Transgressing Dichotomies: Understanding Representations of Different Masculinities in Politics in Turkey

The analysis of gender has lead scholars to unsettle the established conventions; especially it has challenged the boundaries of the politics and the political. Significantly, in the study of gender, re-reading self-evident conceptualizations and phenomenon opened the ways to capture how it is implicated in structures of power. Especially, from the perspective of embeddedness of power and the construction of masculinities, questioning masculinized arrangements promote an alternative way. In a country where father state has been a historically determinant factor and an element of political culture, understanding different representations of political masculinities is critical. In an era marked by increasing conservatism, analyzing neo-liberal landscape in Turkey, requires to deconstruct masculinist necessities. Hence, this paper questions what are the ways in which patriarchy as a form of authoritarianism substantiating the idyllic existence of father as a powerful figure. In this framework, this paper does not only juxtapose the defining characteristics of different patterns of masculinities but also transgress deep-rooted dichotomies in politics in contemporary Turkey.