Beyond the Backlash: Campaigns Against the Istanbul Convention in Turki̇Ye and the Discursive Dynamics of an Anti-Gender Movement

This study analyzes the dissemination and the nature of the discursive claims of the anti-gender movement in Türkiye with specific reference to the conservative social and political forces targeting the Istanbul Convention (IC) and the feminist actors. The Turkish case has been characterized by a powerful women’s and feminist movement united across the ideological spectrum marked by crucial turning points in anti-violence policies. As the paper contextualizes the anti-gender dynamics in the Turkish case, it shifts the analytical lenses from the gender politics of right-wing populism to highlight the significance of the societal actors. The qualitative research is based on the conceptual terrain of the social movement literature and scholarship on the global anti-gender movements. The critical discourse analysis technique is employed in analyzing the news in the conservative media outlets about the IC over three years (2020-2023) when the campaign targeting the Convention had gained visibility. The study contends that the anti-IC campaigns in Türkiye positioned themselves in an ideological contestation with the progressive, pro-feminist, and rights-based discourses of an already weakened civil society. The study problematizes the discursive strategies of anti-gender politics by inquiring into how it has structured itself as an ideological countermovement and underlines the consequences of the post-IC process on the anti-violence and gender equality policies. By analyzing the news opposing the IC published in four selected conservative newspapers, the study concludes that the political discourses of the actors in these new outlets have been oriented towards justifying Türkiye's withdrawal from the IC as they were produced, circulated, and disseminated as a bastion of the countermovement, thereby strategically engaging with the gender policies and politics of a right-wing populist government.