Anti-gender Movement in Action in Turkey: A Case Study on the Great Family Platform (Büyük Aile Platformu)

At the populist moment, gender has become a terrain of struggle between the state and feminists to identify the natives versus the others. The government has increasingly used its opposition to gender equality as a strategy of civilization to delegitimize, repress and marginalize any kind of dissenting views. The opposition to gender equality at the state level has facilitated the expansion of the borders of anti-gender politics and unleashed the anti-gender groups in civil society as its new actors. A variety of actors, including journalists, bloggers, academicians, scientists, experts and activists, have involved in a struggle to protect the family against the allegedly detrimental interventions in the name of gender equality and feminism. A recent institutional manifestation of the anti-gender wave is the establishment of the Great Family Platform (Büyük Aile Platformu) as an umbrella organization that unites pro-governmental, nationalist, secular, professional and women’s civil societal organizations. The heterogenous composition of the Platform reveals that the concern with the family and the future generations creates an enduring collective anxiety towards gender equality that overarches a variety of actors with differing agendas. This paper discusses how the interplay between gender and the feelings of fear, threat and insecurity transforms into collective anger and hatred against the perceived enemies, serving populist goals and furthering the democratic backsliding. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the constitutive components of the Platform, it uncovers on which grounds these organizations articulate a common discourse, configure strategies and mobilize collective resistance against gender equality and feminist struggle. Such an endeavor is of importance to discover the discursive tools, tactics and strategies to counter and resist the populist attacks on feminist movement.