Alimony debates in Turkey: Masculinist restoration, male self-victimization, and gender inequality

This thesis examines alimony debates that have been on public agenda in Turkey since 2016 in the context of neoliberal social policies and neoconservative familialist political discourse towards gender equality, family, and divorce. Article 175 of the Turkish Civil Code, which covers alimony regulations, stipulates that the spouse who fall into poverty upon divorce has the right to receive alimony for an indefinite period of time. In most cases, it is the woman who becomes entitled to receive alimony as a result of the deep-seated gender inequality in social, economic, and familial relations. In 2014, a group of people who called themselves as "alimony victims" started organizing on social media with a demand of introducing time limitation to alimony. The same year, a parliamentary commission was established to investigate the reasons for divorces and the factors that negatively influence the integrity of family, and "alimony victims" were invited to the parliamentary commission. The commission report, released in 2016, involved a recommendation on introducing time limitation to alimony. Since then, various groups, overwhelmingly consisting of men, have been protesting "male victimization" on the ground of the right to alimony as well as two other legislations; one on assuring gender equality and the other on the prevention of violence against women (the "Istanbul Convention" and Law No. 6284 respectively). The AKP (Justice and Development Party) government has emphasized "preventing divorces" as well as brought these legal rights into question in its political discourse, particularly since 2016. The thesis is grounded in the ethnographic research that was conducted between October 2018 and October 2020 that consists of 30 interviews with divorced men and women supporters actively involved in anti-alimony groups, divorced women, and divorce lawyers and feminist lawyers. It offers a three-fold discussion from a critical and feminist perspective. Firstly, it reveals the political influence on the rising anti-women's rights movement in contemporary Turkey within the context of the neoliberal restructuring of welfare and neoconservative familialism. Drawing from Deniz Kandiyoti's conceptualization of masculinist restoration, that is top-down and bottom-up efforts to maintain and reproduce patriarchy, thesis discusses alimony debates in the context of masculinist restoration. Secondly, based on interviews with men and women actively involved in anti-alimony groups, it investigates their experiences in marriage and divorce as well as the formation and workings of "male victimization" in anti-alimony discourse. In this sense, this thesis puts forth the concept of "male self-victimization" as one significant pillar of this masculinist restoration. Thirdly, interviews conducted with divorced women aim to shed light on common problems that women face during the process of marriage, divorce, and post-divorce. This thesis pays special attention to the financial and social consequences of divorce, to women's unpaid domestic work and to male violence in marriage and divorce in its analysis of experiences of both women and men. Keywords: divorce, alimony debates, neoconservative familialism, masculinist restoration, women's rights, male self-victimization, gender, Turkey, masculinity