkey’s gender gap. The current study, however, reveals that the illustrated transformation process unleashed discontent and anger amongst women in Turkey, and therefore, we suggest that women who are aware of the discrimination they experience on the grounds of their gender were likely to participate in the protests. The findings of this research are supportive of the stated hypothesis, as they indicate a significant correlation between female protest participation and the perception of being treated unfairly on the grounds of one’s gender (Spearman correlation, r = 0.23, p = 0.000, one-tailed, n = 271). Utilizing the extreme group approach moreover reveals that women who actively participated in the protests (mean rank = 65.73) tend to feel treated unfairly due to their gender significantly more frequently than women who did not participate at all (mean rank = 89.82; Mann–Whitney U Test = 1213.000; p = 0.002, two-tailed). These findings again need to be put into perspective with regard to the conservative agenda of the government, which has increasingly reduced the female body to “a site of biological and labour reproduction” and consequently resulted in a lack of opportunities for women within the public sphere, and at the same time, reinforces what Kandiyoti calls the masculine restoration of the Turkish state and society [36]. The fact that women perceive this societal transformation as alarming is reflected within the research findings, as there is a significant negative correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.22, p = 0.000, one-tailed) between the perception that women and men are mostly equal in Turkey and the involvement of women in the Gezi protests (n = 270). Therefore, it is possible to argue that women who participated actively in the uprisings (mean rank = 78.11) feel more concerned about the gender inequality within the country than those that did not (mean rank = 47.73; Mann–Whitney U test = 1014.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). The findings also reveal a significant correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.19, p = 0.001, one-tailed) between protest participation and the perception that Turkey is currently taking steps backwards in terms of gender equality (n = 271). The extreme group approach underlines this finding, indicating that women who did participate actively (mean rank = 62.80) are more convinced that gender equality in Turkey is diminishing than women who did not (mean rank = 99.15; Mann–Whitney U test = 869.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed). Therefore, the current study confirms our assumption that women were driven to participate in the protests by their aspiration to protect what has been achieved in terms of gender equality over the years. At this point, it appears plausible to reflect upon the work of Bilal and Nahrwood. As mentioned earlier, the authors investigate the Gezi protests through the concept of citizenship, arguing that, while the political discourse around citizenship generally appears to be “gender-neutral”, it is in fact deeply influenced by patriarchal and hetero-normative gender norms. This is a particularly important finding with reference to the right to access and move within public space. Public space in Turkey is “dominated by heterosexual male norms” and prevents women and sexual minorities from entering public space without being targeted through various forms of harassment [14]. Through the Gezi Park protest, as the authors claim, women and other marginalized groups such as sex workers and LGBTIA+ people were able to reclaim their space in society. Bilal and Nahrwood emphasize in this context in how far public space in Turkey constitutes a homosocial sphere of hegemonic masculinity, which is reflected within the responses of the women that participated in the current study.

In response to the question of how often the respondents had experienced any of the following situations in the last 12 months, 71.6 percent of the respondents admitted that they felt intimidated by men staring at them sometimes to very often (n = 271). Moreover, 56.5 percent said that they face unwelcome touching, hugging and kissing sometimes to very often (n = 271). Another 75.6 percent of the participants indicated that they had been exposed to sexually suggestive comments or jokes that made them feel offended (n = 271), while a striking proportion of 61.6 percent of the women admitted that somebody had indecently exposed themselves to them sometimes to very often within the last 12 months (n = 271). Even if the retrospective twelve-month period, as well as the time of data collection, may have resulted in a confounding of the motivation for participating in the protest, and it therefore cannot be concluded that the sexual discrimination that the women had experienced had a direct effect on them participating in the protest, the results nevertheless clearly show the relevance of the different forms of sexual discrimination experienced in the reality of life.

Although there is no significant correlation between the participation of women in the protests and their experiences of physical violence within the last 12 months, the extreme group approach reveals that the experiences of the above-illustrated forms of harassment are indeed significantly correlated with female protest participation. Thus, it can be argued that the protests gave women in particular the opportunity to contest the conception of the public sphere as sphere of male domination through their physical visibility. To use Kandiyoti’s words, “Bodily sites are treated as protesting against normative codes of femininity, as a means of self-empowerment, and/or constructing counterhegemonic identity” [22]. The findings of this study disclose the multiple ways in which women’s lifestyles are restricted by the ruling party as well as the gendered idea of citizenship, which is reinforced by the government. This research thus reveals the desire of the women who participated in the survey to overcome this particularly institutionalized form of subordination and claim their right to their bodies, as reflected within the following response:

“The far most important thing is women need to be left alone with their bodies. Before we get anywhere near democratic issues, human rights, equalities etc., women in Turkey do not have the right to their own bodies in all aspects. Physical ownership belongs to men and the government, which is ironic because this is like the most primal need, just like eating, drinking, and breathing. If women don’t feel that they own their own bodies to start with, how in the world they can fight for the rest?”

5.5. Results of Hypothesis 5

Despite the socio-economic motives of women’s participation in the Gezi protests, it appears crucial to investigate the role of social identity as driver of protest participation. Based on the findings of Burn, Aboud and Moyles [37], who claim that group consciousness “appears to be a primary element in the development of feminism”, we argue that gender conscious stimulates women’s involvement in gender equality efforts. Therefore, the final hypothesis that is tested in the context of this study investigates the relationship between an affiliation with feminism and protest participation.

Of the women that participated in the protests, only 9.2 percent claim that they participated primarily to demonstrate their solidarity with other female protestors, while a majority of 66.0 percent participated for different reasons (n = 250). Moreover, only 7.2 percent claim that they were strongly involved in any kind of feminist activity during the protests, while a majority of 74.0 percent of the participants indicated that they were not involved at all (n = 250). Thus, this research reveals that the collective consciousness of women did not constitute a primary motivation to participate in the protests. However, 44.4 percent of the respondents agree to some extent that they identified with other protest participants on the grounds of their gender, and another 24.0 percent strongly agree with this statement (n = 250). These findings are consistent with the claim of activists from the SFK, who argue that the Gezi protests had become a mouthpiece of feminist struggle in Turkey as it provided the opportunity to address women’s issues directly to society and through dialogue with other societal groups, such as football clubs or the anti-capitalist Muslims. Moreover, the subsequent Gezi Forums provided a platform for dialogue between the different groups due to their integrative nature. Thus, while gender consciousness cannot be assumed as a primary driver of female protest participation in the Gezi protests, it is possible to argue that an affiliation with feminist ideology directly affected the degree of protest participation. This assumption is based on the finding that there is a significant correlation between the extent to which the respondents consider themselves a feminist and the intensity of their protest participation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.18, p = 0.002, one-tailed). The extreme group approach moreover suggests that respondents who were actively involved in the protests (mean rank = 63.55) consider themselves a feminist to a significantly higher extent than those respondents who were not involved at all (mean rank = 96.76; Mann–Whitney U Test = 977.000, p = 0.000, two-tailed).

With reference to the concept of social identity theory, it is of great importance to point to another finding of this study. To find out whether personality traits appear to affect women’s participation in the Gezi protest, several personality items based on the personality test “Locus of Control” were integrated into the survey [38]. The test measures the tendency of people to believe that they have control over their own lives. According to Rotter, people with an internal locus of control expect that the outcome of their behaviour “is contingent on their own behaviour or personal characteristics”, while people with an external locus of control believe that those outcomes are “a function of chance, luck, or fate, under the control of powerful others, or simply unpredictable” [38]. The findings have shown that some personality traits appear to have a major influence on the protest behaviour of the women surveyed, and one of them needs to be discussed in more detail: namely, this research reveals a significant negative correlation (Spearman rank correlation, r = 0.19, p = 0.000, two-tailed) between the extent to which a participant considers herself a feminist and locates her locus of control (LoC) externally (n = 271). As mentioned above, individuals that are attributed an external LoC externalize responsibility for a given situation and believe they cannot directly influence life events. Since the external LoC is negatively correlated with the extent to which the respondents consider themselves a feminist, the research reveals women who believe that they can actively shape society and that their efforts in society can transfer into political action tend to be more strongly affiliated with feminism. This is an important finding, as it indicates that not only societal factors but also individual identity and personality traits influence a person’s involvement in social action. The current study thus points to the necessity of further research on the interaction between women’s protest participation and personality traits.

6. Gezi Protests as “Gendered Space”

The current study furthermore reveals patriarchal elements within the Gezi protests and thus uncovers the gendered nature that was inherent to the movement. According to Einwohner et al., a social movement is gendered when “some aspect of the movement constructs differences between women and men and/or elicits a certain set of social meaning because of its association, actual or assumed, with femininities and masculinities” [39]. Therefore, it can be argued that social movements are inevitably gendered, whether intentionally, when pursuing gender-related objectives, or unintentionally, as was the case within the Gezi protests. The forms that the protest of the participants took can be attributed as rather soft forms of protest action, reflecting traditional gender stereotypes: the majority of respondents claim that they have been involved in non-violent and passive forms of protests, such as social networking (70.1 percent, n = 251), or participating in protest marches (90.4 percent, n = 251) or human chains (59.2 percent, n = 250). Very few of the participants state to have utilized more robust forms of protest action, such as disguise (2.8 percent, n = 251), throwing stones (3.6 percent, n = 251) or occupying buildings (4.8 percent, n = 251). However, this research reveals that 66.9 percent of the participants provided medical assistance to wounded participants (n = 251), while another 70.5 percent provided food and drinks (n = 251). Those findings suggest that the women in the Gezi protests tended to rely on gendered characteristics, or at least claim to do so within their survey responses. According to Kathryn Abrams, those characteristics include “motherhood, the capacity for care and order that stems from domestic responsibility, and a particular kind of conformist moral virtue traditionally associated with these gendered roles” [40]. Therefore, the research at hand suggests that women, as well as men, whether consciously or subconsciously, took on “gendered identities” within the Gezi protests. Many of the women that participated in this research indicate in this context that men were trying to keep them away from the barricades to allegedly “protect” them from the police violence. Therefore, the findings appear to confirm Einwohner’s claim that protest actions are inherently gendered and, moreover, reflect on how far “movement actors incorporate elements of cultural meaning about gender into their individual and collective identities” [39]. However, the Gezi protests have shown that feminist protest action can challenge socially constructed gender relations within the sphere of social movements. For example, activists from the SFK organized workshops during the occupation of Gezi Park to draw attention to the sexist language that was commonly used by protest participants, as one of the most frequently used slogans during the protests was “Erdoğan, Son of a Whore” [15]. Moreover, they painted over homophobic and sexist swearwords that were sprayed on walls around Taksim area with purple-coloured paint. The protest actions of the SFK thus challenged the male-dominated arena of social protest by changing the forms in which protest took place and transforming the discourse within the movement. Another example that indicates how women utilized the Gezi protests in order to challenge gendered relations within and around protest movements is the appearance of the mothers of Gezi Park. After the governor of Istanbul, Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, appealed to women in Turkey as mothers that should protect their “delinquent” children by calling them from the “unsafe” park, many mothers went out on the streets and formed a human chain around the park as a gesture of support for their “delinquent children” [15]. While the women did respond to the appeal of Mutlu that reduced their sphere of agency to their responsibility as mothers, they utilized the protests as a platform to create new understandings of gender relations. To use Erhart’s words, those women used Gezi to “challenge the traditional roles attributed to them and also disobey the state, by rejecting its assumed role of the authoritarian father” [15]. The mothers of Gezi Park hence claimed their space within society as “mothers” but insisted on a redefinition of the traditional concept of motherhood that relies on a patriarchal understanding of gender relations. Thus, female protest participation in the Gezi protests embodies the contestation of state-led patriarchy and poses a major obstacle to what Kandiyoti calls the process of “masculinist restoration” in Turkey.

7. Conclusions

Women in Turkey witness an increasing masculinization of public spaces through a political discourse that reinforces women’s roles in society as somehow “naturally belonging to the private world of family” [41]. Therefore, it appears crucial to draw increasing attention to the gender discourse within the Turkish state, which reinforces interventions in private lifestyle decisions to consolidate conservative gender norms. The prevalent gender regime in contemporary Turkey thus fosters the further empowerment of men through the moralization of the public sphere, within which access to public spaces becomes increasingly challenging for women [42]. The Gezi protests offered an opportunity for women to reclaim their right to the public sphere and their agency within it. Moreover, as we have shown, the changing gender discourse itself, which reinforces the marginalization and discrimination of women in the public sphere, constituted a political opportunity structure for women to become dynamic agents of change in the recent upheavals. This article thus reveals the interplay between structure and agency within the sphere of female protest participation in the Gezi uprisings. While the given political and social institutions and structures in Turkey directly and, as illustrated, negatively affect the social realities of women, they also unintentionally created incentives for women to become dynamic agents of their own lives and, more importantly, of social changes in the broader societal context.

Since the Gezi Park protests, the political balance of power has not changed in favour of the demonstrators in the further social development of Turkey beyond the 2017 Constitutional Referendum [43]. Rather, Turkey has undergone an increasingly authoritarian and religious change. This obviously means that many of the motives, hopes and drives of the women who took part in the protests were not fulfilled. It seems more like it has developed in exactly the opposite direction. Even if Gokmenoglu and Manley bring the concept of hope into play in relation to Gezi, it remains unclear to what extent the destroyed hope of the emerging feminist flame has now been extinguished among the protest participants at the time [44]. It is feared that the women have either internally migrated or even left the country. Hope dies last, and perhaps the idea of the round tables of Gokmenoglu and Özkaya can transfer the nostalgic memory of the Gezi Park protests into a new phase of positive future shaping [43].

8. Prospective Research

The presented study thus aims to shape the academic understanding of women’s participation in social uprisings based on the case of the Gezi protests. By reflecting on the experiences, perceptions and aspirations of women in Turkey, it was possible to gain a clearer understanding for the motivations and drivers of women’s participation in the uprisings. However, the findings of the current study have shown that more in-depth research is needed on this complex issue. We argue that the role of intersectionality for women’s protest participation and mobilization requires further investigation. We should strive to understand the ways in which multiple discriminations that women are facing based on frames such as race, ethnicity, class or sexuality interact with each other, and how those multi-layered hierarchies affect women’s (non-)participation in citizen-led activism. The intergroup differences of the women who participated in the protests need to be examined in detail in order to shed light on the particular ways in which women have been affected differently by the problems that they sought to address within the protests. Thus, the current study has shown that there is a need to further connect the issue of women’s (non-)participation in the Gezi protests to the diversity of women’s identities in Turkey, based on gender, religion, ethnicity, age, class, sexual orientation and (dis)ability, as it might allow us to gain a clearer understanding of the strategic effectiveness of women’s participation in citizen-led mass protests for a transformation of gender relations. For a more in-depth and valuable understanding of intersectionality, further research should be conducted using either a qualitative approach or a mixed-methods approach to gain some more valuable perspectives and deeper insights beyond the purely quantitative approach.

Moreover, we argue based on the findings of the current study that the link between personality traits and women’s participation in protests needs to be further investigated. As we have examined above, our study suggests that personality traits appear to function as explanatory factors of female protest participation in the Gezi protests. Consequently, we can assume that personality traits influence women’s perceptions of their own agency within Turkish society. Therefore, we seek to contribute further to the research on the link between personality traits and protest behaviour by approaching this subject matter from a gendered perspective. Thereby, we seek to gain an even clearer understanding for the processes and structures that enable women in Turkey to or prevent them from becoming engaged in citizen-led activism, and in doing so, grasp the potential of women’s participation in civil-led activism for the contestation of patriarchal power.