616

ALIMONY DEBATES IN TURKEY:
MASCULINIST RESTORATION, MALE SELFVICTIMIZATION,


ABSTRACT

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 deepseated
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 politics, women's rights, male self-victimization, gender, Turkey, masculinity
iv
ÖZETÇE
Türkiye’de Nafaka Tartışmaları: Eril Restorasyon, Erkeğin Kendini
Mağdurlaştırması ve Toplumsal Cinsiyet Eşitsizliği
Hilal Dikmen
Bu tez, 2016’dan bu yana Türkiye'de kamuoyunun gündeminde olan nafaka tartışmalarını
toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliği, aile ve boşanmaya yönelik neoliberal sosyal politikalar ve
neomuhafazakâr aileci siyasi söylemler bağlamında incelemektedir. Türk Medeni
Kanunu'nun nafaka düzenlemesini kapsayan 175. maddesinde, boşanma ile yoksulluğa
düşen eşin süresiz nafaka alma hakkı olduğu hükmü bulunmaktadır. Sosyal, ekonomik ve
ailevi ilişkilerdeki köklü toplumsal cinsiyet eşitsizliğinin bir sonucu olarak, çoğu
durumda nafaka almaya hak kazanan kadınlardır.
2014 yılında, kendilerini “nafaka mağdurları” olarak nitelendiren bir grup, nafakaya süre
sınırı getirilmesi talebiyle sosyal medyada örgütlenmeye başladı. Aynı yıl, boşanma
nedenlerini ve aile bütünlüğünü olumsuz etkileyen faktörleri araştırmak üzere bir meclis
komisyonu kuruldu ve “nafaka mağdurları” meclis komisyonuna davet edildi. 2016
yılında yayınlanan komisyon raporunda yapılan önerilerden biri nafakaya süre sınırı
getirilmesiydi. O zamandan beri, ezici çoğunluğu erkeklerden oluşan çeşitli gruplar,
“erkek mağduriyeti” yarattığı gerekçesiyle nafaka hakkına ve diğer iki yasal düzenlemeye
karşı çıkmaktadır. Bu düzenlemelerden biri toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliğinin sağlanması,
diğeri kadına yönelik şiddetin önlenmesine dairdir (sırasıyla “İstanbul Sözleşmesi” ve
6284 Sayılı Kanun). Öte yandan, AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) hükümeti, bilhassa
2016 yılından beri siyasi söyleminde “boşanmaların önlenmesi” vurgusu yapmakta ve söz
konusu yasal hakları tartışmaya açmaktadır.
Tez, Ekim 2018 - Ekim 2020 tarihleri arasında yürütülen, nafaka karşıtı gruplarda aktif
olarak yer alan boşanmış erkekler ve kadın destekçiler, boşanmış kadınlar, boşanma
avukatları ve feminist avukatlarla yapılmış 30 görüşmeden oluşan etnografik araştırmaya
dayanmaktadır. Eleştirel ve feminist bir perspektiften üç aşamalı bir tartışma
sunmaktadır. İlk olarak, refahın neoliberal yeniden yapılandırılması ve neomuhafazakâr
ailecilik bağlamında çağdaş Türkiye'de yükselen kadın hakları karşıtı hareket üzerindeki
siyasi etkiyi açıklar. Deniz Kandiyoti’nin, patriyarkanın sürdürülmesi ve yeniden
üretilmesi için hem tepeden inme hem de sokaktaki çabalar olarak tanımladığı eril
restorasyon kavramsallaştırmasından yararlanarak, nafaka tartışmalarını eril restorasyon
siyaseti bağlamında tartışır. İkinci olarak, nafaka karşıtı gruplardaki kadın ve erkeklerle
yapılan görüşmelere dayanarak hem onların evlilik ve boşanmaya ilişkin deneyimlerini
hem de nafaka karşıtı söylemde “erkek mağduriyetinin” inşasını ve işleyişini inceler. Bu
bakımdan, tez, eril restorasyonun önemli bir ayağı olarak “erkeğin kendini
mağdurlaştırması” kavramını ileri sürer. Üçüncü olarak, boşanmış kadınlarla yapılan
görüşmeler, kadınların evlilik, boşanma ve boşanma sonrası süreçte karşılaştıkları ortak
sorunlara ışık tutmayı amaçlar. Bu tez, kadın ve erkeklerin deneyimlerini analiz ederken
boşanmanın mali ve toplumsal sonuçlarının, evlilikte ve boşanmada kadının ücretsiz ev
içi emeğinin ve erkek şiddetinin üstünde durmaktadır.
Anahtar kelimeler: boşanma, yoksulluk nafakası tartışmaları, neomuhafazakâr ailecilik,
eril restorasyon siyaseti, kadın hakları, erkeğin kendini mağdurlaştırması, toplumsal
cinsiyet, Türkiye, erkeklik
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis came to existence with academic and emotional support of many people.
First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my thesis advisors, Başak Can and Aslı Ermiş-
Mert, for guiding me through every step of my research. From formulating my research
questions to writing of my chapter drafts, they supported me with rich and extensive
feedback, constructive criticisms, and advises that sounded like “words of magic” to me
when I was about to lose my motivation time to time.
I want to thank Bertil Oder for her support and invaluable motivation when I felt
most vulnerable, and for her presence in my thesis committee. I also thank Eylem Ümit
Atılgan and Selda Tuncer for both their presence in my thesis committee and for always
helping me learning new perspectives about feminism with their valuable works. I thank
Fatoş Gökçen, Mustafa Erdem Kabadayı, and Burak Gürel for providing me feedback on
this thesis at its proposal stage. I would like to thank the Department of Comparative
Studies in History and Society at Koç University. Tuğçe Şatana and Türkan İnci
Dursundağ, thank you for your always patient answers to my questions, help and support.
I am grateful to all of my interviewees who helped me and shared their experiences
sincerely for this thesis. I learned a lot from them. With them, I am a different person
now; without them, this thesis would not have existed.
I would like to thank my “partner in crime” MFS, we prove that an equal life is
possible together. My therapist, mama’s boy, dear cat Ninja, thanks for all you have done,
I am so fortunate to have had wonderful 2.5 years with you, I will always miss you. Many
women, all smart, brave and gifted, in my life supported and encouraged me in wearing
process of thesis writing. My “Wonder Women” Meriç, Deniz, and Ezgi, I do not fear
any difficulties that life may bring while I have you in my life. I would like to thank my
dear angry and proud feminist friends from women’s circle for their support. My feminist
idol and my precious friend, Hülya Gülbahar, I feel so lucky to have you in my life, thank
you for your sincere support. Nur, Aygün, and Ayşe, thank you for your precious
comments. I also want to thank Sedat and Güneş for their support and help.
Finally, I want to thank my grandparents, because they provided the opportunities
for me, as a little girl, to pursue my goals in life. I thank my mother for her sincere support.
She experienced patriarchal oppression at worst and taught me what patriarchy is with
raising me in a traditional way –today, we are learning how to revolt against patriarchy
in private and public spheres together. I specially thank my little sister Sıla. We will build
a better, equal world for her and all little girls in which they can be empowered women.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ........................................................................................................... ix
Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... x
Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................... 1
1.1 Research Problem and Research Questions .............................................. 7
1.2 Data and Methods ..................................................................................... 8
1.3 Feminist Dilemmas in the Fieldwork ..................................................... 13
1.3.1 How to Produce Feminist Knowledge Through Studying Men and
Masculinities ........................................................................................................... 14
1.3.2 Experiencing, Observing, and Reproducing Gender Roles ................ 17
1.3.3 Some Questions Left Unanswered and Productivity of Difference .... 22
1.4 Limitations .............................................................................................. 26
1.5 Organization of the Chapters .................................................................. 26
Chapter 2: “The Whole Problem of Patriarchy”: The Right to Alimony in the
Context of Masculinist Restoration Politics ............................................................... 29
2.1 Women’s Economic Dependency in the Context of Neoliberal Welfare
and Neoconservative Familialism ............................................................................... 33
2.1.1 Legal, Discursive, and Institutional Transformation Towards Gender
Equality, Family, and Divorce Under the AKP Governments ............................... 37
2.1.2 Bottom-Up Counterparts of Masculinist Restoration: “Victim” Groups
46
2.2 The Historical Evolution of Alimony in the Turkish Civil Code ........... 48
2.3 The Official Emergence of Alimony Debates: The Marital Breakdown
Commission’s Report ................................................................................................. 52
2.4 Reactions to Proposed Time Limitation to Alimony .............................. 61
2.5 Concluding Remarks .............................................................................. 65
Chapter 3: Anti-Alimony Campaigners: Mobilization, Demands, And
Experiences .................................................................................................................... 68
vii
3.1 Framing the Anti-Alimony Campaign: The Discourse, Mobilization,
Political Stance, and Demands .................................................................................... 69
3.1.1 The Mobilization of BİAP and SNM .................................................. 72
3.1.2 Anti-Alimony Campaigners’ Political Stance and Anti-Feminism .... 75
3.1.3 Demands of Anti-Alimony Groups .................................................... 80
3.2 Anti-Alimony Campaigners’ Experiences on Marriage and Divorce .... 87
3.2.1 Division of Domestic Responsibilities in Marriage ............................ 97
3.2.2 Grounds and Bargains during and after Divorce .............................. 100
3.2.3 Control over Money and Ex-wife’s Life ........................................... 105
3.2.4 Socially Privileged (and Fragile) Status as the Head of the Family: The
Meaning of Marriage and Divorce for Divorced Men .......................................... 107
3.3 Male Self-Victimization in the Justification of Violence against Women
and Femicides ........................................................................................................... 113
3.4 The “Differentiation” of Women and “True” Women’s Rights in the
Anti-Alimony Discourse ........................................................................................... 121
3.5 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................ 125
Chapter 4: Women’s Experiences in Marriage, Divorce, and Postdivorce
Process ......................................................................................................................... 127
4.1 Entering into Matrimony (or Slavery?): Reconciliation of Paid and
Unpaid Work ............................................................................................................ 129
4.2 Domestic Violence: In Different Forms but Prevalent ......................... 139
4.3 Divorce: The Last Straw, Threats, Bargains, and “Tricks” .................. 148
4.3.2 The Last Straw: Decision of Divorce ............................................... 148
4.3.3 Bargains and “Tricks” at Divorce ..................................................... 156
4.4 A New Life after Divorce: Freedom Under Constant Surveillance,
Survival Under Unequal Conditions ......................................................................... 166
4.4.1 Everyday Life as a Divorced Woman: “The Society is Watching You”
173
4.4.2 What About Romantic Relationships after Divorce? ....................... 179
viii
4.5 Women’s Thoughts on Alimony Debates ............................................. 181
4.6 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................ 185
Chapter 5: Conclusion ......................................................................................... 186
Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 196
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Level of education, type of marital union, and age of marriage for
interviewee group consisting of anti-alimony campaigners ........................................... 88
Table 3.2 The amounts of alimony and child support with status of custody ....... 101
Table 4.1 Level of education, type of marital union, and age of first marriage for
interviewee group consisting of divorced women ........................................................ 130
Table 4.2 The amounts of alimony and child support with status of custody ....... 157
x
ABBREVIATIONS
TurkStat Turkish Statistical Institute
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development
BİAP Boşanmış İnsanlar ve Aile Platformu (The Platform for Divorced
People and Family)
SNM
GREVIO
Süresiz Nafaka Mağdurları (Indefinite Alimony Victim)
Group of Experts on Action against Violence Against Women
and Domestic Violence
1
Chapter 1:
INTRODUCTION
The state authorities and various groups that overwhelmingly consist of men have
systematically attacked women’s fundamental rights, particularly since 2016 in Turkey.
These groups mobilize against gender equality, women’s legal rights at marriage and
divorce, and prevention of and combat violence against women crystalizing in these three
regulations: The Turkish Civil Code Article 175 assuring the right to receive alimony, if
necessary, for an unlimited period; Law No. 6284 (on Protection of Family and
Prevention of Violence Against Women) enacted in 2012, and the Istanbul Convention
(The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against
women and domestic violence) ratified in 2012.
The most common claim to justify the demand for removing these legal
regulations is that they are “the dynamite laid under family”1 2 3 and cause gender
inequality in favor of women and against men.4 In August 2020, the President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan appealed to the same discourse and said, “No regulation that lay
dynamite under family is humane and legitimate,”5 targeting the Istanbul Convention.
The government’s concern for increasing divorce rates started at discursive level at first.
Conservative political discourse on family and priority of the woman’s marital roles as
wife and mother turned into condemnation of divorce itself and divorce rates on a slight
increase. With the support of pro-government media outlets and conservative opposition
parties in and out of National Assembly of Turkey, this concern for divorce rates on
increase started to emerge as a simulated social problem. However, TurkStat’s data on
1 For the Civil Code Article 175 assuring the right to receive alimony for an unlimited period: change.org
petition. Süresiz ibaresinin olmadığı, kriterlere göre 1-5 yıl nafaka adildir (2014). change.org. Accessed
September 12, 2018, https://bit.ly/3pWsXgh.
2 As an example of attacks to Law No. 6284: Göral, M. (2019, June 7). “6284 sayılı kanun ailenin altına
yerleştirilmiş bir dinamittir”, (interview by İbrahim Koçyiğit for İLKHA). Accessed September 12, 2020,
https://ilkha.com/roportaj/6284-sayili-kanun-ailenin-altina-yerlestirilmis-bir-dinamittir-79146.
3 As an example of attacks to Istanbul Convention: doğruhaber (2019, June 19). İstanbul Sözleşmesi
Feshedilsin. Accessed September 12, 2020, https://dogruhaber.com.tr/haber/605178-istanbul-sozlesmesifeshedilsin/.
4 change.org petition. Süresiz Nafaka Zulmüne Son Verin (2014). change.org. Accessed September 12,
2018, https://bit.ly/3pWsXgh.
5 a3haber. Erdoğan, İstanbul Sözleşmesi’ni hedef aldı: “Ailenin temeline dinamit koyan hiçbir düzenleme
insanı ve meşru değildir”. Accessed September 12, 2020, https://www.a3haber.com/2020/08/13/erdoganistanbul-
sozlesmesini-hedef-aldi-ailenin-temeline-dinamit-koyan-hicbir-duzenleme-insani-ve-mesrudegildir/.
2
divorce published in 2018 shows that the crude divorce rates in Turkey was 1.6% in 2017
and increased to 1.75% in 2018. The percentage of divorce rates gained momentum only
in 2002, 2009, and 2018. In any case, the divorce rates in Turkey are still well below the
average of divorce rates in OECD countries.6
Divorce brings along economic consequences apart from emotional and social
consequences. Turkish family law gives courts four financial tools at divorce: 1)
pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages; 2) child support; 3) property distribution, and 4)
alimony. According to Article 175 of Turkish Civil Code, the spouse who will be in need
after divorce may request economic support for an indefinite period of time from the other
spouse for living costs in proportion to their financial power. Even though this is a genderneutral
article, women become entitled to receive alimony in most of the cases. The main
reason of this asymmetry is the low female employment rates and the deep-seated gender
inequality in Turkey. Female employment rate was 29.4% in Turkey in 2019, one of the
lowest in the world.7 8 In addition, Turkey was ranked as the 130th among 153 countries
in terms of gender equality in 2020.9
These gradually intensified attacks simultaneously coming top-down and bottomup
are concerned with the survival of the “family institution” and they bring women’s
legal rights into question. Combined with the patriarchal values already inherent in the
Turkish context, these debates reflect the government’s growing concern about
decreasing marriage and increasing divorce rates, especially since 2014. The government
established a research commission (The Commission of Marital Breakdown for short
[Boşanma Komisyonu]) in 2014 to investigate the factors that negatively influence the
integrity of family. The commission’s report published in 2016 triggered the longstanding
debates. It involves two recommendations relevant to the unlimited alimony and
Law No. 6284: 1) limiting the period of receiving alimony to 5-10 years at most, and 2)
requesting evidence and official documentation from those who demand restraining order
6 Ermiş-Mert, A. (Ed.) (2020). Gender Equality in Turkey with 2018 data. Istanbul: Center for Gender
Studies at Koç University (KOÇ-KAM. Accessed December 20, 2020, https://kockam.ku.edu.tr/wpcontent/
uploads/2020/09/28082020_KOCKAM_Rapor_ENG_SinglePage_20200828_1.pdf.
7 Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). İstatistiklerle Kadın 2019 [Statistics on Women 2019]. Press
Release numbered 33732 (March 6, 2020). Accessed September 12, 2020,
http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=33732.
8 DİSK/GENEL-İŞ (2020, March). Türkiye’de Kadın Emeği Raporu. Accessed September 12, 2020,
http://cloudsdomain.com/uploads/dosya/21031.pdf.
9 World Economic Forum (2019). The Global Gender Gap Report 2020. accessed September 12, 2020,
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf.
3
through Law No. 6284. A great number of women’s organizations evaluated the
commission report as “regression in women’s rights”.10
The Commission of Marital Breakdown was the first formal appearance of social
groups against the existing alimony regulation and Law No. 6284. Thereafter, the stories
of “alimony victims” increasingly dominated right-wing, pro-government media outlets.
The anti-alimony discourse is mainly built around anecdotal stories of divorced men who
are allegedly imprisoned, forced to sell or share their property, or prevented from starting
a new family due to laws enforcing alimony payments. These emotional stories aim to
produce and maintain the figure of so-called “male victim”.
One group opposing the existing alimony regulation and Law No. 6284
participated in the Commission of Marital Breakdown process: Divorced People and
Family Platform (Boşanmış İnsanlar ve Aile Platformu; hereinafter referred to as BİAP).
This group was composed of divorced men and their female allies. Female allies are in
relation with these men as members of their natal families or subsequent wives in general,
but there are female allies who do not have any acquaintance. BİAP was established as a
Facebook group first, then started an anti-alimony campaign on change.org, all in 2014.11
As a result of an inner conflict, BİAP split up, and some members of it formed Indefinite
Alimony Victims (Süresiz Nafaka Mağdurları; hereinafter referred to as SNM). Both
groups claim that the right to alimony for an unlimited period restricts divorced men’s
economic power and social relations and prevents them from starting a new family.
Paying the former spouse alimony for an indefinite time is claimed to not only affect
divorced men, but also their whole family–primarily their mothers, sisters, and
subsequent wives, because these men’s legal and economic challenges negatively
influence their current marital relations or their relations with their natal families. BİAP
demand a time limitation on alimony, between one and five years to be exact. For SNM,
this limit should be between one and three years. Furthermore, they demand the
abolishment of preventive detention (tazyik hapsi), which is effective tool in the collection
of unpaid alimony debts.
10 Kadın Emeği ve İstihdamı Girişimi (KEİG) [Women’s Labor and Employment Initiative]. “Kadın
örgütlerinden TBMM Boşanma Komisyonu Raporu’na tepki yağıyor!”. Accessed September 12, 2020,
http://www.keig.org/kadin-orgutlerinden-tbmm-bosanma-komisyonu-raporuna-tepki-yagiyor/.
11 change.org petition. Süresiz Nafaka Zulmüne Son Verin (2014). change.org. Accessed September 12,
2018, https://bit.ly/3pWsXgh.
4
Another main demand of BİAP and SNM is the annulment of the articles
regulating the principle of victim’s statement and temporary alimony in Law No. 6284.
This legal regulation provides important opportunities to protect violence victim–
economic, physical, sexual, or psychological–and prevent perpetrators with a restraining
and protection orders. The principle of statement has a preventive function, but in the case
of proof of false statement, legal sanction is applied for those who make a false statement.
What BİAP and SNM demand is an amendment in the law that would necessitate
evidence and official document from those who demand a restraining order. The
opponents claim that women misuse this law to punish their husbands. They further argue
that this law causes femicides, domestic violence, and breaking-up of families.12 The
alimony opponents believe that divorced men and their natal families, as well as their
subsequent wives, are the true victims.
Their demands and complaints on alimony regulation, Law No. 6284, and the
Istanbul Convention were swiftly brought to the government’s agenda. In June 2018,
Abdulhamit Gül, the Minister of Justice, declared that they will work on a reform package
on the alimony regulation that introduces lower- and upper-time limits to end the unjust
suffering of citizens.13 In the first 100-day action plan of Turkey’s new presidential
cabinet unveiled by the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in August 2018, it was proposed
to amend regulations concerning alimony to make it “fairer.”14
Since 2014, the groups defining divorced men or divorced fathers as victims due
to the existing legal regulations have increased in number and become more
heterogenous. They involve people from various ideological backgrounds including
nationalism, Islamism, and conservatism. Islamist and conservative media channels such
as Yeni Akit, Yeni Şafak, and Milli Gazete, lawyers, and those who have authority in the
Supreme Court15 played a pioneering role in circulation of the anti-alimony discourse.
12 Yeni Akit (2017, September 9). 6284 yuva yıkıyor. Accessed October 20, 2018,
https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/6284-yuva-yikiyor-393091.html.
13 Karakuş, A. (2018, June 9). Nafakaya kademeli süreler ve alt sınır geliyor, Milliyet. Accessed October
5, 2018, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/yazarlar/abdullah-karakus/nafakaya-kademeli-sureler-ve-2685328/.
14 Cumhuriyet (2018, August 3). “İşte Adalet Bakanlığı’nın 100 günlük eylem planı”. Accessed October
5, 2018,
http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turkiye/1045368/iste_Adalet_Bakanligi_nin_100_gunluk_eylem_pla
ni.html.
15 As will be discussed in Chapter 2, one particular personality, Ömer Uğur Gençcan had a leading role in
the growth of the debates. He is the head of Second Civil Chamber, and women’s rights organizations called
for his resignations due to his sexist statements on alimony. Mor Çatı Kadın Sığınağı Vakfı [Purple Roof
Women’s Shelter Foundation] (2019, February 20). “Kadınların Nafaka Hakkını Yok Sayan Yargıtay 2.
Hukuk Dairesi Başkanı Ömer Uğur Gençcan Derhal İstifa Etmelidir; Etmiyorsa Görevden Alınmalıdır!”
5
Members of BİAP and SNM conducted meetings with political parties about their
demands, and their preferences on who to meet are informative about their political
stance. Islamist and conservative Kurdish party HÜDAPAR16 (Free Cause Party);
Islamist, conservative, and nationalist party Saadet Partisi17 (Felicity Party); nationalist
and conservative party MHP (Nationalist Movement Party); and the ruling party AKP
(Justice and Development Party) that is Islamist, nationalist, and conservative are among
the institutions with whom anti-alimony campaigners held meetings. AKP and MHP then
jointly proposed judicial reform package including amendments in the existing alimony
regulation.18 Even celebrities became a part of these debates and claimed that the existing
alimony regulation was not fair for men.19
Based on this information, this research sets out to investigate the anti-alimony
campaign that has gained momentum since 2016. Through interviews with members of
BİAP and SNM, it seeks to delineate the discourse of anti-alimony campaign, common
problems for divorced men in the marriage, divorce, and post-divorce processes, and the
formation and workings of male self-victimization in alimony debates. Interviews
conducted with divorced women aim to include women’s voice that is almost invisible in
alimony debates, and to shed light on common problems that women face during the
process of marriage, divorce, and post-divorce. Furthermore, alimony debates indicate
which social classes, regardless of their gender, experience economic struggles as result
of divorce. Therefore, class and gender are fused as units of analysis in this research to
depict how rising anti-women’s rights movement reflects various existing social and
economic inequalities in contemporary Turkey.
This research proposes that anti-alimony campaign is a part of male-dominated,
anti-women’s rights movement. Various groups’ protests on streets20 and on social media
Accessed February 5, 2021, https://morcati.org.tr/haberler/kadinlarin-nafaka-hakkini-yok-sayan-yargitay-
2-hukuk-dairesi-baskani-omer-ugur-genccan-derhal-istifa-etmelidir-etmiyorsa-gorevden-alinmalidir/.
16 İLKHA (2021, January 30). Süresiz nafaka mağdurları sorunlarının çözülmesini istiyor. Accessed
February 5, 2021, https://ilkha.com/guncel/suresiz-nafaka-magdurlari-sorunlarinin-cozulmesini-istiyor-
151151.
17 For the announcement of the meeting with Saadet Partisi:
https://twitter.com/arabul_mesut/status/1095368297338540038, accessed February 5, 2021.
18 Demirören Haber Ajansı (DHA) (2019, October 29). “İkinci yargı paketi, AK Parti ile MHP’nin ortak
teklifi olacak.” Accessed February 5, 2021, https://www.dha.com.tr/politika/ikinci-yargi-paketi-ak-partiile-
mhpnin-ortak-teklifi-olacak/haber-1733532.
19 For instance, Tuba Ünsal, a famous actress, had negative reactions because of her anti-alimony
statements: Hürriyet Kelebek (2019 , November 21). Nafaka açıklamasıyla gündem olan Tuba Ünsal:
Erkekten para almaya utanırım. Accessed February 5, 2021, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/galeri-nafakaaciklamasiyla-
gundem-olan-tuba-unsal-erkekten-para-almaya-utanirim-41378976/1.
20 For example: Sputnik News (2018, August 1). Erkeklerden Protesto: “Evden kediyi attığınız zaman
cezası var ama babayı attığınız zaman yok”. Accessed September 25, 2020,
6
reveal how misogyny is embedded in their rage against three main legislations seeking
gender equality and women’s fundamental rights, and how they exploit the institution of
family at discursive level. This research seeks to examine the dynamics of this movement,
borrowing Kandiyoti’s (2016) concept of “masculinist restoration”. It investigates the
formation and workings of “male victim” figure in marriage and divorce. Anti-alimony
groups and the government has put forward this figure of “male victim” as one of the
main reasons to dissolve legal regulations in question. Thus, it proposes the concept of
“male self-victimization” as one significant pillar of “masculinist restoration”.
The government has also promoted the debates on alimony, Law No. 6284, and
the Istanbul Convention. The government’s political discourse works against gender
equality, women’s rights, empowerment, and those who advocate them—far from
offering any solution to increasing cases of femicide, violence against women, or
deepening polarization between these two groups in these debates.21 The government
rather underlines the importance of the values and sacredness of the family and openly
attacks feminists as well as women who are not traditionally acceptable in terms of their
“unconventional” lifestyles.22 This research will thus frame the context of this debate at
the intersection of neoliberal welfare, neoconservative familialism, and the politics of
gender.
This chapter involves research problem and research questions, and it explains
how the data was obtained and which methods are adopted to analyze the data. Then, it
discusses feminist dilemmas I experienced in the fieldwork. This is an important
discussion, because I aim to design this research as feminist research and to follow
feminist methodology. Drawing on the existing literature on feminist research and
feminist methodology, I discuss how to produce feminist knowledge through studying
men and masculinities, how differences between the researcher and the researched may
lead productivity, and my experiences with the interviewees in terms of observing,
https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201808011034564504-erkekler-protesto-ev-kedi-ceza-baba/. As
another example, the protest of Yeniden Refah Partisi, that is an Islamist, nationalist, and conservative
political party, about Istanbul Convention: doğruhaber (2020, February 16). Yeniden Refah Partisi: Istanbul
Sözleşmesi ile ilgili önlem almaya davet ediyoruz. Accessed February 5, 2021,
https://dogruhaber.com.tr/haber/642465-yeniden-refah-partisi-istanbul-sozlesmesi-ile-ilgili-onlemalmaya-
davet-ediyoruz/.
21 For a discussion of unequal attitude of the government of media towards alimony debates: Dikmen, H.
(2019).”Nafaka tartışmalarında iktidarın ve medyanın tavrı”, Duvardibi, 23: 42-45.
22 For further information, please see. Lordoğlu’s (2018) ethnographic research focusing on single women,
residing in Istanbul. She investigates women’s lives and relations with private and public spaces, and
strategies they develop under conditions of patriarchal Turkish society and social policies that excludes
them. Lordoğlu, C. (2018), İstanbul’da Bekâr Kadın Olmak, İletişim: İstanbul.
7
experiencing, and reproducing of power relations and gender roles in the field. Then, I
explain the limitations of this research and the organization of chapters.
1.1 Research Problem and Research Questions
Social scientists have been dealing with how neoliberal and neoconservative
transformation of Turkish society has influenced social policies and women’s lives during
the last decade. These studies showed that social policies and political discourse towards
women have mostly been built around family affairs. Simultaneously, the ethnographic
research on personal experiences of divorced or single women and the subordination of
women also revealed various physical, economic, and psychological violence women
experience in family and society (Acar & Altunok, 2013; Yazıcı, 2012; Lordoğlu, 2018;
Yıldırım, 2017). There is also a growing critical literature on men and masculinities that
explores discursive, social, and economic construction of masculinities through
ethnographic research (Sancar, 2013; Connell, 2005; Hearn, 1998). Although there are
studies on how men experience post-divorce process in terms of economic, social, and
emotional relations (Sevim & Güldeste & Öner, 2016; Aktaş, 2018), these studies lack a
feminist critical perspective. Moreover, there is a gap on the formation and workings of
male self-victimization in and through family, and on how the state policies shape and, in
turn, are shaped by this self-victimization. How the discourse of male self-victimization
are produced and circulated in the society must also be examined.
In this research, the following questions will be raised: How can we understand
the recent debates on alimony with a focus on the government’s discourse and policies
towards family, divorce, and gender equality? How do divorced men construct male selfvictimization
at discursive level in a political and social environment in which male
domination has been increasingly exalted and reproduced through political discourse and
mainstream media? What are the experiences, motivations, and narratives of alimony
opponents? What is the role of women in construction of male self-victimization and male
domination? How do the experiences of divorced women who can or cannot receive
alimony shed light on these debates, particularly on gender inequality, in general? How
do alimony debates provide an insight to analyze the politics of masculinist restoration in
Turkish society?
Answering these questions, this research seeks to contribute to the literature of gender
studies, sociopolitical studies, and critical studies on men and masculinities, as well as
8
providing a feminist criticism of socio-legal and family studies. It explores the
experiences of divorced men in terms of economic, social, and legal difficulties which
they claim to face within the context of alimony debates so as to expand the limits of the
existing literature on men and masculinities. By including the experience of female
members of divorced men’s natal families and subsequent wives, my research reveals the
role of women in reproducing and consolidating male dominance, and how power
relations between women and men is constructed. Finally, by including neoliberal and
neoconservative transformation in Turkey, it reveals how alimony debates have become
drivers of neoliberal rationality and neoconservative governmentality.
1.2 Data and Methods
I have been a part of feminist activism for many years now. After the Report of
Marital Breakdown Research Commission in 2016 was released with recommendations
presented as solution to protect family in the report came to public’s agenda.
Recommendations on alimony and Law No. 6284 had particularly become prominent.
The report was widely criticized among women’s rights organizations. These heated
debates on alimony intersected with my personal history.
I had my own story about receiving–in my case, not receiving–alimony. As a
daughter of divorced parents, alimony was a long-standing topic of discussion when I was
growing up. I could not receive the child support that should have been paid as per the
court decision. I was familiar with possible social, cultural, and economic problems that
a divorced woman and her child can experience. Therefore, the alimony debates piqued
my curiosity, and to be honest, this was an emotional curiosity at the beginning. I became
more and more interested in claims and demands of alimony opponents on conventional
media outlets and social media. I followed and attended some social media protests on
the topic through my anonymous account on Twitter. The government seemed very eager
to pay attention to victimhood stories of divorced men and their female supporters. The
more I followed these debates, the more I wanted to understand what lies behind the
victimhood stories of divorced men, how divorce became a social problem, and what the
role of the government’s neoconservative politics towards sexuality, marriage, family,
and women’s rights was.
As I investigated the posts sent by “alimony victims” on social media, namely
Facebook and Twitter, and the reports on conventional and pro-government media
9
outlets, it did not take long to discover Divorced People and Family Platform (BİAP) was
the most popular online group composed mostly of self-victimized divorced men. BİAP
also had female members. The head of BİAP had participated in the Research
Commission’s meeting in 2016 and the group’s complaints and demands appeared in the
official report. Given its public visibility, I decided to focus on the members of this group.
During the fieldwork, I learned that this group had recently divided because of an internal
disagreement, and the newly emerged group took on the name Indefinite Alimony
Victims (SNM). SNM also gained increasing public visibility on media outlets. Thus, I
decided to include SNM into my research as well.
In diverse online and offline platforms, divorced men and their female supporters
were telling stories about how they were rendered penniless because of alimony, how
they could not get remarried since they had to “carry the burden of paying alimony each
month”, how they had psychological problems which might have led them to go mad and
murder their ex-wives, how women had more legal rights than men did, how legal
regulations were the real reasons behind violence against women and femicides, and so
on. As a feminist, and a researcher who is interested in critical studies on men and
masculinities, I was able to recognize these outcries blaming women for economic, social,
political, and legal problems. However, I wondered if they were actually derived from
absolute misogyny or if there were other underlying reasons that could not be seen at first
glance. I also wanted to understand the experiences of female alimony opponents who
criticized women’s rights discourse by asking about their rights as new wives and mothers
of divorced men. The absence of divorced women’s stories, claims, and counterarguments
in the public debate on alimony caused me to raise an eyebrow. Moreover, women’s rights
organizations, especially feminist lawyers, were silent on the topic, and that distressed
me. But as I learned later from a feminist lawyer, that they had strategically waited before
they started a counter-campaign on the right to receive alimony because they did not want
to turn these debates into a hot topic by adding the fuel to the fire. With the decision to
investigate alimony debates, I aimed to design a research that involves alimony opponents
and supporters to deepen our understanding of alimony and what it highlights regarding
gender politics in Turkey.
I conducted an ethnographic research in four cities.23 These interviews took place
in two different time periods, first period was between October 2018 and September 2019,
23 In the research, these cities are named as A, B, C, D, and E to ensure anonymity of the interviewees. A
and B are among biggest cities in Turkey, whereas C, D, and E is known as relatively conservative and
10
second period was between September 2020 and October 2020. I conducted semistructured
in-depth interviews, dividing interviewees into three groups: 1) Divorce
lawyers and feminist lawyers; 2) the alimony opponents including divorced men and
female supporters; 3) divorced women who (can or cannot) receive alimony and/or child
support. I also participated in a symposium, named “Fair Solution to Indefinite Alimony
Symposium” (“Süresiz Nafakaya Adil Çözüm Sempozyumu” held on September 30,
2018 at Aydın University in Istanbul. A feminist lawyer whom I interviewed invited me
to a workshop on alimony law, held on May 25, 2019, by Istanbul Bar Association
Women’s Rights Center. At this workshop, I was in the group focusing on the history of
alimony, and I had the chance to contribute to workshop with my previous research on
the topic. During the lunch break, I had the chance to ask questions to lawyers and
women’s rights activists who played an active role in the debates. To provide a broader
and comparative context of gender inequality in Turkey, I benefited from quantitative
resources, namely databases of TurkStat and OECD on income, employment, violence
against women, and femicides as well as divorce, marriage rates, and gender equality.
Discourse Analysis
I used discursive analysis to investigate the contemporary political outlook towards
alimony and divorce. The official report on investigation of reasons for divorce (TBNA,
2016); the report of the Commission of Marital Breakdown; and parliamentary minutes
involving alimony were main legal secondary sources I have collected and analyzed. I
also utilized the socio-legal research report on alimony (Akçabay, 2019). Through various
media channels that could be defined as pro-government (Yeni Akit, Sabah, Star) and as
dissenting to the government (Evrensel, Gazete Duvar, Ekmek ve Gül), I collected official
declarations of political figures on alimony, Law No. 6284, the Istanbul Convention, and
women’s right organizations. I determined some key words such as “family and alimony”,
“family and Law No. 6284”, “indefinite alimony”, “male victimization”, “divorced men”,
“divorced women”, “alimony victims”. Through discourse analysis, I aimed to set the
framework of the familialist, neoconservative political discourse and to identify
hegemonic ideas about divorce, divorced men and women, and women’s rights.
smaller cities. The interview with the interviewee residing in City E was conducted via Zoom, I did not
visit them in person.
11
The discourse of the alimony opponents reveals how male victim figure is
constructed and reproduced in the public eye. My main focus was to examine how
gendered identities were constructed through language, and how written and visual
materials related to alimony, women’s rights, Law No. 6284, the Istanbul Convention,
and divorces reproduce and reinforce male domination in the society.
In-Depth Interviews
I conducted semi-structured interviews using a voice recorder (unless otherwise
requested by participants). Duration of the interviews ranged from 90 minutes to 9 hours.
The total number of interviewees is 30: 2 feminist lawyers and activists, 5 divorce
lawyers; 10 divorced men, 3 female alimony opponents; and 10 divorced women. The
open-ended interview questions differed depending on interviewee groups. In the case of
interviewing feminist or non-feminist divorce lawyers, the interview questions focused
on their experiences and observations on alimony and child support during divorces (for
instance one question was “In which social groups do contested or consensual divorces
take place predominantly?”), the grounds for requesting divorce, and the social and
economic consequences of divorce for men and women. The interviews with feminist
lawyers also involved questions regarding their activist backgrounds and roles in legal
regulations–namely, new Civil Code based on gender equality within family, Law No.
6284, and the Istanbul Convention.
In the case of second interviewee group, that is, alimony opponents including
divorced men and female opponents, the interview questions mainly focused on marriage-
, divorce-, and alimony-related experiences. I aimed to obtain data on which narrating
strategies alimony opponents used to construct male self-victimization in the context of
survival of the family. As they bring forward economic, social, cultural, and even health
problems when defining the reason for their victimization, the interview questions aimed
to unveil their understanding of “successful” manhood. Interviewees’ approach to
violence occupied more place when answering questions shaped during the interview than
I expected at the beginning. The questions for female alimony opponents included their
relations to these men and the platform as well as their personal experiences in marriage
and divorce as women.
The interviews with the third interviewee group, the divorced women, mainly
focused on women’s lived experiences in marriage and during and after divorce. Alimony
12
and child support was part of interview questions to understand economic consequences
of divorce for women. Child custody was also a topic of conversation in terms of social,
economic, and emotional influences on women. Domestic violence, including physical,
economic, sexual, and psychological, constituted a significant part of interviews because
women’s accounts about their marriage, divorce, and post-divorce life intertwined with
various types of violence.
I reached participants by using a snowball sampling method which is a nonprobability
sampling technique. I contacted divorce lawyers, feminist lawyers, and
divorced women through my personal network. After I completed my pre-research on the
topic, official reports, interviews of the members of BİAP on media outlets as well as
their social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, I reached the founder of BİAP
through her contact information on the platform’s website. Afterwards, she helped me to
recruit future interviewees among their acquaintances. Then, I telephoned other
interviewees too. I reached the head of SNM through the contact number that he shared
on his Twitter account, and he brought four other members to the café that we conducted
the interview. To reach women was harder than I expected because many women, whom
I asked if we could conduct an interview on divorce experiences and alimony, refused to
talk to me. Some had concerns about their identities being disclosed even though I assured
them the definitive information about them could be changed for the sake of
anonymization. Some did not want to talk because they found divorce and post-divorce
processes traumatic, and they did not want to relive it at all. I conducted interviews with
four women at first. They all were my friends. Then, after almost a year, I made a new
friend and she proposed that she could ask women at her workplace if they would want
to talk to me. That’s how I met five more women and interviewed them. I heard the story
of the last divorced woman among interviewees first from an acquaintance and, thanks to
him, I was able to make contact with her.
My primary concern was to establish both an effective and a comfortable
relationship with the interviewees. To build a rapport, I developed some strategies. First,
I thanked them for their time, hospitality, and assistance. Then, I briefly introduced myself
as a researcher and my research topic. I informed them that interviews would probably
take about 45 minutes to one and half hour depending on their availability, that I would
use a recorder if they consented, and that confidentiality and anonymity would be
maintained. I stressed how valuable their contributions were for my research. We
arranged the date and time of the interviews according to their availability. I am not sure
13
how I was perceived by the interviewees from the second group. However, on one
occasion, when I was in City B to interview three divorced men, one of them asked me if
I could convey their problems to authorities so that they could change the relevant legal
regulations. Another man interrupted him and said: “No, no. She’s doing her homework,
it’s not something important.” So, I observed that there was a certain level of
understanding of my position in this particular context.
In terms of the third interviewee group of divorced women, I frequently needed to
emphasize that I would anonymize their information during the interviews when they
asked, and I thoroughly explained how I would do it to make sure that they felt safe.
While divorced men were comfortable with me using their full names and information
openly, women were worried about their information being disclosed. This difference was
striking for me, because I saw how inequality works in everyday life from the very
beginning. As I listened to women who told how their ex-husbands and families-in-law
kept harassing them after divorce, I understood their concerns more clearly. Two women
thanked me after the interview. Both said, “It was like a therapy session.” When one
interviewee asked me if she could choose her anonymous name, I happily accepted it.
Then, I asked other divorced women which name they preferred. But I could not do the
same for alimony opponents, lawyers, and two divorced women, since it did not occur to
me that I could so at the beginning of my research. In this research, eight divorced women
chose their own names.
1.3 Feminist Dilemmas in the Fieldwork
“Feminist praxis takes up issues of power, authority, ethics, and reflexivity”
(Hesse-Biber, 2012: 17), therefore, one fundamental aspect of feminist research is being
mindful of intersectional power relations and authority throughout the research process
(Hearn, 2013; Hesse-Biber, 2012). DeVault (1996) defines feminist methodology as a
field of investigation “rooted in feminist activism and in feminists’ critiques of the
standard procedures of social science” (DeVault, 1996: 29). Furthermore, according to
Stacey (1988), who asks the burning question “Can there be a feminist ethnography?”, to
seek an “egalitarian research process characterized by authenticity, reciprocity, and
intersubjectivity” (Stacey, 1988: 22) is a significant goal. To reflect on personal
experiences as a researcher in the fieldwork itself is a part of feminist methodology that I
embrace in this study. Political, social, and cultural atmosphere influences the research
14
process in various ways. Moreover, inequalities based on gender, class, ethnicity, or
sexuality run in everyday lives of the researcher and the researched.
During my research I paid specific emphasis on how gender influences the
relationships between me and my interviewees and among the interviewees themselves
had been a significant point for me to analyze and discuss. The interviewing process led
me to confusing feelings, questions, and dilemmas. Interviewing male interviewees,
especially anti-feminist men, as a woman researcher highlighted gender differences and
hierarchies during the interviews in unexpected ways.
Before I elaborate on these, I will briefly discuss the inclusion of men into feminist
research and how to produce feminist knowledge through conducting research on men
and masculinities.
1.3.1 How to Produce Feminist Knowledge Through Studying Men and Masculinities
How to conduct a feminist research has been scrutinized from various perspectives
by feminist researchers, particularly since 1980s (Stacey, 1988; Harding & Norberg,
2005; Hesse-Biber, Leavy & Yaiser, 2004; DeVault, 1996; Hesse-Biber, 2012). The
second wave of feminism in the 1960s and in the beginning of 70s produced the method
of consciousness raising, i.e., an empirical method that “provided a systematic mode of
inquiry that challenged received knowledge and allowed women to learn from one
another” (Allen, 1973, Combahee River Collective 1982, cited in DeVault, 1996: 30).
During this period, feminists criticized positivism through examples of androcentric bias
within natural sciences and social sciences, and they unveiled masculine norms within
academic disciplines. They pointed out that many mainstream scientific researches
excluded and distorted women’s experiences whereas they tended “to universalize the
experience of men (and relatively privileged women)” (DeVault, 1996: 30). They include
gender as a unit of analysis, instead of a variable, challenging traditional researchers
(Hesse-Biber, 2012). Following the critique of positivism and its research methods as a
central discussion topic, standpoint epistemologies came into prominence. The journey
of feminist knowledge and thinking has had a similar progress in Turkey (Erdoğan &
Gündoğdu, 2020). The Turkish literature on feminist methods has also been flourishing
through edited volumes (Çakır & Akgökçe, 1995; Harmanşah & Nahya, 2016; Erdoğan
& Gündoğdu, 2020), elaborating on fundamental discussion topics in the literature within
15
the context of research in Turkey. As Erdoğan and Gündoğdu (2020) elaborates, ever
since the second wave of feminism, the feminist literature in Turkey mainly has focused
on women’s historiography, women’s labor, legal issues, and women’s rights. However,
as a result of postmodernist influence, feminist researchers and their preferences for the
researched have been changing. Therefore, the number of feminist researches which do
not have women as researchers and researched is increasing. This reflects the diversifying
theoretical tendencies of feminism in Turkey (Erdoğan & Gündoğdu, 2020: p.18, 23-24).
Feminist philosopher Harding (1987) suggests that we distinguish between
“methods” (tools for gathering data), “methodology” (theorizing and analysis of research
practice), and “epistemology” (the study of how and what we can know and whether what
we know is adequate and valid), since “method” is used as an umbrella term to refer to
all three constituents of the research process and the use of this term when addressing the
question what makes our research feminist becomes confusing. Many scholars are on the
same page about the necessity and benefit of this distinction within the debates on the
definition of feminist research (Hesse-Biber, Leavy & Yaiser, 2004; Wolf, 1996; Erdoğan
& Gündoğdu, 2020). Even though there are no single feminist research epistemology or
methodology, the focus has been on the “women’s oppression and a concern for
improving their state.” Hence, many feminist researchers embraced the idea that feminist
research should be “‘concerned with values,’ should focus on ‘women-related research
questions’, should analyze ‘the condition of women’s lives’ and should be ‘grounded in
actual experiences closely related to social change’” (Webb, 1993: 416-417).
How, then, a research investigating men and masculinities may be considered as
producing feminist knowledge? Kremer (1990) and Evans (1990) excludes men from
feminist research as subject or object. Campbell (2003) states that the inclusion of men
into feminist research as subject or object is a controversial topic and argues that how to
theorize and methodologically perform men’s inclusion in epistemological terms is the
actual question, more than whether this inclusion is conceivable. However, the probability
to adopt “an epistemological approach which might lead to ghettoization of feminist
concerns into all-women camp” (Campbell, 2003: 285) is noted within the literature, and
at least at the theoretical level, the inclusion men into feminist research is justified. Since
feminist theorization of knowledge within women’s lived and shared experiences
inevitably include their relationships to men, how men, individually and collectively,
construct and maintain relations of oppression at ideological, discursive and material
levels may be included in the feminist research (Stanley and Wise, 1990; cited in
16
Campbell, 2003). Moreover, feminist social science is distinctive thanks to its diversity,
mindset of inclusiveness, and critical approach. Therefore, men are as crucial participants
as women in the feminist research (Campbell, 2003). Supporting and extending this,
Kümbetoğlu (2011), in her paper on the problems of feminist method, explains that if the
researcher aims to put interacting and intertwining subject-object problems of feminist
theory and method, power relations during the process of knowledge production, the
importance and outcomes of using gender as an analytic unit, instead of an variable in the
center of her/his research, then that research can be considered as having a feminist
character (Kümbetoğlu, 2011: p. 476).
Furthermore, one focus of the growing literature of Critical Studies on Men and
Masculinities (CSMM for short) is that the critical analysis of how men are “doing
gender” in their everyday lives may help to understand social oppression experienced by
women just because they are women. CSMM has been closely affected by the second
wave of feminism. Scholars who focus on men and masculinities widely claim that there
is no single form of masculinity, rather there is a hierarchal structure and power relations
among men. Some of the most-known theorists in the field (Connell 1987, 2005; Hearn,
2004; Messner, 1997) pursue the defense of gender equality pointing out imbalanced
structures and power relations within gender order in society through conceptualizations
of different forms of masculinities (and femininities).
A research studying women’s lived experiences does not, necessarily, have to be
feminist and a research focusing on masculinities from a critical and feminist perspective
may produce feminist knowledge. Women research participants may not themselves be
feminists and therefore might not agree with a feminist interpretation, but the latter may
still be valid in its own terms (Ribbens, 1989; cited in Webb, 1993). In line with these
approaches, this research focuses on alimony debates with a specific emphasis on male
self-victimization from a critical and feminist perspective, refers to gender as a unit of
analysis in its methodology and theory, and, more importantly, seeks to contribute to
social change and social transformation (Hesse-Biber, 2012) on behalf of women’s lives
and gender equality.
17
1.3.2 Experiencing, Observing, and Reproducing Gender Roles
The reason why I describe alimony opponents as anti-feminist is not that I had a
prejudice before I entered the field, but their unfavorable comments on feminists and
feminism during the interviews. Though there were many signs in their social media
posts implying their anti-feminism, they were not openly anti-feminist at the beginning.
Since September 2019 when I finished my interviews with alimony opponents, they have
gained more and more popularity on public agenda and affiliated with other groups
opposing legal regulations assuring women’s rights, and they gradually raised their antifeminist
voice more openly.
Political discourse and pro-government media outlets have been targeting
feminism and feminists, especially since 2016. Not long before I started my research in
2018, various social media users and national media outlets heavily attacked the posters
that women carried at the March 8th Feminist Night March. In 2019, the President
Erdoğan and pro-government outlets claimed that feminists whistled while azan was
reciting during March 8th Feminist Night March.24 25 The same year, police attacked the
marchers.26 In 2020, the march was banned, but women still went out for the march and
were then attacked by the police.27 Interviewees mentioned the night marches and the
posters during the interviews when I asked questions about their thoughts of women’s
rights activism’s approach to alimony debates. One divorced man whom I interviewed in
City B said: “Have you seen those posters? Those women are shameless. What is the
meaning of ‘my body my decision’? How could it be?” Also, a female opponent I
interviewed in City C firmly said: “I cannot support people who carry those posters.” This
implies that alimony opponents reproduce patriarchal values not only through their
attitudes towards divorce but also their daily discourses.
As I will discuss in Chapter 3, political polarization in Turkey influenced the
interviewees and alimony debates. There were shared beliefs among anti-alimony
24 Yeni Akit (2019, March 9). Bunlar kadın değil terörist! Ezanı ıslıkla protesto ettiler.Accessed December
25, 2020, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/bunlar-kadin-degil-terorist-ezani-islikla-protesto-ettiler-
649261.html.
25 Yeni Şafak (2019, March 10). Erdoğan’dan Taksim’de ezanın ıslıklanmasına sert tepki. Accessed
December 25, 2020, https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/erdogandan-taksimde-ezanin-isliklanmasinasert-
tepki-3450646.
26 Bianet (2019, March 8). Polis Feminist Gece Yürüyüşü’ne saldırdı. Accessed December 25, 2020,
https://bianet.org/bianet/kadin/206261-polis-feminist-gece-yuruyusu-ne-gazla-saldirdi.
27 SoL (2020, March 8). 8 Mart Feminist Gece Yürüyüşü’ne polis saldırdı. Accessed December 25, 2020,
https://haber.sol.org.tr/toplum/8-mart-feminist-gece-yuruyusune-polis-saldirdi-282163.
18
interviewees that feminists were anti-family; that they were puppets of the West or the
Church; that they wanted to keep women in a subordinated position to get funds. In
addition, there was a strong belief that feminists were collaborating with HDP, the
opposition party that interviewees (and the government) perceived as traitor. As a
feminist, I was aware of the “notoriety” of feminists among the majority in Turkey and
that it had escalated by political discourse. To be honest, I did not expect to hear
“conspiracy theories” about feminists but I avoided pushing these claims (misbeliefs to
me) for I deeply wanted to understand their perspectives.
Gurney (1985), in her paper that focuses on the dilemmas experienced by female
researchers in male-dominated settings, points out that methodology textbooks tend to
assume that the researcher is in powerful position whereas the researched is vulnerable.
However, when it comes to women interviewing men, this assumption may be reversed,
since the encounter of opposite sexes in the field inevitably means the encounter of gender
role performances. Furthermore, Gurney divided gender-related difficulties that women
researchers have experienced into two categories: sexual hustling and sexist treatment.
Sexual hustling varies “from flirtatious behavior and sexually suggestive remarks to overt
sexual propositioning” whereas “sexist treatment involves statements or actions which
place women researcher in an inferior or devalued position” (Gurney, 1985: 46).
Similarly, Arendell (1997), in her interviewing process with divorced fathers, made a
comparison with her experiences in a former research process with divorced mothers, and
observed that men acted in a sexist manner from attempting to direct her how she should
ask research questions to where she should put her recorder.
In my experience, alimony debates as a research field is full of sexist treatments
and claims against women. I cannot say that I had an authority, for instance, in terms of
asking my questions, during the interviews with men. My first and most clear observation
is that divorced men tended to perceive me as an audience rather than a participant in the
interview. For example, they often interrupted me when I tried to ask questions, or they
corrected my questions or avoided answering the question and turned to their own
“cause”. Even though alimony opponents based their limitation demands on gender
equality, the statements I heard during the interviews generally tended to reveal a mindset
subordinating women. For instance, after an interview with a divorced man in City A,
19
before we said goodbye to each other, he asked me what I thought about women’s
“selfishness” to receive alimony, and I answered as “I think the real matter here is
inequality,” and he said, “Okay, men and women are of course equals and men should
help women at home; but on the street, a woman should walk one step behind her man.”
All I could do was smile.
The questions on violence against women in Turkey and how Law No. 6284 offers
protection to women revealed quite interesting examples. For example, in City B, during
the interview with three divorced men, what one interviewee said was quite striking to
me: “Nobody can stop a man who is determined to kill a woman. I am able to choke you
here easily, I can do it, but I won’t, because I am a good man.” The other two interviewees
agreed with him and explained that the reason why they did not beat or kill their ex-wives
is that they were good men (though they had stories of violence in their marriage, but they
did not see those incidents as “violence”.) I was aware that he wanted to strengthen his
narrative, however, what made this example possible is that I was a woman. This kind of
expressions showed me how easy it was to talk about beating, killing, “choking” a woman
for a man whereas it is a horrific reality to any woman who hears these words from a man.
Narratives about divorced men’s thoughts and experiences about Law No. 6284
mostly led them to set examples through me. When we were talking about how a legal
regulation aiming to prevent violence against women may have misused by women and
damaged men, one interviewee residing in City A said “For instance, we are now sitting
here, and you misunderstand something I say. If you called the police and told them Hasan
insulted me, my life would be over because of this violence against woman.” Similarly,
another interviewee during our interview in Istanbul said, “I was so worried about coming
here when I found out that you were a woman. That is why I did not come alone. I came
with other victims. Because if you made a complaint about me saying that I harassed you,
because of Law No. 6284, I would have to grapple with legal difficulties.”
During these interviews, on the one hand, I felt that they did not trust me just
because I was a woman; on the other hand, I wondered if these “fears” were a strategy to
build male self-victimization as they presented themselves as vulnerable subjects who
could be exposed to slander by any woman at any moment. Of course, I was not exempt
from this sexist perception of woman as being self-seeker, maligner, or subordinate.
When I heard this kind of statements, I did not explain that Law No. 6284 did not work
in that way, that it did not lead you to prison straight away, that I was not there to accuse
20
them of harassment as long as they did not harass me. All I could do was to tolerate to
continue my research. Gurney’s description of her own experiences gave me a fine
expression of my feelings: “I often wished I were a more militant feminist who could
lecture the staff on their chauvinism and insensitivity and change their attitudes toward
women. Instead, I was always the polite and courteous researcher who tolerated much
and said little. I occasionally wondered if I was betraying my beliefs and values, but I
allowed it to continue” (Gurney, 1985: 56).
One interview with four men and one woman in City A provided a fruitful area of
observation how gender inequality worked among alimony opponents. Melek was
interrupted and corrected so many times that, at some point, I had to emphasize that I was
listening to her. Melek’s story was quite interesting when considered that she was an
alimony opponent. She was abandoned by her ex-husband with her 8-month-old child,
and he threatened her, saying that she should not ask for alimony. He did not even pay
the little amount of child support for a while. She could not get remarried even though
she wanted to because nobody accepted her with her child. So, I did not understand the
motivation of Melek supporting alimony opponents. She implied that she found the
Platform when she was searching “divorced people” on Facebook. I heard from various
opponents that some people reached them to meet someone and start a new family, her
motivation reminded me of this. But Melek did not say it openly so I avoid speculating.
As Melek was narrating her story, especially two other men, who defined themselves as
the founder of their platform, interrupted her a lot and Melek did not resist. When I asked
her “What do you think about men who do not pay their child support?” she looked at
that other two interviewees, then she asked, “What do I think?” And men took the control
of interview again.
Social reality is incompatible with research process. Inequalities based on gender,
class, ethnicity, or sexuality run in everyday lives of the researcher and the researched,
and these may be reproduced during the research process. Moreover, while gender
hierarchies may appear between the researcher and the researched, the researcher may
reproduce traditional gender roles. Berik (1996) shares her experiences on how she had
to reproduce gender norms during her fieldwork with women carpet weavers in rural
Turkey. She narrates how her husband or father accompanied her during the fieldwork,
how often she emphasized her identities as a wife and/or daughter of someone, how she
did not, on purpose, take the route through where coffeehouses (kahvehane) located on
her visits to women weavers, and how she used these strategies to reach women (Berik,
21
1996: 61). She recalls how uncomfortable she felt because she “adhered to rules of
conduct appropriate for rural women” and she could not adopt “a feminist manner” for
the viability of her research, how she thus “helped to perpetuate hierarchical gender
structures.” (Berik, 1996: 57) Even though I conducted my research all alone, without a
man accompanying me, I felt a similar dilemma about negotiating my identity in the field.
First of all, I deactived my social media accounts so as to hide my feminist identity
because my interviewees openly defined themselves as anti-feminists, and I wanted to
seem “ordinary” to them. Secondly, even though I went to the meetings alone, I needed
to emphasize that I was “engaged” (while I was not) or was the “daughter” of someone,
or that I lived with my family in Istanbul (while I was living alone).
From being very careful in choosing public spaces for interviews to deal with
sexist, even misogynist, comments during the interviews, the fact that I was a young,
single woman living in Turkey, a patriarchal country, had reminded me by my
interviewees, by my friends and family, and to be honest, by myself. The one reason why
I heard the warning “Be careful!” a lot was that male interviewees of my research were
men who were presented as being against women’s rights, let alone complete strangers. I
did not hear any warnings before I went to interview women no matter that they are
alimony supporters or alimony opponents. The rising social violence against women, the
rising numbers of femicides, lived experiences, and the inequality that women experience
just because they are women in their everyday lives created these worried warnings and
questions. This was a shared feeling even though it was not openly said. When I travelled
to City B to interview three divorced men, I heard the question “Are you sure?” from four
different women, including my mother. When I got there, one interviewee picked me up,
and on the way, I talked to my boyfriend (I said that he was my fiancée) and my mother
on the phone. It was actually a “private show” to ensure that I was not all alone, and there
was someone who knew I was there. The possibility of “being in danger” is not about the
characters of my interviewees at all, it did not mean they were dangerous people, it was
just a precaution deriving from the prejudice caused by the sex-segregated society, and to
be honest, these precautions made me feel more secure (Gurney, 1985).
As last words in this subsection, I would like to share the devastating feelings I
had on my way home at the end of a day I interviewed two women. The women were
living far from where I lived. The commute to their neighborhood would take almost 3
hours, so I took the bus in the early hours of that morning to meet them. On that busy day,
when the time came to go home, it had already got dark. While I waited for the bus to
22
depart, I was texting with a friend. She warned me to be careful because it was dark, and
she kept checking whether I was okay until I got home. I sent her my location on
WhatsApp, so she could track where I was. I spent the whole day listening to women who
experienced marriages filled with every form of violence, who were threatened, beaten,
violently attacked because they wanted to divorce, who were left alone by the state,
society, their families to find a way out from poverty and violence, simply because they
were women. Then, on my way back to home, as a young woman, I was scared because
it was dark. I went through all the possibilities, good and bad, in my mind. I made different
plans for different scenarios. I checked whether my pepper gas was somewhere I could
reach easily. I counted how many women there were in the bus, because other women’s
presence made me feel more secure. I know that I am not the only woman who does these
things at once. I take these precautions whenever I am out at a late hour. It was ten minutes
after the departure, I suddenly realized that a small part of the route going back home was
the route of the minibus that Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old young woman, got on before
she was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered by the minibus driver. This truth was
such a slap in my face that I cried with a deep anger, desperation, and fear all along the
way. That anger and fear may have crystallized on that evening, but I carry them with me
every day. After that evening, after that bus ride that felt endless because of the rush of
devastating emotions, I will always wonder, in Turkey where male violence killed at least
four women a day, who knows which road we passed was the last road a woman passed
for the last time before she was murdered. Constantly thinking of ways to protect
ourselves against any possible violent act that may come from any man (not only known
men, but also strangers) in the street is part of our lives as women because of our former
experiences or the knowledge of male violence against other women that is endemic in
Turkey. This experience and realization clearly indicates that male violence works as a
continuum and affect women’s lives from private spaces, homes and families, to public
spaces and streets (Kelly, 1987).
1.3.3 Some Questions Left Unanswered and Productivity of Difference
Oakley’s (1981) highly acclaimed article on interviewing women criticizes
traditional criteria in methodology textbooks through her own interviewing experiences
with women expecting children. She states that her interviews involved reciprocity
23
between herself and her interviewees, that is, not only she did ask questions of them, but
they asked questions too. Traditional methodology textbooks suggest the interviewer to
avoid the temptation to express his/her own views, even if given opportunity, since it
creates a bias. She points out that “the paradigm of a ‘proper’ interview appeals to such
values as objectivity, detachment, hierarchy, and ‘science’ as an important cultural
activity which takes priority over people’s more individualized concerns. Thus, the errors
of poor interviewing compromise subjectivity, involvement, the ‘fiction’ of equality, and
an undue concern with the ways in which people are not statistically comparable”
(Oakley, 1981: 36). She defines this as the “proper” way to interview within
“predominantly model of sociology and society” (p.31).
Before I started to conduct interviews, I was open to answering questions and, if
asked, sharing my own experiences and opinions, and giving feedback to the responses,
as Oakley suggests and because I intended to adhere to feminist principles on the
democratization of interviewing process. However, it did not work in that way at the
beginning. Alimony debates as a research field is deeply influenced by the political
polarization in Turkey between right and left, men and women, secular and religious, and
so on. Because of the sharp distinctions between alimony supporters and alimony
opponents, what you say about whether alimony must be removed or not may become an
implication of your political stance. As a researcher embracing feminist mindset, I knew
“difference” and “detachment” might have marked interviewing process especially with
divorced men. Regardless of whether they were female alimony opponents or proalimony
divorced women, the shared and lived experiences of women arising from just
being a woman was still helpful to generate the kind of empathic understanding that
feminists seek. To answer questions directed to me about my opinion on the topic had not
been that much easy because of my concern to maintain my research and to establish a
comfortable way of interviewing.
In the case of interviews with alimony opponents, I was asked which side I took;
or to express my opinion when there were some descriptions about the distinction between
good women (described as those who take care of their family; find a job after divorce to
feed their children, regardless of their education-level; are self-sacrificing and contented;
do not “abuse” the relevant laws as asking for alimony or filing for a restraining order
against their husbands) and bad women (referring to those who do not take care of their
family; indulge themselves while their husbands try to make both ends meet; cannot
tolerate their husbands; are impatient, self-seeker, vengeful, and so on). How I viewed
24
social reality in everyday life was feminist and, inevitably, when I answered questions of
the interviewees that would be from a feminist perspective and I knew that they would
not like my answer. Therefore, I preferred to focus on the interviewee instead of myself
and follow the traditional methodology textbooks, pretend not to have opinions, during
the first interview: “Your opinions are more important than mine”, “I will tell you my
opinion after we finish the interview”, “I am here only to understand, not to judge.” As
Oakley explains in her piece, traditional methodology textbooks suggest this way of
behavior to avoid “biasing” interview (Oakley, 1981: 36). However, Oakley claims that
this way of interaction during interviews is counterproductive, and I would come to
realize that she was right. My interviews were intended to be semi-structured, so many
other questions arose during the first interview. However, my questions that I developed
according to the interviewee’s answers were inevitably from a feminist perspective and
that led the interview to be more productive in terms of understanding how the male
interviewee constituted his masculinity, gender role, and how he approached to violence
against women. In other words, when I challenged myself to avoid following the
traditional methodology textbooks, the interviewee started to share his own story and
ideas, leaving the propaganda of BİAP aside.
Alimony opponents tended to behave as speaking to an audience rather than being
a participant in an interview. However, another benefit of asking challenging questions
from a feminist perspective broke this way of interviewing relations because the
interviewees left shared declarations of BİAP and SNM aside and focused on their own
experiences. I observed that they wanted to defend themselves, as a result, they expressed
their own ideas rather than their platforms’.
In terms of answering the questions asked back to me, I was more comfortable
with female interviewees no matter if they were alimony opponents or not. A similar turn
appeared in interviewing women: The more I asked questions and made comments from
feminist perspective, the more they abandoned narratives that were identical to BİAP’s
social media accounts and started to focus on their own life stories. In this way, I learned
more about their struggles, strategies, solutions, and collaborations in a male-dominated
society and culture.
When I went to City B to interview three divorced men, I was asked again which side
I took at the end of the interview, and this time, I was honest: “As long as the state does
not provide necessary conditions for women’s empowerment, I think the implementation
must be in this way.” I was worried to get negative reactions, but it did not happen. When
25
I revealed my opinion, only one interviewee said, “Don’t hold your breath” (“Ölme
eşeğim ölme”) and that’s all. As I preferred criticism and disagreement over empathy,
approval, and acceptance, this developed an intersubjective understanding of “extrafeminist”
worlds as Campbell (2003) experienced in her fieldwork with senior police
officers. The questions, comments, and feedbacks from a feminist perspective paved the
way for alimony opponents to, for example, abandon giving answers that were almost
identical to other members’ answers to my questions on their motivations for being
alimony opponent. For female alimony opponents, the advocation of men’s right to not
pay alimony, or the assumptions that other women misuse Law No. 6284 to punish their
ex-husbands gave way to share their own life stories and how they experienced gender
inequality in the society. As I elaborated later in this chapter, women’s sharing of their
experiences did not come from a “feminist awareness”, however, this way of interviewing
provided a broader context to analyze the interviewees’ motivations for being alimony
opponents, how they constructed their gender roles in the society, and, in the case of
divorced men, how they, “individually and collectively, construct and maintain relations
of oppression” (Stanley & Wise, 1990; cited in Campbell, 2003).
In other respects, as I interviewed divorced women, I had a whole different
experience, and followed Oakley’s suggestions in the nature of things. During the
interviews, I easily developed empathy and frequently remembered my own experiences
as a child of a divorced woman and my mother’s struggles that I witnessed. I should admit
that sometimes I lost control and cried with my interviewees. Even though I worried about
my emotional reactions affecting the course of the interview, it only led to friendship. I
realized that I felt in control when asking questions, that I knew the right question to ask
to have a better understanding of women’s experiences. This was a feeling I could not
have with the alimony opponents, because of the feeling that I was perceived as if an
audience, rather than a participant in a conversation. Besides, the interviews that I
conducted with alimony opponents were group interviews. Therefore, there were various
answers coming from various interviewees at the same time, sometimes, I felt
disorientated in asking the next question related to their answers. As another difference
between interviews with divorced men and divorced women, women did not interrupt me
as I asked my questions whereas men mostly tended to do so. I spent the whole two days
at workplace of five women interviewees. We had breakfast and lunch together. We
shared our personal stories. They asked questions about my research, life, and family, and
I answered them honestly without any concern. Women did not try to convince me about
26
their righteousness, in contrast to alimony opponents, maybe because they did not know
about alimony debates very well. Some women asked me questions about their legal
rights, and I informed them as much as I could.
1.4 Limitations
The difficulty in accessing the ex-wives and subsequent wives of divorced men posed
a significant limitation to this research. Divorced men preferred not to share contact
information of their ex-wives. Only one of them allowed me to interview his subsequent
wife, but we could not manage to name a day that suits both of us. Therefore, I could not
examine narratives of women alimony opponents as deeply as divorced men’s narratives.
Another limitation of the study is that it may not be statistically representative of
divorced men/fathers given that it only included alimony opponents who are members of
Divorced People and Family Platform and/or Indefinite Alimony Victims. Since they
shared other men’s stories during interviews, and since I have access to what alimony
opponents share on social media platform, generalizations within this research regarding
motives, justifications, and workings of male self-victimization refer to alimony
opponents. Moreover, since divorced men avoid sharing their monthly income and assets,
the data has no transparency which could be considered as a weakness of the study.
1.5 Organization of the Chapters
This research is divided into five main chapters. The second chapter mainly proposes
that alimony is a result of gender inequality between women and men in social, economic,
and familial relations in relation to patriarchal values in the Turkish context. It explains
the politics of masculinist restoration, that is top-down and bottom-up efforts to maintain
and reproduce patriarchy, since patriarchal apprehension of female subordination is not
hegemonic anymore under neoliberal conditions. Hence, it argues that male selfvictimization
circulated in the anti-alimony discourse act as a bottom-up counterpart of
the politics of masculinist restoration, and as a useful tool for the state’s instrumental
purposes.
To provide a broader context, the first section shows how the state’s political
discourse and social policies exclude women from social security system and
employment as well as perceive women as primary caregivers and provider of social
welfare, drawing on the literature on neoliberal restructuring of welfare regime and
27
neoconservative familialism in Turkey (Buğra and Yakut-Çakar, 2010; Yazıcı, 2012;
Dedeoğlu, 2012; Acar and Altunok, 2013; Özar and Yakut-Çakar, 2013, Lordoğlu, 2018;
Öztan, 2014). It also explains the legal, discursive, and institutional changes in gender
and family politics of AKP governments since 2002 positioning marriage, gender
equality, procreation, and divorce as major concerns. This section includes the accounts
of feminist lawyers and activists who witnessed this transformation firsthand.
The second section focuses on historical evolution of alimony regulation in the
Turkish Civil Code through legal documents, including the Civil Code, and parliamentary
minutes in which alimony is discussed. It examines two official researches, namely
Research on Reasons for Divorce in Türkiye (TBNA 2014) and the Commission of
Marital Breakdown Report in order to analyze the dramatic change in the approach of the
government towards divorce and alimony in these reports. It also discusses the official
emergence of alimony debates and presents various supports to anti-alimony campaign.
Finally, the last section explores reactions to alimony debates from women’s
organizations and bar associations.
Based on the data I collected during my fieldwork, I divided the third chapter into
four sections. The first section introduces two anti-alimony groups –BİAP and SNM– and
explains their emergence, mobilization, demands, and political stance through their
members’ accounts. It explores how anti-alimony campaign can be considered a men’s
rights movement (Messner, 1997) in Turkey. It also briefly examines common
components in the formation of “male victim” figure.
The second section presents the accounts of divorced men and female allies in antialimony
groups in terms of their economic, social, and emotional experiences in marriage
and divorce. Utilizing studies on men and masculinities and feminist literature on
marriage, male dominance, and divorce, it analyzes the accounts of divorced men in terms
of their perception of marital roles, ideal manhood, the difference between being married
and being divorced in the eyes of Turkish society in relation to socially privileged status
of the head of family. It also discloses men’s experiences in divorce process and their
protests on alimony, child support, compensation, and marital property distribution.
The third section deals with how women become a part of male self-victimization
through the comparison between “this woman” and “that woman” that frequently
appeared in the interviews with anti-alimony campaigners. This distinction that alimony
opponents made mainly refers to positioning of women: women who defend men’s rights
and those who do not; women who are members of men’s natal or established family and
28
those who are not; women who want to get involved with the family of divorced and
alimony-paying men and those who do not want to. This section also discusses female
supporters’ participation in reproduction of patriarchal values and male dominance
through discourse and daily practices.
The last section elaborates the alimony opponents’ opinions about Law No. 6284, and
their perception of violence against women and femicides. It analyzes the accounts
drawing on the literature on male violence. It discusses how male self-victimization works
as a justification tool for violence against women, and how violence and femicides almost
turn into a threat to women in the anti-alimony discourse.
The fourth chapter presents divorced women’s accounts on their experiences in
marriage and divorce. The main aim of this chapter is to include women’s voices into the
debates, because the lack of women’s experiences and struggles is a significant
characteristic of alimony debates. Even though we have heard some women’s stories
thanks to the efforts of women’s rights organizations and media outlets supporting
women’s rights, there is still a need for inclusion of more women’s experiences. The
analysis of women’s stories from decision of marriage to life after divorce aims to
demonstrate how male domination plays a role in women’s lives and to what extent they
contribute to this domination.
I divided the fourth chapter into five sections based on certain themes that
frequently appeared in women’s accounts. The first section discloses determinant
conditions, motivations, and familial or external factors leading women to make the
decision to marry. The struggles that women experience for reconciliation of paid and
unpaid work are significant in terms of understanding why women are adjudged to receive
alimony in most of the cases. Therefore, the first sections includes women’s struggles and
strategies to deal with inequalities in social, economic, and familial relations.
The second section presents how male violence, including physical,
psychological, sexual, emotional, and economic violence, leaves a deep mark on
women’s lives in marriage, divorce, and post-divorce processes. This section also
discusses the ineffectiveness and insensitivity of the law enforcers in regard to violence
against women.
The third section scrutinizes women’s experiences during the divorce process and
their problems related to alimony, compensation, child support, child custody, and marital
property distribution.
29
The fourth section explores women’s lives after divorce in terms of social and
economic pressures as well as continuity of conflicts between ex-spouses about alimony,
child support, and child custody. It also focuses on women’s struggles for concrete
consequences of divorce–housing, employment, childcare, and security problems–and
emotional consequences after divorce. The last section of the fourth chapter is about
women’s knowledge on alimony debates, and their comments on male self-victimization.
The conclusive chapter summarizes the main chapters of this research. It makes
an overall analysis of how patriarchal values that are intrinsic to laws, norms, policies,
and economic and social relations in the Turkish context perceive women as primary
caregivers, exclude women from employment, and cause female poverty, resulting in
women being the spouse who are adjudged as alimony claimants in divorce. Also, it
analyzes how anti-alimony groups in terms of how they have become the drivers of
neoliberal rationality and neoconservative familialism as bottom-up counterparts of topdown
efforts in the politics of masculinist restoration.
Chapter 2:
“THE WHOLE PROBLEM OF PATRIARCHY”: THE RIGHT TO
ALIMONY IN THE CONTEXT OF MASCULINIST
RESTORATION POLITICS
“When you address alimony just as alimony, it is like the description of an
elephant by a blind person. Alimony is only a part of the whole problem of patriarchy.”
Ayşe, who is a feminist lawyer for more than 50 years, expressed these as final statements
at the end of our two-and-a-half-hour meeting at her home in City A. Indeed, the
interviews with lawyers —feminist or not— divorced women, and alimony opponents
were accounts of women’s status in the eyes of patriarchal state and society. Alimony
was only a small part of these accounts. Male violence against women, femicides,
women’s limited access to education and employment, marriage at young age, antiegalitarian,
familialist and pronatalist political discourse, lack of care services dominated
the interviews. Therefore, grasping the characteristics of alimony debates is not separate
from “the whole problem of patriarchy”.
Many studies in social sciences have already noted how patriarchy is intrinsic to
norms, laws and policies, economic and social relations and how modern states’ role in
30
administering gendered bodies, as well as their reproductive and sexual capacities, is
significant and undeniable (Yuval-Davis, 1997; Walby, 1989; Orloff, 1993; Acar and
Altunok, 2013; Özar and Yakut-Çakar, 2013; Lordoğlu, 2018, Kandiyoti, 2016, 2019).
According to Walby (1989), patriarchy is a system composed of various social relations
and the state is one of these patriarchal structures. The state affects gender relations not
because of its capitalist nature, but its patriarchal nature (Walby, 1989; cited in Lordoğlu,
2018: 65). Connell (2006) defines “gender order” as a spate of principles, values, norms,
and political frameworks which constitute and affect gender relations in a society at a
given time in history. Gender-related interactions within certain institutions, such as
family, state, education, or military, construct the “gender order”.
Connell (1987) argues that there is not a singular masculinity or femininity.
Instead, there are diverse and competing masculinities at any given historical moment.
To explain unbalanced structure of the gender order and power relations, Connell
proposes the concept of “hegemonic masculinity” which has provided an important basis
for discussion in the literature of critical studies on men and masculinities. Connell
borrows the concept of hegemony from Gramsci’s analyses of class relations in Italy and
states that “hegemonic masculinity” means “a social ascendancy achieved in a play of
social forces that extends beyond contests of brute power into the organization of private
life and cultural processes” (Connell, 1987: 184). Hegemonic masculinity is embedded in
mass media content, social policies, wage structures, and religious doctrine and practice.
In this sense, certain institutions such as the state, laws, companies, the family unit, and
military constantly reproduce hegemonic masculinity. While the state’s role in
reproducing and regulating hegemonic masculinity and gender relations is undeniable,
oppositional forces hold the potential to resist or transform the relations between the state
and gender relations, which are inherently articulations of dynamic, multiple, and
historically determined power relations (Acar and Altunok, 2013: 15). As private domain
plays a significant role in producing, reproducing, and controlling womanhood
particularly (Yuval-Davis, 1997), understanding masculinity in the context of labor
relations and oppressive gender relations is important (Connell 1987, 1990, 1995).
The large-scale transformations in social conditions such as changes in work and
family life due to urbanization, modernization, industrialization, or the rise of organized
feminist movements create breaks in gender order. Men who hold (or at least trying to
hold) hegemonic masculine ideals may perceive this as a threat to the meaning of
hegemonic masculinity and men’s positions of power relative to women and lower-class
31
men, and this is called “masculinity crisis”. Kandiyoti (2014) indicates these large-scale
transformations, stating that, under neoliberal conditions, the soaring rates of male
unemployment and increasing precarious forms of employment coincide with women’s
public visibility and ambitions that are at their height. Moreover, as most states have
foregone “their paternalistic functions of provision of public goods and welfare”
(Kandiyoti, 2014), they seek mostly neoconservative ideological means to support their
legitimacy, promoting familialism, nationalism, religiosity, or patriotism (Acar and
Altunok, 2015). At the domestic level, the male provider as “the head of the family” that
constitutes one of the fundamentals of male privilege is under pressure. Patriarchal
apprehension of female subordination is not hegemonic anymore. This conflict between
women’s rising ambitions and determined male backlash creates a strong crisis in the
gender order. Therefore, a new politics of masculinist restoration have emerged to
maintain and reproduce patriarchy. Kandiyoti (2014) defines masculinist restoration as
“a politics that requires systematic indoctrination (Islamic, nationalistic or mixtures of
both), greater surveillance and higher levels of intrusion in citizens’ lives”. Kandiyoti
(2020) points the significant indications marking masculinist restoration that the changing
forms of violence that spread from private space to public space28, the law enforcers’
deliberate ineffectiveness and unresponsiveness to prevent it, and social policies and
political discourse that “put the woman in her place” as mothers, wives, and obedient
individuals adopted by the government and Religious Affairs. She clearly notes that the
politics of masculinist restoration is not only a top-down phenomenon that the state
apparatuses set to work for its own instrumental purposes, but also it has its bottom-up
support groups such as men protesting their “victimization” derived from women’s socalled
excessive rights. Kandiyoti also notes that gender division is not enough to
explain or understand these schisms or dichotomies, as traditional vs. modern or
28 In a podcast with Alev Özkazanç, Kandiyoti indicates “the indicent of Ayşegül Terzi” as an example to
explain new forms of violence that she defined as “social violence”. A stranger man attacked Ayşegül Terzi
in public transportation because she wore shorts. Kandiyoti interprets this as a reflection of the state’s efforts
in political discourse and familialist social policies to “put the woman in her place” as a part of family, a
mother, a wife instead of free, equal, and demanding individuals. For the podcast: Kandiyoti, D. (Host).
(2020, February 26). Deniz Kandiyoti ile Söyleşi -1: Erkek şiddetinin yeni biçimleri, AKP ve Diyanet’in
tutmayan aile politikaları [Audio podcast episode]. In Alev Özkazanç – Arka Pencere. kısa dalga. Accessed
February 15, 2021, https://www.kisadalga.net/podcast/detay/deniz-kandiyoti-ile-soylesi-1-erilrestorasyon-
ve-toplumsal-cinsiyet-krizinin-keskinlesmesi_307. For the newspaper report about the male
violence against Ayşegül Terzi in a public transportation and her legal lawsuit process: CNN Türk (2018,
November 11). Ayşegül Terzi’ye otobüste saldıran kişi hakkında istinaf kararı çıktı. Accessed February 15,
2021, https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/aysegul-terziye-otobuste-saldiran-kisi-hakkinda-istinaf-kararicikti.
32
religious vs. secular, because there are both women and men on opposite sides of these
debates (Kandiyoti, 2020).
In the case of anti-alimony groups including both men and women, standing
among prominent examples of these counterparts, the coalition of top-down and bottomup
masculinist restoration manifests itself clearly. On the one hand, anti-alimony groups
formed their demands and protests based on how women’s supposedly excessive rights
are a threat to family, and how their socially privileged status as the head of the family is
under pressure because of alimony regulation and Law No. 6284. Their discourse, as will
be discussed in detail in Chapter 3, implies a yearning for traditional family structure. On
the other hand, the government’s political discourse and social policies towards gender
equality, family, and “women’s rightful place” influence anti-alimony discourse, and the
government shapes its policies according to demands of anti-women’s rights groups.
These attacks to women’s rights and gender equality can be considered as economic and
psychological violence against women, because limiting or eliminating alimony may
cause to discourage them from ending their marriage involving various forms of violence
or due to economic reasons. Moreover, any interference to Law No. 6284 and the Istanbul
Convention would preclude the most effective legal methods to combat violence against
women and gender inequality. Due to misinformative and provocative news on media
outlets portraying the woman who receives alimony in a way to show that she is violating
her ex-husband’s and his new family’s rights in many ways, and that she lives an immoral
life or work informally to keep receiving alimony, a collective rage against women who
want to divorce and receive alimony has been increasing on social media and
conventional media.29
In the light of this information, this chapter explores the characteristics of alimony
debates, aiming to shed light on how the contents of alimony debates are part of the
29 The newspaper report titled “She asked for alimony increase and came to the court with her fiancée!”
that circulated on social media and conventional media in 2018 was one of the most striking examples of
how the media creates the image of “immoral woman” and the aggressive attitude towards divorced women
who receive alimony in general. According to the report, the woman’s ex-husband shared that his ex-wife
told him “Raise the alimony, we cannot get married.” However, during the interview with feminist lawyer
Hale, she said that the woman who went to the court with her fiancée actually asked for raise in child
support. But this fact remained as a “detail” that one could learn only when one intended to learn the truth
about this news. Apparently, most people were not interested in the truth and tended to believe without
questioning. The misogyny rooted in patriarchal Turkish society must have catalyzed this way of approach.
For the relevant newspaper report: Haber Türk (2018, September 14). “Nafaka artırımı istedi, duruşmaya
nişanlısıyla geldi!” Accessed June 1, 2019. http://www.sanalbasin.com/mobil/duvardibi-sayi-23-nafaka-
30967633.
33
“masculinist restoration”, and how alimony is the result of gender inequality produced
and reproduced by the gender order in state policies and the society, rather than the reason
behind gender inequality. In the first section, it discloses gender equality, women’s rights
in economic, political, and familial relations in the context of neoliberal restructuring of
highly gendered welfare regime (Buğra and Yakut-Çakar, 2010) in connection with
neoconservative familialism. In line with this, it explains the gender politics of the AKP
governments with an emphasis on how AKP has discursively established marriage,
procreation, and divorce as major concerns when addressing women as its primary
audience (Öztan, 2014). The second section focuses on historical evolution of alimony in
the Turkish Civil Code through legal documents, including the Civil Code, parliamentary
minutes in which amendment in alimony regulation in 1988 is discussed, and two official
research reports on marriage and divorce in Turkey. Finally, it explains reactions to
alimony debates from women’s organizations and bar associations. To demonstrate the
background of political and social realm is essential to grasp the characteristics of alimony
debates and “alimony victims”, and to illustrate how this male self-victimization act as a
significant tool for bottom-up masculine restoration as well as how cross-party and crossclass
alliances among men “when the question of curtailing women’s rights or blocking
reformist moves entailing their expansion are on the agenda” (Kandiyoti, 2014).
The discussion of alimony debates in this historical, social, and political context
demonstrates the state’s contribution to the woman’s poverty in marriage and divorce and
increasing conservatism towards the woman’s role as primary caregiver through political
discourse and familialist social policies, and its effects on society in return. Furthermore,
in the context of alimony debates, the state’s affirmative response to men protesting their
victimization due to women’s so-called excessive rights and its insistence on exclusion
of women’s rights organizations from the process of decision-making on any proposed
amendments in the existing regulation clearly show how the state appeal to male selfvictimization
in order to serve its instrumental goals.
2.1 Women’s Economic Dependency in the Context of Neoliberal Welfare and
Neoconservative Familialism
Starnes (2014) defines the history of alimony as part of “a larger story of gender
roles within the family, a story with roots in the ideology of separate spheres, the notion
that women are better suited for the private sphere of home and hearth and men for the
34
public sphere of the market place” (p. 15). In such economic conditions when one salary
is not enough to maintain a household or when retirement provisions get worse, marital
property distribution has become a useless tool because divorcing couples have few assets
or not at all. Thus, income sharing, i.e., alimony, has often become the only useful
economic support for primary caretaker in divorce cases in which divorcing couples have
disparate earning capacities due to gendered marital roles. But what is the rationale for
alimony? Why should anyone have to share their income with a former spouse? This is
one of the burning questions of alimony debates.
Starnes remarks that in the past, the answer to this question was the husband’s
lifetime obligation to economically support his wife at marriage, and alimony was the
judicial tool for enforcement of this obligation when the spouses separated. In the
contemporary context, one pragmatic justification for alimony is that “alimony protects
the state from the job of supporting a divorced spouse who, without alimony, would be
thrust into poverty” (Starnes, 2011: 271) To be “in need” is the most determinant criterion
to be judged as “alimony creditor” and in most cases, not only in Turkey but also in other
parts of the world, alimony creditors are women. In other words, those “who face a
decline in standard of living short of poverty” in the wake of divorce are women. From a
feminist perspective, considering the man’s power of decision derived from the privileged
status of the head of the family as money holder (Sancar, 2013), it may be argued that
alimony is a way to continue the husband’s control over the wife after divorce and the
state’s withdrawal from its responsibility for the woman’s poverty through its gendered
policies that position the woman in private sphere as primary caregiver, and the man as
primary provider in family relations.
Family relations have a critical role in organization of unpaid care work and
responsibilities as well as analysis of relationship between private and public spheres.
These relations are directly related to paid work and employment, hence to welfare
regimes. The common claim is that the emergence of modern welfare states is a transition
from “private” to “public” patriarchy (Orloff, 1993). Welfare regimes constitute gender
hierarchy through gendered division of labor, with men responsible for families’
economic maintenance and women responsible for caring and domestic labor; the family
wage system; the exclusion of women from the paid labor force or from favored positions
within; and traditional marriage. Women’s unpaid caring/domestic labor on behalf of
societal welfare has a key role for the sustainability of the welfare regime. Esping-
Andersen’s (1990) well-known three-world typology–liberal, conservative-corporatist,
35
and social democratic (Nordic)–has been criticized as being gender-blind, because it
commonly takes class as a unit of analysis excluding how gender relations and welfare
states mutually influence each other (Orloff, 1993; Lewis, 1992). Ferrera (1996) added a
fourth regime type in Esping-Andersen’s typology: Southern European welfare regimes.
He originally included Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal in this type. Grütjen (2008)
points that Turkey can be included in this category because of the family’s important role
in providing social services as well as the perception of marriage as the real social security
mechanism for women due to the dependency of wives and daughters on the husbands
and fathers if they do not work (Grütjen 2008: cited in Ermiş-Mert, 2018). Gal (2010)
suggests the concept of extended family in Southern European welfare states (Italy, Spain,
Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Israel, and Turkey). Alongside with the centrality of
family and clientelism, the religion has an influence on the formation of welfare regime.
Even though Turkey differs from the other countries by virtue of not being a European
Union (EU) member and the mainstream religion being Islam, Grütjen (2008) underlines
that Turkey is still a part of Southern European regimes because of the family’s role as a
fundamental institution of welfare, and of the lack of emphasis on civil society (Grütjen,
2008; cited in Ermiş-Mert, 2018).
In Turkey, a historical basis shaped by values and traditions that prioritize family
and religion determines the role of women in society and work life (Buğra and Özkan,
2012: 19). Arat’s study (2009) focusing on political party programs between 1923 and
2007 shows that political parties have tended to accept the family institution as sacred
and avoided from criticizing it (Arat, 2009: cited in Öztan, 2014). The modern family
model introduced by the reformists in the early Republican period was composed of male
breadwinner and modern, educated, and devoted housewife (Sancar, 2012; Arat, 1997).
Eventually the family model based on male breadwinner formed the basis of formal social
security system of 1940s: This corporatist system defined women as dependents of their
male relatives in accessing health, old age, and orphan/widow benefits (Buğra and Özkan,
2014), rather than a fundamental component of labor force. Since the 1980s, spatial
transformations associated with Turkey’s process of integration into global economy have
led to an erosion of the informal qualities of the welfare regime, including the
convenience provided by the extended family in the care labor. The disengagement of
women from the agricultural workforce did not turn into an increase in female
participation, particularly among married women, in the urban workforce, and a process
of housewifery occurred. Buğra and Keyder (2003, 2006), therefore, remark that
36
women’s unpaid work within nuclear family and conservative familialist dimension of
welfare has become crucial in the process of neoliberal transformation.
The neoliberal restructuring of welfare and employment with an emphasis on the
importance of family for the state in Turkey has been a popular topic for social scientists.
A good number of researchers (Buğra and Yakut-Çakar, 2010; Yazıcı, 2012; Dedeoğlu,
2012; Acar and Altunok, 2013; Özar and Yakut-Çakar, 2013, Lordoğlu, 2018) have
pointed to the consolidation of the dependent status of women, informed by women’s
perceived role as primary caregivers, in tandem with neoliberal restructuring of welfare
and employment, and neoconservative familialism. Familialism, used with a pejorative
connotation, refers to a view of family as “a pre-modern patriarchal institution where men
exercised a discretionary power over family members” (Moreno, 2002: 2). Öztan (2014)
notes that familialism implies a system of ideology and values in which normative family
patterns are central; as an ideology, it involves not only normalization of marriage,
marginalization of divorce, gender-based division of labor, and certain reproduction
behaviors, but also justification of specific political frameworks such as organization of
welfare. Familialism involves practical and material dynamics as well as cultural
construction and intervention processes in which religious, conservative, moral, national,
and modern norms intertwine with neoliberal rationalities (Öztan, 2014: 177-178).
Even though familialism has been one of the most prominent characteristics of
politics in Turkey, family came to the forefront on both ideological and institutional levels
ever since AKP first came to power in 2002. Familialism, for AKP governments, is
primarily important in terms of legitimizing their political power. The family is important
for AKP not only for socio-economic reasons, but also for being an ideological
legitimization tool based on moral and religious values (Öztan, 2014). The discussion of
legal, political, and institutional transformation towards gender equality and family under
AKP governments, drawing on sociological and anthropological researches on neoliberal
restructuring of welfare regime and employment bringing along neoconservative
familialism, provides the broader context for demonstrating how divorce–adjunctly,
alimony regulation–has become a social problem in the quest of “saving the family.”
37
2.1.1 Legal, Discursive, and Institutional Transformation Towards Gender Equality,
Family, and Divorce Under the AKP Governments
Following Turkey’s EU candidacy, the early 2000s witnessed the introduction of
a spate of progressive legislations aiming for gender equality in social, economic, and
familial relations, and gender equality concerns gained visibility in policies. In this
historical period, women’s movement protested the existing policies and norms and
formulated new policy demands (Acar and Altunok, 2012: 16). More than 120 women’s
NGOs across the country started a major campaign leading to a new Turkish Civil Code,
ratified in November 2001. The new Civil Code abolished the concept of husband as “the
head of the family”; established the equality of men and women in the conjugal union
with respect to divorce, child custody, marital property; recognized women’s unpaid labor
in the family by equally dividing property acquired during marriage upon divorce.30 The
new Labor Law, passed in 2003, regulates the principles of equal pay for work of equal
value; protection for women who are breastfeeding, pregnant, or who have recently given
birth. For the first time, sexual harassment at the workplace is recognized. A three-year
campaign led by women’s groups between 2002 and 2004 (The Platform for the Reform
of the Turkish Penal Code) brought more than 40 new amendments to prevent sentence
reduction for so-called honor killings and to criminalize marital rape. The article allowing
the reduction or suspension of the sentence of rapists and abductors marrying their victims
was abolished. The discrimination between virgins and non-virgins, married and
unmarried women in sexual crimes was annulled.
Elveren (2013) argues that even though progressive legislations set the legal base
for equal citizenship, the social security system with its gender-blind structure that does
30 The wife’s obligation to take permission from her husband to work regulated by Article 159 of the Civil
Code was annulled by Constitutional Court decision in 1990. (29.11.1990, E. 1990/30, K. 1990/31,
https://normkararlarbilgibankasi.anayasa.gov.tr/Dosyalar/Kararlar/KararPDF/1990-31-nrm.pdf). A
woman residing in İzmir worked as a folk singer by her husband’s permission. When woman filed a lawsuit
on the grounds that her husband abused her, her husband canceled the permission to work that he gave to
her. Thereupon, the woman filed a lawsuit on April 14, 1990 on the grounds that obtaining a work
permission from the court and that Article 159 which obliges husband’s permission to work for the wife is
against the principle of equality in the Constitution. In the petition of lawsuit, she claimed that men were
privileged due to this article and that the woman was considered as a slave to the husband because of her
gender. Fourth Civil Court of Peace in Izmir evaluated these arguments seriously and applied to the
Constitutional Court for the annulment of Article 159 of the Civil Code. Feminists in Istanbul started a
petition in August 1990. In three days, they collected 2500 signatures and sent the signed petition to the
Constitutional Court on September 16, 1990. The Constitutional Court abolished Article 159 on November
29, 1990. (Çatlak Zemin (2020, August 23). 23 Ağustos 1990: Evli kadınların çalışması için koca izni
kaldırılsın. Accessed April 5, 2021, https://www.catlakzemin.com/23-agustos-1990-evli-kadinlarincalismasi-
icin-koca-izni-kaldirilsin/).
38
not take gender inequalities in the labor market into account, “fails to create equal
conditions for women, which in turn do not allow for the realization of equalizing and
improving the effects these new laws have brought” (Elveren, 2013: 39). In a context in
which the social security system does not provide opportunities for women to participate
in formal labor force or does not prevent the so-called natural primary caregiver role of
women in the private sphere, it only keeps women dependent on male members of their
families by reproducing the male breadwinner model and consolidating the notion of
familialism. In addition, Sancar (2013) remarks that the amendments aiming equality in
Turkish Civil Code enacted in 2002 legally annulled the husband’s privilege as the head
of the family and power of decision derived from being money earner. But because those
who have financial power are still predominantly are men, power relations have not easily
changed (Sancar, 2013).
In 2011, Turkey was among the first signatories31 of the “Council of Europe
Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic
violence” (Istanbul Convention) that came into effect in 2014. As part of the Convention
and in the wake of efforts of women’s movement, Law No. 6284 to protect family and
prevent violence against women was introduced. The law was enacted to protect women,
children, family members, and those who are victims of unilateral stalking and to sanction
violence against people who are subjected to violence or protect those who are in danger
of being subjected to violence. As these progressive legislations was introduced one after
another, in the background, the growing numbers of femicides, violence against women,
and harassment of women unabatedly continued. Daily reports of femicide cases and
other crimes of violence shows that “perceived female disobedience and insubordination
act as primary triggers” (Kandiyoti, 2019: 36). In femicides, women’s demand for divorce
seems to stand out as an excuse for murders. According to data of We Will Stop Femicide
Platform, since 2013, 557 out of 1162 women were murdered just because they wanted
to divorce: 30% in 2013; %47 in 2014; %50 in 2015; and %66 in 2016 of women were
murdered just because they wanted to divorce.32
31 There was a reason behind this “leading” role. In 2009, after the decision of European Court of Human
Rights on the Nahide Opuz Case, Turkey became the first convicted country because of the violation of
obligations to protect women from domestic violence. The decision emphasized that women are exposed
to discrimination due to the ill-treatment of women who file a report about domestic violence at the police
station and the passive attitude of the judicial bodies that should provide effective protection for women.
The decision on Nahide Opuz Case formed the basis of the Istanbul Convention. For more details see.
Interights (2008, October 7). Opuz v Turkey. https://www.interights.org/opuz/index.html
32 Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu [We Will Stop Femicides Platform] (2017, May 18).
Boşanmaları Değil, Kadın Cinayetlerini Durdurun. Accessed November 14, 2020,
39
In this context, Acar and Altunok (2013) explain that while neoliberal policies of
AKP governments had led to legal regulations on violence against women and domestic
violence, it is important to underline the government’s policy-making strategy is genderblind,
because it does not recognize the crucial relationship between gender inequality
and sex-based violence against women. While women exposed to physical violence are
offered protection within the family institution, other more complex forms of violence
against women such as psychological, economic, or sexual violence are not considered
by the public policy agenda. In other words, women are increasingly placed within
boundaries of private sphere of family institution rather than social, economic, or political
equality in society.
The various twists in changing discourse and policy in the domains of gender
equality and family started to manifest itself in 2010. At a meeting with women’s
organizations, then Prime Minister, Erdoğan declared that “I do not believe in the equality
of women and men. Therefore, I prefer saying equality of opportunity. Women and men
are different from each other, they are complementary”.33 In the meeting of the First
Women and Justice Summit organized by the Women and Democracy Association
(KADEM), an association headed by Sümeyye Erdoğan who is daughter of Erdoğan, he
declared that men and women are different with their divinely ordained nature (fıtrat),
therefore, they cannot be equated. Equality between men and men, between women and
women separately, is right and “what women need is not being equal but being
equivalent”.34 At the opening of Women and Democracy Association (KADEM)35 in
2015, Erdoğan said, “A woman who reject motherhood, give up looking after her home
is deficient, a half-woman–no matter how she is successful at work life”.36 In the same
year, he openly attacked feminists and said, “I said women are resigned to men by God.
These feminists… They say, ‘This is a defamation’. You [feminists] have no concern with
http://kadincinayetlerinidurduracagiz.net/aciklamalar/2816/bosanmalari-degil-kadin-cinayetlerinidurdurun.
33 Gazete Vatan (2010, July 20). Kadınla erkek eşit olamaz! Accessed November 15, 2020,
http://www.gazetevatan.com/-kadinla-erkek-esit-olamaz---318006-siyaset/.
34 BBC News Türkçe (2014, November 24). Erdoğan: Kadın-erkek eşitliği fıtrata ters. Accessed November
14, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2014/11/141124_kadininfitrati_erdogan.
35 Diken (2016, June 6). Erdoğan, “kadınlığın tanımını” da yaptı: Anneliği reddeden kadın eksiktir,
yarımdır. Accessed November 14, 2020, http://www.diken.com.tr/erdogan-kadinligin-tanimini-da-yaptianneligi-
reddeden-kadin-eksiktir-yarimdir/.
36 BBC News Türkçe (2016, June 5). Erdoğan: Anneliği reddeden kadın, eksiktir, yarımdır. Accessed
November 14, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2016/06/160605_erdogan_kadin.
40
our religion, our civilization”. 37 On May 26, 2012, at a meeting of AKP’s women
branches in Ankara, Erdoğan announced that he considered abortion to be murder.38
Similar declarations and a pronatalist insistence on “at least three children”39 per woman
have become regular.
Hale, a feminist lawyer and activist for more than 30 years, was one of those
women who attended to the meeting in 2010 and personally witnessed Erdoğan’s
declaration not believing equality between men and women. We met at a café in City A,
our interview lasted more than two hours. I asked her, “You have been in women’s rights
struggle in Turkey for a long time, what is your opinion about the starting point of this
change in the discourse against women’s rights leading to alimony debates today?” and
she directly referred to that meeting and revealed how political discourse affected
institutional change:
Hale: He [Erdoğan] spilled the beans for the first time in that meeting at
Dolmabahçe. He said that he did not believe in gender equality. He said
one more thing, it is extremely important, and it is related to alimony. He
said, ‘Sow the kindergarten and reap the retirement house (Kreş eken
huzurevi biçer). A conservative woman formed this sentence and Erdoğan
confirmed her. After this statement, the state did not make any investment
in free daycare institutions. I checked the state budget after 2010, and it
was written that even if repairs are required, not even a penny would be
allocated to daycare services. Then, they closed free daycare institutions
one by one as well as retirement houses. This is the state policy. The
relation of this with alimony is that women with child get divorced, and
you do not give any of these services, and you would limit the duration of
alimony. How could this woman work, who could take care of the child?
Yazıcı (2012) in her ethnographic research on the transformation of the Turkish
state’s social work policy within the context of welfare restructuring and neoliberalism,
argues that the discursive shift to “strengthening the family” serves the transition of social
protection from state to familial source and implicitly of women to primary caregivers.
The state’s explicit or implicit support for the male breadwinner causes to reproduction
of gendered division of labor in the household. While assumed weakness of familial ties
37 Hürriyet (2015, February 12). Erdoğan: Bu feministler filan var ya… Accessed February 10, 2020,
https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/erdogan-bu-feministler-filan-var-ya-28224810.
38 Milliyet (2012, May 26). Erdoğan: Kürtaj cinayettir. Accessed November 14, 2020.
https://www.milliyet.com.tr/siyaset/erdogan-kurtaj-bir-cinayettir-1545254.
39 BirGün (2019, February 20). Erdoğan: Gençlerimize en az üç çocuk, mümkünse daha fazlasını tavsiye
ediyorum. Accessed February 10, 2021, https://www.birgun.net/haber/erdogan-genclerimize-en-az-3-
cocuk-mumkunse-daha-fazlasini-tavsiye-ediyorum-247686.
41
in “the West” is virtually insulted, the emphasis on “strong Turkish family” promotes
three-generational extended family as the best agent for social protection and care of
children, the elderly, and the disabled. This discourse and policy change corresponds to
the social work system’s exclusion of the need of urban poor women and children, and
“the reinforcement of their socio-economic marginalization” (Yazıcı, 2012: 129).
Similarly, Acar and Altunok (2015) illustrate that the state withdraws itself from the role
of facilitator for welfare provisions, such as education, social security, and health care
services through neoliberal political rationality, resulting in a functional gap in the
definition of the state. Neoconservatism comes to this functional gap’s rescue by
rebuilding and reinforcing the state’s entity in the political realm through giving the state
a moral mission by emphasizing discourses such as patriotism, nationalism, culture,
traditions, and familialism. Altunok (2016) makes a helpful distinction between
conservatism and neoconservatism pointing that neoconservatism does not aim at
preserving the existing system, values, or institution but reinventing and rebuilding the
social-cultural fabric in the axis of values and symbols selected from the past–sometimes
even redefined. As an explicit example of this neoconservative imagination, Yazıcı
(2012) notes that even though three-generational extended family as a family form is not
prevalent, it is praised and even encouraged in the political discourse.
The critics of nuclear family, divorces, and promotion of extended family have
increasingly gained visibility in political discourse, particularly since 2016. In the session
of the Commission on the Status of Women of the United Nations, Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk,
Minister of Family, Work, and Social Policies, said in her speech relating to proposed
amendment to the existing alimony regulation, “What we mainly desire is that there
would be no divorces. Of course, divorces can happen in some cases and when these
divorces occur, we are in favor of finding a solution in a way that will not harm any
party”.40 In the official discourse, introduction of time limitation to alimony payments as
part of the project of “preventing divorces” and “saving family” has associated with
40 Gazete Duvar (2019, March 14). Aile Bakanı’ndan BM’de nafaka açıklaması: Boşanmaların önüne
geçmeye çalışıyoruz. Accessed November 13, 2020,
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/politika/2019/03/14/aile-bakaninda-bmda-nafaka-aciklamasibosanmalarin-
onune-gecmeye-calisiyoruz.
42
“fairness”41, “torture for one of the parties”42, and sources of “victimizations”.43 In the
7th Family Council meeting, Erdoğan said, “Strong families constitute strong nations. We
are going through a period in which marriage contract is devalued, extramarital
relationships are considered normal, and divorce is virtually encouraged”. At the same
meeting, Erdoğan declared that “Increase in conflicts and divorce rates are a result of the
loss of protection shield provided by family elders”.44 45
For the Istanbul Convention, in 2019, the head of government auditor Şeref
Malkoç said, “When spouses quarrel, wife calls the police station and file a complaint,
resulting in the husband getting suspended from the family house. This fuels anger and
violence against women. It seems that we passed a legislation so that the spouses should
be separated instead of reconciling”.46 In August 2020, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appealed
to the same discourse and said, “No regulation that lay dynamite under family is humane
and legitimate,”47 targeting the Istanbul Convention. And he reportedly announced in a
meeting that it could be “annulled” in case of public’s demand.48 Most recently, President
defined Turkish society as “family-archal”, rather than “patriarchal” or “matriarchal” at
the meeting for “86th Anniversary of Suffrage of Women”.49 These discursive shifts
brought along extensive institutional changes. In 2011, the General Directorate of
41 Yeni Akit (2018, March 8). Mağdurlara müjde! 100 günlük icraat programında “çocuk haczi” ve “süresiz
nafaka” da var. Accessed November 14, 2020, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/magdurlara-mujde-100-
gunluk-icraat-programinda-cocuk-haczi-ve-suresiz-nafaka-da-var-501047.html.
42 Independent Türkçe (2020, November 11). Adalet Bakanı Gül’den “nafaka” açıklaması. Accessed
November 14, 2020, https://bit.ly/3uAbPQO.
43 Hürriyet (2019, March 14). Aile Bakanı Selçuk’dan “nafaka” açıklaması. Accessed November 14, 2020,
https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/aile-bakani-selcuktan-nafaka-aciklamasi-41148757.
44 Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı [The Presidency of the Republic of Turkey] (2019, May 2). 7.
Aile Şûrasında Yaptığı Konuşma. Accessed November 13, 2020,
https://www.tccb.gov.tr/konusmalar/353/105228/7-aile-s-rasinda-yaptigi-konusma.
45 For the recent data on divorce rates in Turkey see. Chapter 1.
46 doğruhaber (2019, November 19). İstanbul Sözleşmesi mağdur ediyor: Tepki çok çözüm yok. Accessed
November 13, 2020, https://dogruhaber.com.tr/haber/625952-istanbul-sozlesmesi-magdur-ediyor-tepkicok-
cozum-yok/.
47 a3haber. Erdoğan, İstanbul Sözleşmesi’ni hedef aldı: “Ailenin temeline dinamit koyan hiçbir düzenleme
insanı ve meşru değildir”. Accessed September 12, 2020, https://www.a3haber.com/2020/08/13/erdoganistanbul-
sozlesmesini-hedef-aldi-ailenin-temeline-dinamit-koyan-hicbir-duzenleme-insani-ve-mesrudegildir/.
48 İnternet Haber (2020, July 3). Erdoğan’dan İstanbul Sözleşmesi talimatı: “Halk istiyorsa kaldırın”.
Accessed November 14, 2020, https://www.internethaber.com/erdogandan-istanbul-sozlesmesi-talimatihalk-
istiyorsa-kaldirin-2111953h.htm.
49 SoL (2020, December 3). Erdoğan: Bizim milletimiz aile erkil. Accessed December 3, 2020,
https://sol.org.tr/haber/erdogan-bizim-milletimiz-aile-erkil-20713.
43
Women’s Status and Problems50 was abolished and replaced by the Ministry of Family
and Social Policies.51
With anti-divorce stance of the state rising as a part of the project of
“strengthening the family”, the Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Policies announced
that the Ministry would grant 10,000 TL loan to university students aged between 18-24
to encourage them for marriage in 2013.52 This incentive called “dowry account” (çeyiz
hesabı) was raised to 22,000 TL in 2020 and now included those who are under 18 on
condition that their families’ applications.53 In addition, university students who were
married were provided with dormitory opportunities.54 Familialist and pro-natalist
policies of Turkey was evaluated and criticized by GREVIO’s Baseline Evaluation
Report on legislative and other measures giving effect to the provisions of Istanbul
Convention, published on October 15, 2018, evaluates the data provided by the state
authorities, legal representatives, representatives of NGOs, and the state reports. In the
report, GREVIO “notes the parallel tendency in current policies in Turkey to focus on
strongly on strengthening the institution of family. Within the 10th Development Plan,
this aim is supported by specific targets including the reduction of the divorce ratio, and
the increase in the marriage ratio and in women’s fertility rates. … GREVIO warn against
promoting policies which look at women exclusively through the prism of marriage and
motherhood or which channel a preferred societal model of a woman as a married fertile
woman.” The report emphasized that these policies “undermine the country’s endevaours
to enhance women’s rights and equality, social status, autonomy, educational
opportunities, equal participation in politics and public life, as well as in the labour
market, and ultimately, Turkey’s efforts to effectively prevent violence against women”
(p.42).
50 The General Directorate of Women’s Status and Problems was established in 1991 as a requirement of
the CEDAW process. Its aim was to monitor gender equality in Turkey. This replacement in 2011 added
protecting children, the disabled, and the elderly to discrimination against women. The United Nations
General Assembly adopted the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) in 1979 as an international convention for women’s rights. Turkey is among the countries that
have ratified CEDAW.
51 Now the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services.
52 Milliyet (2013, November 2). 18-24 yaş arası çiftlere 10 bin TL evlilik kredisi. Accessed February 15,
2021, https://www.milliyet.com.tr/ekonomi/18-24-yas-arasi-ciftlere-10-bin-tl-evlilik-kredisi-1785905.
53 haber7 (2020, January 29). Evleneceklere 22 bin TL Devlet Desteği Veriliyor! Nasıl başvuru yapılır?
Accessed February 15, 2021, https://www.haber7.com/guncel/haber/2938178-evleneceklere-22-bin-tldevlet-
destegi-veriliyor-nasil-basvuru-yapilir.
54 Milliyet (2013, November 1). Evli öğrencilere burs ve yurt müjdesi! Accessed February 15, 2021,
https://www.posta.com.tr/evli-ogrencilere-burs-ve-yurt-mujdesi-202841.
44
The Gender Equality Project, initiated in 2015 following the murder of Özgecan
Aslan,55 that had been running in universities and schools was canceled by the Ministry
of National Education and the Council of Higher Education. The head of the Council of
Higher Education (YÖK) announced that “the document of stance” was annulled because
the project was “not suitable for our social values” and “not accepted by the society”.56
The contents of courses relating to women’s studies changed from “gender equality” to
“justice-based women’s studies”.57 In the case of abortion rights of women, even though
it is legal on paper, abortion is de facto forbidden, because public hospitals do not provide
this service.58 The regulations on maternity leave, part-time employment of women,
private employment agencies and rental work brought to the agenda of parliamentary as
draft laws foresees the fundamental exclusion of women from social and economic life.
Women have been cast primarily as objects of “protection” instead of civic subjects. The
coalitions of NGOs, which have been struggling for the reforms of abovementioned Civil
and Penal Codes, the Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284, have been marginalized as
it can be clearly seen in the official statements mentioned earlier, targeting particularly
feminists. The government-approved NGOs gathering under the umbrella organization of
the Turkish Family Platform (TÜRAP) have become the new address for state funds. The
mission statement of TÜRAP includes the protection and elevation of the family and
general morality. Their definition of family defends traditional gender roles in which the
woman is responsible for care and domestic labor whereas the man is provider.59
The Commission of Marital Breakdown in 2016 was one of the most solid
outcomes of this discursive transformation, because after the report with
recommendations of neutralization of three of the legislations in question–TPC 103, Law
55 Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old student from Mersin, was found in a riverbed as partly burnt, sexually
assaulted, and tortured. Özgecan took the minibus to return home after she met with her friend. The
perpetrator was the minibus driver, Ahmet Suphi Altındöken. This femicide caused a nationwide outrage.
For further information please see. Wikipedia. “Murder of Özgecan Aslan”. Accessed February 15, 2021,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Özgecan_Aslan.
56 Bianet (2019, February 20). YÖK, Toplumsal Cinsiyet Eşitliği Tutum Belgesini Sitesinden Kaldırdı.
Accessed November 14, 2020, https://bianet.org/bianet/toplumsal-cinsiyet/205668-yok-toplumsalcinsiyet-
esitligi-tutum-belgesini-sitesinden-kaldirdi.
57 Bianet (2019, February 19). Toplumsal Cinsiyet Eşitliği” Yerine “Adalet Temelli Kadın Çalışmaları”.
Accessed November 14, 2020, https://m.bianet.org/bianet/toplumsal-cinsiyet/205597-toplumsal-cinsiyetesitligi-
yerine-adalet-temelli-kadin-calismalari.
58 For a recent and comprehensive research on abortion and services in public hospitals see. O’Neil L.,
Altuntaş, D., & Keskin, A.Ş. (November 2020). Yasal Ancak Ulaşılabilir Değil: Türkiye’deki Kamu
Hastanelerinde Kürtaj Hizmetleri 2020). Kadir Has Üniversitesi Toplumsal Cinsiyet ve Kadın Çalışmaları
Araştırma Merkezi. İstanbul.
59 Türkiye Aile Platformu (TÜRAP). Biz kimiz. Accessed November 14, 2020,
http://turkiyeaileplatformu.com/index.php/hakkimizda/.
45
No. 6284, and alimony regulation–was published in 2016, possible amendments or
annulments in legislation to prevent violence against women or to aim at gender equality
in the name of “the protection of family” and of “preventing divorces” have become an
integral part of the political and social agenda. I shall expand on the Commission of
Marital Breakdown Report in the discussion of historical evolution of alimony regulation
below.
On the one hand, state-funded NGOs, the political discourse, and social policies
highlight the woman’s role as wife, mother, and caregiver. On the other hand, various
consequences of welfare reforms, pronatalist and familialist biopolitics influence the
employment trends and policies relating to exclusion of the woman from the job market.
According to the research of Buğra and Yakut-Çakar (2010), employers are not inclined
to employ female workers, particularly because of the obligation of sharing burdens of
maternity leave proposed by the government. There is also a determined resistance to
offer public preschool and childcare services. In this labor market, reconciliation of work
and family life for women is practically impossible. In the highly gendered characteristic
of the Turkish welfare regime, women are perceived among the potentially poor in terms
of social provisions. Social assistance that women acquired due to this vulnerable position
is crucial for poor families. However, women’s contribution to the household is defined
through this social assistance rather than paid work (Buğra and Yakut-Çakar, 2010; cited
in Ermiş-Mert, 2018).
How do these trends and policies affect the lives of “women without men”, then?
Özar and Yakut-Çakar (2013) focus on state’s distinction of “women without men”,
illustrating that in this setting “the majority of women are either totally excluded or
included in the system by means of their husbands or fathers (a male member of their
family), primarily as dependents of men reflecting the gender roles attributed to men and
women within the society” As a result, “women who are not under the protection of any
form of social security face increased vulnerability when divorced, deserted or widowed”
(p. 25). The social assistance programs for women without men have its familialist
dynamics as distinguishing between poor women who divorced and those who are
widowed (p. 24). In this political framework, divorced women are perceived as not
citizens deserving social assistance because they are subjects threatening “ideal family”
(Yılmaz, 2012; Özar and Yakut-Çakar, 2013). As Kandiyoti (1988) emphasizes and
Buğra (2014) notes that, in this setting where the labor market makes it impossible to
reconcile home and work life for women, cultural trends are against female labor, and
46
social security system that institutionally appoints men as the head of the family,
“patriarchal bargain” including the acceptance of gender-based division of labor may be
more rational for women than to change their positions in the economy and society.
However, this bargain is broken nowadays (Kandiyoti, 2020).
2.1.2 Bottom-Up Counterparts of Masculinist Restoration: “Victim” Groups
On the street-level, simultaneously with these developments on the official level,
there has been a bottom-up discourse building around “male victimization” and a
burgeoning men’s rights movement mobilizing around divorce, alimony regulation, child
custody, the Istanbul Convention, and Law No. 6284. Various “victim groups” consisting
of mainly conservative men and women are remarkable actors in the bottom-up
masculinist restoration.
“Early marriage victims” are a group of people who get married at an early age
and, because of complaints based on relevant articles on the Penal Code (resulting in
official attempts of the introduction of new amendments on Article 103 regulating the
punishment of major crime of child sexual abuse), where the husband has been put in
prison. Even though “early marriage victims” claim that both spouses are underage in
their cases, the marriage of girls under 18 is a social problem in Turkey. According to
TurkStat statistics, marriage and childbirth at early age decreased in Turkey in 2019.
However, women’s rights activists drew attention that these data did not reflect the truth.
First of all, TurkStat’s data in 2020 did not include girls aged under 15, whereas this data
was included in previous years. Moreover, while showing that girls are not married to
their peers, the data did not include information about these age groups that girls married
off to. According to the data, the number of girls married in the 16-17 age group is 20
times the number of boys in the same age group.60
Since 2016, the draft amendment of amnesty for those who are in prison due to
TCP Article 103 has been on the agenda of AKP and on July 15, 2020 it was brought into
question during the discussion of Law of Execution of Sentences in the parliament.
Women’s Platform Against Amnesty for Child Sexual Abusers (TCK 103 Çocuk İstismarı
Affına Karşı Kadın Platformu) organized a nationwide protest against these attempts.
60 Ünker, P. (2020, July 6). Türkiye’de çocuk yaşta evlilikler ve gebelikler azalıyor mu? DW. Accessed
February 10, 2021, https://www.dw.com/tr/türkiyede-çocuk-yaşta-evlilik-ve-gebelikler-azalıyor-mu/a-
54070465.
47
They explained the contents of the draft amendment of amnesty for sexual abusers as
follows:
“According to the recent draft amendment, a man who has been charged,
tried, and convicted of child abuse will be released if he marries the victim
provided that:
• the victim was at least 13 years old at the time of the incident,
• the age difference between the victim and the perpetrator is not more than
15 years,
• the marriage was officiated before the date the law is enacted, and
• the marriage continues for a period of at least five years.
The rationale of the draft amendment is that a one-time amnesty for
men who are prosecuted for sexual abuse of a minor under the guise of
“religious marriage” and/or the tacit consent of the girl’s parents, which was
subsequently endorsed officially when the girl came of age, would solve the
problems encountered by such families. Whitewashing child sexual abuse
under the label of marriage as proposed in this draft amendment would attest
to a failure to protect children–the girl child in particular.
The most important and likely danger posed by the draft amendment is
that, if and once it passes in the Parliament, Turkey’s Constitutional Court
can later annul any of the above ‘specifying’ criteria, as they may be seen to
counter to the constitutional guarantee of ‘equality’. This would turn a “onetime”
amnesty into a general practice that would pressure all female
survivors of rape to marry their abusers.”61
Thanks to women’s rights organizations’ efforts, the legal proposal fell off the
agenda.
In 2016, “alimony victims” and “Law No. 6284 victims” officially emerged and
their demands and protests will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3. How women’s rights
organizations and bar associations reacted to the proposed draft amendment in alimony
regulation will be discussed in detail under the fourth section of this chapter.
“Istanbul Convention victims” mainly claim that this legislation clashes with the
existing societal structure; that femicide and violence against women cases have increased
after its introduction; and that it promotes homosexuality. According to them, feminists
as “some men-looking women” who provokes women to “rise against their husbands in
61 For further information on press release of Women’s Platform Against Amnesty for Child Sexual Abusers
see. TCK 103 Çocuk Cinsel İstismarı Affına Karşı Kadın Platformu [Women’s Platform Against Amnesty
for Child Sexual Abusers] (2020, July 6). “Women’s organizations in Turkey say ‘no’ to amnesty for
perpetrators of sexual abuse of children and to child marriage”. Accessed February 10, 2021,
https://tck103kadinplatformu.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/tcp103_20200706_press_release.pdf.
48
such a way that our religion forbids”62 caused these legislations to be introduced. These
bottom-up claims got affirmative responds from top-down discourse and actions, which,
in turn, shows how state policies affect gender relations and are shaped by gender
relations. The common ground of this polyphonic, cross-class and cross-party alliance
which opposes these legislations all aiming at gender equality and prevention of violence
against women is to protect sacred family. As shown through the chapter until now,
women’s dependent status in society is an outcome of gender order intrinsic to political,
economic, and social realms. The government’s rush to propose a draft for amendments
foreseeing limitation of alimony payments period does not come with any attempts to
remove this dependent status of women. In this sense, alimony debates has become a tool
for the government to reinforce its politics of masculinist restoration.
2.2 The Historical Evolution of Alimony in the Turkish Civil Code
The article related to alimony in the Turkish Civil Code has changed three times
to date. Decision-making processes and prevalent concerns among politicians can be
observed through parliamentary minutes of National Assembly of Turkey. These
discussions in the parliament involve similar arguments voiced in the current alimony
debates and reflect the dominant cultural and social approach to the family, divorce, and
women.
The first Civil Code, numbered 743 and modeled the after Swiss Civil Code, was
ratified on February 17, 1926 and enacted on October 4, 1926. According to the Article
144 of Law No. 743, “If wife or husband, without fault, falls into major poverty as a result
of divorce, the other party, even though they does not cause divorce, might be sentenced
to pay alimony in proportion to financial power for a period of one year”. Today, since it
regulates alimony payment for a limited period, Article 144 emerges as one of the most
frequently voiced examples by alimony opponents.
The first significant change in the relevant article was made in 1988. After the
new Civil Code was enacted in Switzerland in January 1988, some amendments adopting
principle of gender equality was introduced to certain articles of the Civil Code with Law
No. 3444 on May 4, 1988. The new version of the article related to alimony says, “The
spouse who will be in need after divorce, under the condition that being without gross
62 Kara, V. (2019, August 31). İstanbul Sözleşmesi ve Aileyi Yok Etmek İçin Alınan Kararlar. Yeni Akit.
Accessed November 10, 2020, https://bit.ly/3uzYlEI..
49
fault, may ask a spousal support from the other for an indefinite time for living costs in
proportion to their financial power of. However, man may ask woman for alimony,
provided that woman is well-situated”. This amendment caused some discussions
between two parties (supporters and opponents of the amendment) in the parliament at
the drafting stage.
Hasan Namal, deputy of DP (True Path Party), was on the side supporting
amendment in the elimination of time limitation in alimony regulation. In the
parliamentary session on May 4, 1988, Namal criticized approximate amounts of
alimony:
Hasan Namal: “(…) alimony amounts judged by the courts are pitifully
small. Let’s assign an amount of alimony to a woman who has no fault in
the disruption of the family order; an amount that would help the woman
not rely on anyone, and would strengthen her economically, so that she
would preserve her dignity in society and would not be led astray (kötü
yola düşmez)” (p. 413)
Ali Şahin, a deputy of CHP (Republican People’s Party), is against any
amendments in the existing regulation. This speech of Şahin is frequently referred by
alimony opponents on social media.63
Ali Şahin: “Though it is understandable that indefinite alimony has brought
to the agenda to strike a balance in favor of women, this implementation
would turn into a tool for only aiming to gain benefit and to guarantee one’s
future. (…) This alimony system would destroy family, because there would
be those who would want to divorce in order to receive alimony. (…) It
would prevent [the woman] from starting a new family after divorce,
because [she] wouldn’t get married just to continue receiving alimony, she
would have extramarital relationships. Though the article says alimony shall
be cut in case of extramarital relationship, it is extremely hard to prove that.
(…) Therefore, to introduce a limitation on the period of alimony payment
would be better, I believe. Unlimited alimony would destroy family order”
(p. 395).
Though both arguments came from the opposite sides, and they look different than
each another, they actually share a common ground. Hasan Namal argues that an increase
in alimony amount is needed to keep women away being led astray (implying
prostitution). Moreover, he sets conditions for deserving alimony: women “who has no
fault in the disruption of the family order” may have the right to receive alimony, which
63 For an example: https://twitter.com/AhlakManeviyat/status/1057340195694145545
50
means a woman who fulfills her “duties” in full but still gets divorced, probably upon her
husband’s wish. The other argument is based on a prevalent idea in the current alimony
debates which is that if there was no limit on the period of alimony payments, this would
cause women to stay away from the family institution and encourage them to live
extramarital relationships (in other words, immoral relationships). None of both
arguments consider any scenario where the woman would participate in labor force or not
need financial support from her ex-husband, or even the fact that the state’s responsibility
to provide resources to maintain their lives for its citizen is not mentioned. As elected
representatives, they reflect the prevalent perception of women in society: A woman’s
dignity, a dignity closely related to financial capacity, hangs by the eyelids and a possible
solution for this does not seem to be providing facilitating services and equal
opportunities by the state.
In the Turkish Civil Code, numbered 4271, ratified in January 2002, the
amendment introduced in 1988 with Article 175 on alimony remained valid to date with
a slight difference. This new Civil Code adopted the principle of equality within marriage.
As Işılay Saygun, a deputy of ANAP (Motherland Party), stated during the parliamentary
session held on October 24, 2001, “(…) [The new Civil Code], within the framework of
the principle of equality, allows the elimination of discrimination against women while it
also ends the privilege granted to women… For instance, in the current law, while the
woman is required to be well-situated for the man to be able to demand alimony from her,
it has been accepted in the draft that each of the spouses can request alimony from the
other party, as long as they do not have gross fault” (2001, p. 41). The Article 175 of Civil
Code took its present gender-neutral form: “The spouse who will be in need after the
divorce, under the condition that being without gross fault, may ask a spousal support
indefinitely from the other spouse for living costs in proportion to their financial power.”
The report released by Center for Gender Studies in Koç University (E. Mert,
2019), focusing on gender equality in Turkey with 2018 data, explains that because the
Turkish Civil Code regulates the right to alimony and compensation based on the degree
of fault, the court has to adjudge personal faults of divorced parties in divorce.
“The determination of fault essentially reflects an assessment of the
behavior expected of women and men in family life. Indeed, attributing
certain behavior to the man or the woman as faults within the framework of
the divorce case is linked to the accusation that the woman or the man failed
to display the behavior expected of them in the marital union and therefore
51
indicates whether courts adopt the understanding of gender-based division
of labor. This understanding reduces women to the role of doing housework
and fulfilling childcare duties and men to the role of meeting material needs.
Court decisions issued in 2018 stated that the ‘deficiency of women in
fulfilling duties such as maintaining the house, cooking, or cleaning’ may
be attributed as a fault to women if proven and that “women’s refusal to
undergo fertility treatment” is also considered a fault. However, the fact that
the Supreme Court attributed “bringing one’s hunting companions home and
making one’s wife serve them” as a fault of men constitutes a step in reexamining
women’s traditional role of serving men. The court also
considers men’s failure to pay bills after abandoning the house and the
marital union to be a failure of their duties arising from the marital union.
Other faults ascribed to men include failing to provide an independent
dwelling to their wives or ‘pressuring them to work’. In other words,
material duties are imposed upon men.” (E. Mert, 2019: 36)
In other words, even though the article seems gender-neutral, evaluation of “fault”
is gendered. The analysis of gender-neutrality in the Civil Code from a feminist
perspective is a whole another topic, but to briefly address feminist criticism on genderneutrality
at law shows that this praised gender-neutrality in the Civil Code does not
correspond to the social reality that keeps women “in second place” and perceives them
as primary caregivers. MacKinnon (1989) criticizes gender-neutrality in the context of
divorce and child custody, saying that “the sameness standard has mostly gotten men the
benefit of those few things women have historically had for all the good they did”
(MacKinnon, 1989: 221). While women lose their financial security and children, they
keep living in a society in which women cannot gain equal pay, equal work, or equal
opportunities with men.
Certainly, there are men who are in need after divorce, who are dependent on their
wives, or who are primary caregivers, but “to occupy these positions is consistent with
female gender norms; most women share them”. Gender-neutral approach to alimony or
offering the limitation as solution to so-called alimony injustice conceals “the fact that
women’s poverty and consequent financial dependence on men (whether in marriage,
welfare, the workplace, or prostitution), forced motherhood, and sexual vulnerability
substantively constitute their social status as women, as members of their gender”
whereas these social facts are obvious in alimony debates today. “That some men at times
find themselves in similar situations does not mean that they occupy that status as men,
as members of their gender. They do so as exceptions, both in norms and in numbers.
Unlike women, men are not poor or primary caretakers of children on the basis of sex”
(Mackinnon, 1989: 228). Gender-neutral, equal approach to men and women in
52
lawmaking does not address the ongoing sexual division of labor and other social and
economic disadvantages that women and mothers experience (Boyd and Young, 2007).
As seen in the emergence of alimony debates, even though the article is gender-neutral,
women have been the party who receive alimony in most of the cases because of this
social reality.
2.3 The Official Emergence of Alimony Debates: The Marital Breakdown
Commission’s Report
Until 2011, when the alimony regulation was brought to public agenda as a legal
discussion for the first time, there had not been an attempt to change or regulate this
article. The only research on alimony regulation in Turkey (Akçabay, 2019) shows
Turkish Constitutional Court’s justification for alimony in the case of an objection:
“Kestel Court Instance made an appeal to the Constitutional Court in 2011,
claiming that the alimony regulation in unconstitutional. The reason for the
objection was explained as ‘The fact that alimony is unlimited puts the
creditor under a lifetime financial obligation and makes people whose joint
life ends with divorce constantly dependent on each other. Marriage
establishes a union between two people by contract and establishes an
unnatural kinship like blood tie. Despite the end of this union with divorce,
people are made dependent on each other with a lifetime obligation.’ The
Constitutional Court, on the other hand, has decided that the regulation is
not contrary to the Constitution, by qualifying the alimony as the
continuation of the obligation of solidarity and cooperation between spouses
in the marriage union.” (p. 10)
Alimony as one of the consequences of divorce had not been considered as “a
social problem damaging family institution” until the Commission of Marital Breakdown
Report in 2016. In fact, only two years before then, in 2014, in the report “Research on
Reasons for Divorce in Türkiye” (TBNA 2014) of the Ministry of Family and Social
Policies General Directorate of Family and Community Services, alimony was perceived
from a dramatically different perspective. According to the report, “The majority of the
interviewees indicated that the legal issues including the division of marital property,
parental authority, compensation and maintenance [alimony] had not affected their
decision to divorce” (p. 98) and it goes on as follows:
“As expected, maintenance was brought up mostly by women and
individuals with children. It was observed that the maintenance claimed by
women was mostly for meeting the children’s needs and rarely for their
own livelihood. (…) Maintenance is one of the most challenging legal
53
issues for the divorcees. The fact that the assigned maintenance mostly
remains unpaid is the most major issue emphasized by women. This
problem occurring in maintenance payments can be mostly attributed to
the insufficient financial capacity of divorced males. On the other hand,
within bureaucracy, maintenance payments are not subject to any control
mechanisms and the fact that no sanction is imposed on the party
responsible of paying the maintenance when s/he does not can be
considered among the factors causing this problem to persist.” (p. 145)
The report emphasizes insufficiency of the amount of alimony:
“In addition, the amount of maintenance ruled by the court usually seems
far from meeting the needs. In the case women have the parental authority,
the maintenance paid for the children usually covers very limited portion
of their monthly expenses of clothing, school and food.” (p. 146)
It is stated that there are two sides of the main problem in alimony amounts:
“Socioeconomically conditions of both parties –maintenance payer and
receiver– are not taken into consideration when determining maintenance
amounts. Economic capacity is generally considered to be the main reason
for not paying the maintenance money.”
Another reason stated in relation to problems with determination of alimony amount
and not to paying alimony is that
“Spouses who leave their insured jobs, understate or hide their income just
to not pay maintenance cause the system to malfunction.” (p. 169)
Despite the data of this large-scale research involving individuals over the age of
18 who were divorced since 2002, the Commission of Marital Breakdown report
described alimony as a problem damaging family. The legislations and legal practices in
the USA, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Switzerland are
presented as examples to justify the recommendation of time limitation. In the report,
even though alimony is not seen as a reason for divorce, it is referred as “a
disproportionate punishment for the alimony creditor” and “an obstacle for women’s
empowerment” (p. 83). The recommendation is to bring an amendment to the existing
alimony regulation and determine an upper limit for the duration of alimony payments,
and if the alimony creditor is still in need at the end of this specified period, the financial
support will be provided through state funds.
The research published by Foundation of Women’s Solidarity (Kadın Dayanışma
Vakfı) (Akçabay, 2019) examines “field research” that is claimed as the resource of this
54
recommendation in the Marital Breakdown Commission Report. This “field research”
includes the investigations conducted in only 11 provinces from different regions and the
opinions of the people who were invited to the Commission. However, in the dissenting
annotation of the report shows that the representatives of the opposition parties were not
taken into account in the determination of the experts interviewed (p. 12). The
examination of the report and the Commission minutes reveals that the complaints
regarding alimony were generally expressed by the “alimony victims” or “victim fathers”
and the report does not include women who receive alimony or child support. The judges
interviewed living in Düzce, Ordu, Trabzon, and Giresun (all conservative cities) claim
that the regulation does not vest them discretion rights despite the decision of the
Constitutional Court, although it is clear that the eligibility and amount of alimony is
determined through judges’ discretion.
The Commission’s recommendation on Law No. 6284 got negative reactions from
women’s organizations. Even though the relevant article in Law No. 6284 says that it is
not necessary to show evidence or an official document for restraining order, the
Commission recommends that the relevant article in the law should be changed, and
restraining order that are longer than 15 days should be conditioned on evidence and
official document to prove violence. In addition, it is recommended to make a regulation
in legislation to provide shelters for those who are suspended due to restraining order, just
like the practice for battered women.
During our interview with Hale, I asked if she could provide a legal explanation
for this recommendation for someone like me, who did not know what this and its possible
consequences for women in case of its implementation would entail. She answered:
Hale: It means that if a woman did not have any document, the restraining
order would be limited to 15 days. They link violence with documentation.
The most important task of the law [Law No. 6284] is to prevent violence
because the definition of violence includes threatening. Violence does not
have to happen. The law must prevent it. They want to remove the law’s
function as prevention.
Afterwards, before me having to ask about shelters, she herself jumped to that
topic. She took some documents from her purse and showed me the total number of
shelters, in the meantime, she explained:
Hale: This is the total number of shelters. KGSM [The General Directorate
of Women’s Status] provides 110 shelters; for Immigration Authority, this
55
number is 1; municipalities provide 32; and Purple Roof [Women’s Shelter
Foundation] provides 1 shelter: there are 144 in total. This is the total
capacity. They say that the state launches a fund for alimony and takes care
of women–the state does not provide shelters for women. Women’s safety
is in question. If they want to do something sincere for women, they must
increase the numbers of shelters. In a country where at least three women
are murdered a day, the number of shelters is 144.
The gender blindness of recommendations manifest itself one more time. As the
number of shelters is not sufficient to provide a safe place for women who are victims of
violence, however, what report recommends related to Law No. 6284 does not seem to
recognize this social problem; instead, the only recommendation on shelters is connected
to those who are suspended because of perpetrating violence or having the potential to
resort to violence.
As emphasized in the research conducted by the Foundation of Women’s
Solidarity (Akçabay, 2019), the purpose for the establishment of this commission was to
reveal the factors which negatively affect the family integrity, to investigate the reason
for divorces, and to strengthen the family institution. The recommendation regarding
alimony regulation and Law No. 6284 needs to be understood in this context.
GREVIO’s Baseline Evaluation Report, published in 2018, refers to the
Commission of Marital Breakdown as an example of “how the goal to preserve family at
all costs can lead to lowering the guard against violence against women” The part
regarding parliamentary commission goes as follows:
“… the parliamentary report issued in May 2016 put forth a series of
legislative proposals which carry the potential for hampering a married
woman’s rights to live a life free from violence. GREVIO is extremely
concerned that policy makers in Turkey might be willing to turn a blind eye
to violence against women out of their desire to promote family unity.
GREVIO reiterates its strong belief that respect for individual family
members’ right to live a life free from violence is instrumental in allowing
families to thrive. It warns against any approach which justifies domestic
violence or otherwise downplays its seriousness, thereby undermining and
ultimately destroying families. To counter this alarming tendency, more
should be done to raise awareness among politicians, civil servants and
society at large about the prevalence of violence affecting women in their
families, as well as to promote their adherence to the principle of
unacceptability of domestic violence under any pretext whatsoever.” (p. 25)
After the Commission of Marital Breakdown Report was published, alimony
debates became a hot topic. At a meeting held by Karabük Bar on February 16, 2019,
Ömer Uğur Gençcan gave a speech.
56
“You [women] took away men’s vested rights after 80 years. I am a judge;
I will tell the truth. I will adjudge according to my conscience. They made
it [the alimony payment period] indefinite out of blue. Now there are those
who publish some statements: ‘It’s not true that it is indefinite.” As if we
were to trick you! Of course, there are examples where it’s not indefinite.
‘When the man dies, she cannot receive it.’ Of course, you cannot. Will the
heirs of the deceased pay your alimony? See? It’s definite… ‘It ends when
he dies.’ For sure, it will end. It ends when you remarry. You marry a strange
man, and I will continue to pay you… You live illegitimately with a strange
man and I will send you money so that you can drink every evening. Could
it be such a thing? Is it possible to say ‘It’s definite, by giving examples like
these? Of course, it will end in this kind of situations. If you do not get into
this kind of situations, if your husband does not die, if you are not led astray
(kötü yola düşmezsen), if you do not remarry, you will receive it until you
die. Since 1988… I could not accept this indefinite alimony. I slept with
someone and you slept with someone. But I pay you alimony for a lifetime…
I spat, you spat. But alimony for a lifetime. Can such thing happen?”64
This speech is significant in two senses. First, Ömer Uğur Gençcan is the head of
Supreme Court’s Second Civil Department and this puts him on a decision-making
position, especially in divorce cases. Thus, it clearly shows that even though the family
law is gender-neutral and adopts the principle of gender equality, those who implement
the law may not be objective and egalitarian as seen in this example. Second, I
encountered his name many times during the interviews with members of anti-alimony
groups. One divorced man described him as “He is our father” and this was the proof that
they were right because someone who was a judge was on their side. Women’s rights
organizations keenly criticized this speech and they urged Ömer Uğur Gençcan to
resign.65
In pursuit of President Erdoğan’s announcement of a legal reform package
included in the first 100-day action plan, “Fair Solution to Indefinite Alimony
Symposium” held on May 25, 2019 was organized in cooperation with Istanbul Aydin
University and the Platform for Divorced People and Family (BİAP). Prof. Dr. Erol
Ulusoy, Dean of Istanbul Aydin University Faculty of Law, stated that they wanted to
contribute to the solution announced in the first 100-day action plan. One of the speakers
64 Yargıtay 2’inci Hukuk Dairesi Başkanı Ömer Uğur Gençcan’dan tepki çeken sözler (2019) [Video].
dailymotion. Accessed February 15, 2021, https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72lm3s.
65 Mor Çatı Kadın Sığınağı Vakfı [Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation] (2019, February 20).
“Kadınların Nafaka Hakkını Yok Sayan Yargıtay 2. Hukuk Dairesi Başkanı Ömer Uğur Gençcan Derhal
İstifa Etmelidir; Etmiyorsa Görevden Alınmalıdır!” Accessed February 5, 2021,
https://morcati.org.tr/haberler/kadinlarin-nafaka-hakkini-yok-sayan-yargitay-2-hukuk-dairesi-baskaniomer-
ugur-genccan-derhal-istifa-etmelidir-etmiyorsa-gorevden-alinmalidir/.
57
at the symposium, a lawyer who was a deputy candidate of AKP in 2015 general elections,
made a comparison between the term of imprisonment of someone who committed
murder and the term of alimony payment. According to her, while someone who commits
murder does not have to pay anything to anyone from victim’s family or does not have to
spend their life in prison for life in most of the cases, why does someone who “softly
beats” another person or who says, “how scruffy (pasaklı) you are!” to his wife have to
pay a price throughout his life?
The Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Services held a workshop called
“Agenda Meetings: Alimony System” on October 10, 2018. This workshop also raised
eyebrows because Turkish Women’s Union (Türk Kadınlar Birliği), the Federation of the
Women’s Associations of Turkey (Türkiye Kadın Dernekleri Federasyonu), and women’s
organizations working independently in the area for years did not receive an invitation.
Even though they were not invited, only one women’s organization, Purple Roof
Women’s Shelter Foundation, was invited to the workshop as a result of persistent
demands of independent women’s organizations, stating that they wanted to participate
in the workshop via various communication tools such as phone call and e-mails.66
KADEM published a legal evaluation on alimony debates and five
recommendations in 2019.67 The first recommendation was compulsory mediation for
divorce cases except those including domestic violence incidents to help the spouses
exercising their legal rights in divorce process and to ease wearing process of divorce.
They secondly recommended a lump sum payment for alimony and compensations,
which implied limiting the time period of alimony payments. The third recommendation
was, instead of any amendment in the existing alimony regulation, the change in Supreme
Court’s jurisprudence and the judge’s assignment of time limitation for alimony
payments. Fourthly, they recommended the facilitation of decreasing and abolishing
alimony in the event that alimony creditor’s need diminish or disappear. The last
recommendation was to limit alimony payment period to the duration of marriage. For
instance, in a 10-year marriage, alimony would be paid to the creditor for 10 years at
most. KADEM’s recommendations evoke the discrepancy between legal and de facto
66 Ekmek ve Gül (2018, October 10). Kadın örgütleri: Kadınların nafaka hakkına dokunmayın! accessed
December 4, 2020, https://ekmekvegul.net/gundem/kadin-orgutleri-kadinlarin-nafaka-hakkinadokunmayin.
67 Kadın ve Demokrasi Derneği (KADEM) [Women and Democracy Association] (2019, April 23). Nafaka
Tartışmalarına İlişkin Hukuki Değerlendirme. Accessed February 15, 2021, https://kadem.org.tr/nafakatartismalarina-
iliskin-hukuki-degerlendirme/
58
regulations regarding abortion mentioned earlier. That is, while alimony payment period
remains indefinite in the law, the demands of anti-alimony groups will be implemented,
and the payment period will be limited in practice. In 2019, Istanbul Regional Court, 11th
Civil Chamber adjudged 2-year alimony payment for 2-year marriage.68 This shows that
KADEM’s recommendations has started to carry into effect.
The Commission of Marital Breakdown was part of my interviews with
particularly feminist lawyers, because one of them attended to the investigation process,
and women’s organizations declared that the report was a “regression in women’s rights.”
In this sense, when I asked Hale to evaluate the Commission and its report, her evaluation
was as follows:
Hale: They [AKP] found supporters from various political parties at the
Commission. That is why their demands were included in the report as
they were. When we look at these demands, what we actually see is that
they wish to remove minimum one-third of amendments that we
[feminists] brought to three fundamental legislations: TPC, Civil Code,
and Law No. 6284. But articles they wish to remove form the spirit of these
legislations. The priority of recommended amendments in the Civil Code
is to weaken women economically. They attack the rights that would make
a woman feel economically strong in marriage and that would keep her
away from poverty in the wake of a divorce, including alimony, family
abode, sharing marital property. Secondly, in this way, they recommend
regulations that would deter a woman from divorce if the man does not
want to go along. They make recommendations that lead to the
appointment of family mediators. Even religious workers may become
family mediators. Thirdly, in the cases where the man is the one who wants
to divorce, even if woman does not want to divorce, they want to make it
happen in the fastest and cheapest way. Therefore, demanded amendments
for the Civil Code are based on prevention of divorce for women,
conviction of women to the family where she is subjected to violence, and
ensuring that a man divorces a woman quickly without paying a penny.
My interviews with lawyers correspond to the outcomes of the TBNA 2014, rather
than the report published in 2016. The real problem with alimony regulation is the
difficulty in collecting or the use of alimony by men as a tool for threating their ex-wives.
Ahmet has been a lawyer for over 15 years, and the last 7-8 years he only tries divorce
cases. We met at a café in City A and our interview lasted more on 90 minutes. When I
asked him “What are your observations about general tendency to ask for alimony in the
cases that you have taken?”, he simply answered, “In most of the cases, women do not
68 Hürriyet (2019, June 14). İstinaftan 2 yıl evliliğe 2 yıl nafaka. Accessed February 16, 2021,
https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/istinaftan-2-yil-evlilige-2-yil-nafaka-41243601.
59
ask for alimony for themselves, they do so for their children. It becomes an issue of
bargain. If the [paying] party does not accept the amount, he doesn’t divorce, and the case
is extended.”
Hale answered the same question as follows: “We try to convince women to ask
for alimony. Do not ask it for yourself, all right, but at least ask for 50 or 100 liras for
your children. But women are so fed up that they do not want to ask for alimony even
though this is their legal right. They say they would get money from their mothers. These
are not rich women. They say that they would work as housekeepers, that they would not
eat too much, or that they only wished their ex-husbands are far from them.”
The insufficiency of alimony amount was also uttered by lawyers. Ayşe who has
been working as a lawyer for over 50 years explained how alimony amounts have changed
over time, when I asked her if alimony amounts created any unjust treatment towards
men:
Ayşe: Long ago, the alimony amount was adjudged in a way to maintain
economic situation in the marriage before divorce and the Supreme Court
approved those decisions. But this has changed over time. In fact, it has
changed so much that, with women’s empowerment, male violence against
women has increased and is still increasing. Now, they set their eyes on twobit
alimony amount, just because they want to weaken women
economically. Nowadays, alimony amounts are approximately 100, 150,
200 TL, maximum 300 TL. Women cannot collect even that amount. The
men do not pay even that amount. On top of this, men cause quite a stir
spreading lies, saying “We were married only for a day, and now we pay
alimony for the rest of our lives”. Anyway, what I want to say is that, first
of all, alimony amounts are not sufficient. Secondly, alimony is almost noncollectible.
The implementation needs to be executed properly. But Ministry
of Justice does not investigate these things, they do not provide any data.
Because the only thing this government cares about is “to protect family”,
whatever family means for them.
As Ayşe expressed, the lack of data is a significant problem in alimony debates.
Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Services does not provide
any data on the number of people who pay alimony, the average amount of alimony, the
number of requests for increase in alimony amount, the number of people subjected to
preventive detention (tazyik hapsi) because of alimony-related debts, the number of
people identifying themselves as alimony victims. The anti-alimony newspaper articles
typically involve numbers or data given by members of BİAP or SNM. As one article
60
claims that there are two million alimony victims69, another one tells that there are 25
thousand men in prison due to their alimony debts70, and according to another article,
there are over 100 thousand execution files due for alimony debts for men who cannot
even go to polls in fear of being arrested71. However, these numbers seem arbitrary
because the Ministry of Family, Ministry of Justice, or TurkStat have not share any
official data on any of these topics. When I asked the head of BİAP, Serpil, if they had
any official sources to obtain this data and how did they know the total number of alimony
victim men, she said, “We simply guess based on people consulting us”. However, the
current number of signatories in BİAP’s petition on change.org is 17.47572 and the
number of members on their Facebook account is 5.50073 despite of the popularity of
alimony debates.
Since 2016, when these debates started to escalate, none of relevant ministries
have provided any data. Filiz Kerestecioğlu, an HDP MP, submitted a parliamentary
question regarding the investigation on alimony, requesting written answer from the
Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk, Minister of Family, Labor, and Social Services. But this question
was left without an answer. Hale mentioned the Alimony Workshop organized by the
Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Services during our interview, therefore, I asked
her this data problem and she said that women’s rights organizations brought this data
problem into question during the workshop:
Hale: Under normal circumstances, the state should have this data and
provide it to us. Failure to keep this data is against all international
conventions, particularly the Istanbul Convention. In the alimony
workshop, when our lawyer friends asked based on which data, they would
like to make this change; they said that they did not have such data. The
Minister said that they do not have records before the UYAP system
(National Judicial Network Information System). They suggested that
since there is no disaggregated data on this subject in UYAP, they do not
have such a data. But they could give examples of singled-out alimony
cases.
69 Yeni Akit (2019, January 12). İki milyon nafaka mağduru. Accessed December 7, 2020,
https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/2-milyon-nafaka-magduru-3430598.
70 Şahin, Ö. F. (2019, March 14). 25 bin mağdur hapiste çürüyor. Yeni Akit. Accessed December 7, 2020,
https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/25-bin-magdur-hapiste-curuyor-656492.html.
71 T24 (2019, April 9). Ortadoğu Gazetesi: Sandığa nafaka darbesi, 100 bin kişi tutuklanma korkusuyla oy
kullanamadı. Accessed November 14, 2020, https://t24.com.tr/haber/ortadogu-gazetesi-sandiga-nafakadarbesi-
100-bin-kisi-tutuklanma-korkusuyla-oy-kullanamadi,815992.
72 BİAP’s petition on change.org: change.org petition. Süresiz ibaresinin olmadığı, kriterlere göre 1-5 yıl
nafaka adildir (2014). change.org. Accessed September 12, 2018, https://bit.ly/3pWsXgh.
73 Facebook page of BİAP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu, accessed February 21, 2021.
61
The research of Foundation of Women’s Solidarity (Akçabay, 2019) investigating
140 alimony and divorce cases demanding alimony in 11 provinces supports the TBNA
report published in 2014. Average alimony amounts uttered by lawyers during our
interviews are also consistent with the results of this research. According to that, the
average alimony amount ruled by the courts is 370 TL, and the average of more than 66%
is 262 TL. The problem of collecting payments is also shown in the research: 50.7% of
the alimony adjudged are not paid by the debtor. The rate of applying for enforcement for
the collection of payment is 44.3%, but in some cases even enforcement does not help to
collect payments. In addition, the fact that the minimum wage and poverty limits are not
applied in court cases as a standard and the socioeconomic status investigation are not
carried out adequately are among other reasons for the low alimony amounts.
2.4 Reactions to Proposed Time Limitation to Alimony
When alimony debates were no longer just debates but led a possibility of new
legal amendment, this caused reactions from women’s organizations and bar associations.
Women’s organizations, including Filmmor Women’s Cooperative, Women’s Human
Rights Association (KİH), Women’s Solidarity Foundation (KADAV), Women’s Group
for Monitoring Equality (EŞİTİZ), Women’s Law Support Center (KAHDEM), and Mor
Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation, published a common text titled “do not touch
women’s alimony right”.74 The text pointed that news on alimony right misled the public,
and emphasized that alimony is a right, not a favor. Alimony is defined as a precaution
taken by the state, as many other states do in the world, aiming at women’s empowerment
and ensuring gender equality. According to women’s organizations, alimony is a legal
right that enables women to maintain their lives in the wake of divorce and is necessary
because women are impoverished due to gender inequality. It is stated that in the existing
regulation, alimony payment period is not unlimited: If conditions of the alimony debtor
change, they can request the alimony to be cut. Moreover, the amounts ruled by the course
for alimony is not enough to eliminate poverty. They emphasize that limiting the right to
receive alimony of women who have never been able to participate in work life, have
prevented from participating in work life or who have had to leave work life due to burden
of care labor including care of children, the disabled, and the elderly, will further deepen
74 Ekmek ve Gül (2018, October 10). Kadın örgütleri: Kadınların nafaka hakkına dokunmayın! Accessed
December 4, 2020, https://ekmekvegul.net/gundem/kadin-orgutleri-kadinlarin-nafaka-hakkinadokunmayin
62
the growing gender inequality in Turkey. They further state that this proposed regulation
will increase economic, psychological, sexual, and physical violence against women, and
make it difficult for women to make a divorce decision, causing great violations of rights.
The solution of grievances due to gender equality will be achieved by establishing gender
equality, not by taking back the rights women have gained through years of struggle. The
statement reminds that the duty of the state is not to make regulations that will further
weaken women’s status, reinforce gender inequality, and neglect gender; on the contrary,
it is to produce social policies aiming for gender equality and to work for providing free
care services. For women to participate in the labor market, it is necessary to provide free,
high-quality care services, to remove barriers to women’s participation in education, and
to create quality education and job opportunities that will enable women without higher
education to work in paid jobs where they meet at least their basic needs.
This notice was followed by a working group on alimony called “Platform for
Alimony Right” (Nafaka Hakkı Platformu) including 161 women’s organizations from
every city in Turkey. They started a campaign summoning the public and political parties
to defend alimony right of women. More than a thousand women became signatories of
“Do No Touch Alimony Right” (Nafaka Hakkına Dokunma) notice in 10 days.75 This
platform have collected the stories of divorced women whose voices have not been
considered by the authorities on a Medium account named “Alimony Story” (Nafaka
Hikayesi).76
Hazar Association, an association that has been carrying out research on women,
conducted an alimony research supported by 21 NGOs, and shared the results with public
in 2019. The report, based on sociological, psychological, and legal background, appeals
to views of representatives of NGOs, lawyers, members of the parliament, and social
service experts. It mainly draws attention to the position of women in family and society
as individuals and women’s economic weakness. Besides, the report points to the
ambivalent stance of the state in terms of the proposal that women should work and stand
on their own feet after divorce, voiced in alimony debates, is not advocated when the
marriage is still intact. The report concludes that Hazar Association does not approve any
75 Nafaka Hakkı Kadın Platformu [Women’s Platform for the Right to Alimony]. Kadınların Nafaka
Hakkına Dokunmayın!” https://nafakahakkinadokunma.com/.
76 .Nafaka Hikayesi. medium. https://medium.com/@NafakaHikayesi
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amendments regarding the existing alimony regulation without correcting the
disadvantaged position of women.77
Again, in 2019, Ankara78, Izmir79, Istanbul80, and many other bar associations
organized workshops on alimony regulations. I had the chance to personally participate
in the workshop organized in Istanbul and contributed to the working group focusing on
history of alimony in Turkey. All bar associations expressed in their final declarations on
the topic that they did not support any amendment in the existing alimony regulation,
drawing attention to the difficulties women experience due to gender inequality, the
inadequacy of women’s employment and childcare services, and the low amount of
alimony. The workshops organized by bar associations also shared concrete information
on alimony, revealing the general situation in society, to prevent information pollution on
the topic. According to that, the public is misinformed about Article 175 of Turkish Civil
Code and alimony is deliberately amalgamated with child support. Moreover, the duration
of alimony, as it is in the Civil Code, is neither strictly regulated as indefinite nor is
alimony given to every creditor upon request, as reflected to the public. The law text
clearly determines the proper conditions for alimony and is arranged in a way that is
convenient to solve problems encountered in practice. Article 176 of the Civil Code
regulates conditions to abolish alimony, and alimony is mostly abolished by the judges
with a broad interpretation upon request and when necessary conditions are met. The bars
highlighted that publicly voiced “victimhood” claims can be resolved even with the
existing legislation. To reinforce their explanation, the bars shared 2017 data of TÜİK.
According to that, female participation in labor force is 33.3% whereas male participation
is 71.5%. Time Use research of TÜİK shows that the time women devote to household
and chores in a day is 4 hours and 35 minutes whereas men spend only 53 minutes. The
rate of women who have been subjected to violence in their marriage is 97%.
77 Milliyet (2019, February 20). Hazar Derneği’nden süresiz nafaka araştırması. Accessed December 4,
2020, https://www.milliyet.com.tr/gundem/hazar-derneginden-suresiz-nafaka-arastirmasi-2830781.
78 Ankara Barosu Kadın Hakları Merkezi. [Ankara Bar Association Center for Women’s Rights] (2019).
Tüm yönleriyle nafaka çalıştayı sonuç bildirgesi. Accessed February 19,
2020, http://www.ankarabarosu.org.tr/HaberDuyuru.aspx?DUYURU&=2361.
79 İzmir Barosu Kadın Hakları Danışma ve Hukuk Araştırmaları Merkezi. [İzmir Bar Association, Center
for Counselling and Legal Studies on Women’s Rights] (2019, Mart 7). Nafaka çalıştayı sonuç bildirgesi.
accessed February 19, 2020, https://www.izmirbarosu.org.tr/HaberDetay/1484/nafaka-calistayi-sonucbildirgesi.
80 İstanbul Barosu Kadın Hakları Merkezi. [Istanbul Bar Association, Center for Women’s Rights] (2019).
Accessed February 19, 2020,
https://www.istanbulbarosu.org.tr/HaberDetay.aspx?ID=14590&Desc=Yoksulluk-Nafakas%C4%B1nda-
Yeni-Bir-Yasal-D%C3%BCzenlemeye-%C4%B0htiya%C3%A7-Yoktur.
64
Another point that bar associations emphasized is that comparisons with mainly
European countries in the debates is wrong because rankings in the index measuring
gender equality regarding the discrimination results reveals that Turkey is not in a
comparable position with Switzerland or Germany that countries are given as examples.
Because these countries are in a much more advanced position than Turkey in terms of
female labor force participation rates, social welfare, socialization of care services,
kindergartens, retirement houses, and supports given in terms of social rights. Therefore,
these comparisons are not objective and do not include exact information. Comparisons
made without considering specificity and status of countries in terms of gender equality,
gender policies, female unemployment, and women’s poverty are not scientific.
Furthermore, bar associations highlighted that this kind of manipulative declarations
made by authorities, even the representatives of high judicial organs take sides through
directive comments. Bar associations remarked that the issue that needs to be discussed
is not the right to receive alimony, but “non-collectability of alimony”. In the final
declarations of bar associations and in the statements of lawyers, poverty of women who
are entitled to receive alimony and the difficulties they face when collecting alimony
payments are emphasized. The data problem was also noted. Alimony debates brought to
the public attention through singular “male victim” stories of paying lifetime alimony
because of one-day marriage, but bar associations highlighted that these claims are far
from being a legal base for any amendment because there are no scientific study, research,
or data.
The final declarations conclude that the proposed legal amendment is against all
international conventions signed or accepted by the state, including Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Council of
Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic
violence in general (Istanbul Convention). The Union of Turkish Bar Associations
Women’s Law Committee (TÜBAKKOM)81 organized a workshop on alimony on July
30, 2019 and the final declaration published supported the declarations of all other bar
associations abovementioned, adding that alimony liability is not based on social state
principle, but only on the solidarity liability existing due to the previous conjugal union.
Thus, establishing funds or providing social assistance is not an alternative to alimony.
81 Türkiye Barolar Birliği (TÜBAKKOM) [Union of Turkish Bar Association]. Nafaka Çalıştayı Sonuç
Bildirgesi. Accessed February 19, 2020, https://www.barobirlik.org.tr/Haberler/tubakkom-nafakacalistayi-
sonuc-bildirgesi-80777.
65
The workshop’s declaration also answers to alimony opponents’ claim of women’s
misuse of legislation. It is stated that solutions of problems regarding implementation is
available in the Civil Code. Abuse of right is forbidden under Article 2 and, in case of
proof, the judge has authority to annul alimony. Again, the inability to collect child
support and alimony because the alimony debtor avoids paying is pointed as the main
problem. Finally, it is mentioned that leading an undignified life, which is one reason for
abolition of alimony by judicial decision, may be interpreted by Second Civil Department
of Supreme Court in sexist moral patterns.
So far, any amendments have not been brought to alimony legislation. Most
recently, AKP has reconsidered the issue of alimony in 2020. Presidential and party group
meetings were held, and the Ministry of Justice made a proposal limiting period of
alimony to 6 years at most. The lower limit is also foreseen as 2 years.
2.5 Concluding Remarks
The first main argument of this chapter is the reason why women are overwhelmingly
entitled to alimony is women’s disadvantaged positions in an inegalitarian society. Thus,
alimony is closely related to the state’s policies towards women’s rights, family, and
divorce and to the highly gendered welfare regime in terms of women’s dependency on
the husbands or the fathers, unemployment, unpaid care, and domestic labor due to
patriarchal familial norms of society.
The first section discussed the dramatic transformation in political discourse and
social policies towards family, divorce, and women’s rights which came with institutional
changes. Though the first decade of 2000s witnessed the introduction of progressive
legislations aiming for gender equality in social, economic, and familial relations, the
existing literature on neoliberal restructuring and neoconservative familialism shows that
political discourse and social policies did not accord with progressive legislations and
kept reproducing gender inequality in practice. Since 2016, the government’s concerns
about divorce rates in Turkey and top-down and bottom-up attacks to women’s vested
rights have been increasing in the name of “saving the family”. The main reason of it is
that familialist policies consider divorce as a potential threat because women’s unpaid
care labor is a fundamental cog in the wheel.
The second section focused on the historical evaluation of alimony in the Turkish
Civil Code and state-led research reports on divorces and alimony. Particularly, the
66
Commission of Marital Breakdown report, released in 2016, ignited alimony debates until
today. While alimony was considered as a problem damaging family, women’s inability
to collect alimony and child support or domestic violence against women was not
mentioned. Anti-alimony groups have officially appeared in this report and the report had
a significant role in developing anti-alimony discourse, attacking women’s existing
rights. Not only alimony, but also Law No. 6284 on preventing violence against women
and the Istanbul Convention are integral parts of this discourse. This chapter also showed
those who acted as spokesperson in the alimony debates and their roles in circulation of
anti-alimony discourse.
The last section disclosed reactions to anti-alimony campaign and proposed draft
amendment in the existing alimony regulation from women’s rights organizations and bar
associations. The declarations of bar associations and women’s organizations commonly
summoned authorities and public to defend women’s right to alimony (even though article
175 of Civil Code regulating alimony is gender-neutral, women are overwhelmingly
alimony creditors because of gender inequality in society, and that is why women’s
organizations called it “women’s right”). Moreover, they revealed that alimony is
misrepresented to the public as “indefinite” and the state’s insistence on introducing
amendment into alimony regulation without correcting women’s disadvantaged position
by providing care services for children, the disabled, and the elderly; equal opportunities
for women in work life and education will only deepen the existing gender equality in
society.
Why do the state and groups which consist of mainly men as well as conservative
women attack women’s rights all together? The answer to this question is the second main
argument of this chapter: Anti-alimony campaigns as a part of anti-women’s rights
movement in Turkey that gained momentum since 2016 are a bottom-up counterpart of
the new politics of masculinist restoration (Kandiyoti, 2016) aiming to maintain and
reproduce patriarchy. The neoliberal conditions brought along increasing rates of male
unemployment and soaring precarious forms of employment, and that coincided with
women’s ambitions and their growing public presence. As a result of these developments,
the male provider as “the head of the family” that constitutes one of the fundamentals of
male privilege is under pressure at the domestic level. At the state level and in the
neoliberal restructuring of welfare, the state withdrew itself from the role of facilitator for
welfare provisions, and neoconservative discourse including familialism, nationalism, or
religion and tradition help filling the functional gap in the definition of the state that is
67
result of this withdrawal. For those in power, as Kandiyoti (2020) notes, “the idiom of
patriarch” is a useful tool “to legitimize their regulation of citizens’ lives, to suppress
dissent and to elicit consent.” In the case of AKP, traditional family has been a useful tool
for maintaining its rulership and the state includes men as part of its patriarchal ruling
through encouraging male privilege over control of women. The cases of femicides and
violence against women receive lighter punishments (if any), women marching to protest
femicides are attacked by the police82 (whereas men protesting the Istanbul Convention
remain untouched83) and restraining and protection orders through Law No. 6284 are not
properly followed.
Women’s perceived disobedience and insubordination act as a primary trigger in
all these incidents. In this sense, I argued that as marching women are considered as
disobeying the state, divorced women are considered as disobeying their husbands, thus,
women’s individualization and empowerment perceived as “disobedience” is one of the
common grounds binding this bottom-up and top-down counterparts of masculinist
restoration together. The rising of anti-women’s rights movement in Turkey indicates that
patriarchal apprehension of female subordination is not hegemonic anymore. What is
taken for granted in the gender order is not safe. In this context, the proposed time
limitation for alimony payments without any attempts to eliminate gender inequality in
education, employment, and care labor may be considered as economic and psychological
violence against women who have already divorced or who wish to divorce, and an
attempt to discourage women from ending their marriages full of violence and
abandoning the violent environment of these marriages. To bring the Istanbul Convention
and Law No. 6284 into question carries possibility to eliminate effective legal tools for
combating violence against women, femicides, and gender inequality. Male selfvictimization
is pointed as “justification” for these possible amendments and annulments,
therefore, it needs to be examined. In the next chapter, I will focus on the components of
male self-victimization discourse through interviews with members of two anti-alimony
groups, namely BİAP and SNM. The response that they obtained from media and the state
shows the cooperation of street-level and state-level of masculinist restoration politics.
82 Gazete Duvar (2020, July 21). Pınar Gültekin için yürüyen kadınlara polis saldırısı: Darp edilip yerlerde
sürüklendiler. Accessed December 4, 2020, https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/gundem/2020/07/21/pinargultekin-
icin-yuruyen-kadinlara-polis-saldirisi-darp-edilip-yerlerde-suruklendiler.
83 doğruhaber (2020, February 16). Yeniden Refah Partisi: İstanbul Sözleşmesi ile ilgili önlem almaya davet
ediyoruz. Accessed December 4, 2020, https://dogruhaber.com.tr/haber/642465-yeniden-refah-partisiistanbul-
sozlesmesi-ile-ilgili-onlem-almaya-davet-ediyoruz/.
68
Chapter 3:
ANTI-ALIMONY CAMPAIGNERS: MOBILIZATION, DEMANDS,
EXPERIENCES
This chapter aims to explore the dynamics of anti-alimony campaign as a bottomup
counterpart of the politics of masculinist restoration in Turkey and to scrutinize antialimony
discourse, especially in terms of formation and workings of male selfvictimization
in relation to women’s subordination and “costs of masculinity” (Messner,
1997). It presents experiences, protests, and demands in the anti-alimony campaign
through interviews with 9 divorced men and 3 female allies from lower- and middle-class,
all members of Platform for Divorced People and Family (BİAP) and Indefinite Alimony
Victims (SNM). I conducted interviews with the campaigners in three different cities,
renamed as City A, City B, and City C. The duration of interviews varied from 1.5 hours
to 9 hours. I preferred to meet with divorced men in public spaces and they did not propose
otherwise.
I aimed to understand the interviewees’ perception of masculinity that is dominant
today in terms of socially privileged (and fragile, at the same time,) status as the head of
the family, gendered division of labor, and economic, social, and emotional struggles that
men may experience, as well as this perception’s relation to male self-victimization.
Therefore, I designed my interview questions with divorced men to probe into their
thoughts on the decision to marry, economic struggles in marriage and divorce, gendered
marital roles, men’s perception of violence against women and femicides, their
experiences during the divorce process, amounts of alimony and/or child support,
compensation and marital property distribution if adjudged, and differences between their
experiences as married and divorced in society (including their perception of themselves).
The interviews with their female allies mainly involved similar questions. But since my
interview questions were semi-structured and open-ended, female allies’ experiences as
women in male-dominated Turkish society sometimes carried the course of interviews to
different directions such as sexist treatments they experienced in anti-alimony groups and
in society. In addition, to understand how female allies contribute to male domination, I
asked questions about their perception about gender roles in family and society. To
analyze the accounts of interviewees in a broader context, I utilize studies on men and
masculinities and feminist literature on marriage, male dominance, men’s movements,
69
and divorce. I also appeal to TBNA 2014 Report’s results, TurkStat’s statistical data, and
accounts of lawyers whom I interviewed on men’s common behavior at divorce, domestic
and care labor, violence against women, and femicides.
I divided this chapter into four main sections. The first section focuses on
discourse, mobilization, lobbying, demands, and political stance of anti-alimony
campaigns. It also discusses why I needed a distinction between victimization and selfvictimization.
The second section elaborates anti-alimony campaigners’ experiences on
marriage, divorce, and post-divorce with a focus on gendered marital roles, division of
domestic responsibilities, economic and emotional struggles, men’s strategies to walk
away with the least economic damage as well as to justify these strategies in divorce, and
loss of socially privileged status as the head of the family. The answers of female
campaigners on gender roles are also important to show the role of women in reproducing
and consolidating male dominance, and the construction of power relations between
women and men.
Moving from that, the third section analyzes the accounts of anti-alimony
campaigners on violence against women and femicides in relation to Law No. 6284 and
alimony regulation. It discusses how anti-alimony discourse normalize and even
encourage violence against women and femicides through using male self-victimization
as a justification tool. This section also discusses the role of male violence against women
in the formation of dominant and overt form of masculinity. The fourth chapter
investigates how anti-alimony campaigners position fragmenting “this woman” and “that
woman” in the formation of their self-victimization. Anti-alimony discourse on “true”
women’s rights is also briefly discussed in the fourth section.
3.1 Framing the Anti-Alimony Campaign: The Discourse, Mobilization, Political
Stance, and Demands
Anti-alimony discourse adopts liberal legal frames that have become dominant in
the civil rights struggles such as antidiscrimination, formal equal treatment, gender
equality, and neutrality. They define the right to alimony for an indefinite period as
“lifelong punishment”84, “economic and psychological violence”85, “human rights
84 Vatan Gazetesi (2019, November 2). Nafaka düzenlemesi! En az 2, en fazla 5 yıl… Accessed
September 15, 2020. http://www.gazetevatan.com/suresiz-nakafa-kalkacak-mi--1282840-gundem/.
85 The Platform for Divorced People and Family, Facebook page. Accessed September 15, 2020.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu/permalink/903775819758235/.
70
violation”86, or “nightmare of thousands of men”.87 They use these frames to undermine
what they perceive as women’s allegedly excessive legal rights in marriage and divorce.
According to them, alimony, property distribution, and pecuniary and non-pecuniary
damages in family law and Law No. 6284 enacted because of women’s rights
organizations (feminists) discriminate against men simply because they are men.
Therefore, these legislations damage gender equality. As many interviewees emphasized,
they claim that they do not distinguish women’s rights from men’s rights, they defend
human rights. From a feminist perspective, gender-neutrality is a male standard
(MacKinnon, 1989). “Sex inequality is the true name for women’s social condition”
(MacKinnon, 1989: 242) and “sexual difference is political difference; sexual difference
is the difference between freedom and subjection” (Pateman, 1988: 6). Gender-neutral
approach to civil and legal rights conceals the inequalities women face based on their sex
in terms of their poverty, financial dependence on men in marriage, workplace, or welfare,
and every form of male violence against them in everyday life. The discourse of “human”
rights in the context of alimony debates mainly makes invisible of socially, politically,
and economically constructed gender inequality between women and men.
Anti-alimony campaigners deem alimony regulation “encouragement for divorced
women to cohabit without being legally married”88 (creating an “immoral” woman
figure), and “fetters for the sacred institution of family”89. Even in cases of violence
against women, campaigners tend to place divorced men/fathers in “victim” position.
According to the campaigners, since laws discriminate against and aggrieve men, they
are obliged to commit these crimes as a result of psychological, emotional, and economic
difficulties that they have to face. They claim that these legislations are the reason behind
domestic violence against women and femicides. Because of these legislations, men are
suspended from their homes, hostility between ex-spouses does not end for a long time
after divorce, and men cannot be happy in their new families when they remarry–all these
leading men to depression (they name it as “the down-trodden syndrome [haksızlığa
86 The Platform for Divorced People and Family, Facebook page. Accessed September 15, 2020.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu/permalink/903775819758235/.
87 Yeni Akit (2019, January 11). Nafaka kalkacak mı? Süresiz nafakaya Erdoğan’dan ayar geldi!
Accessed September 15, 2020, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/nafaka-kalkacak-mi-suresiz-nafakayaerdogandan-
ayar-geldi-492223.html.
88 Yeni Akit (2018, August 12). Süresiz nafaka boşanmış kadınları nikahsız yaşamaya teşvik ediyor.
Accessed August 12, 2020, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/suresiz-nafaka-bosanmis-kadinlarinikahsiz-
yasamaya-tesvik-ediyor-561532.html.
89 Yeni Akit (2019, March 15). Vekil bugünü 30 yıl önceden görmüş! Süresiz nafaka felaketimiz
olur. Accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/2-vekil-bugunu-30-yil-oncedengormus-
suresiz-nafaka-felaketimiz-olur-658608.html.
71
uğramışlık sendromu]) and to resort to violence against their wives or ex-wives.90 They
even started a hashtag campaign on Twitter: #NafakaCinayetSebebidir
(#AlimonyIsTheCauseOfFemicides).91 This hashtag seems to serve both as a justification
for femicides and a threat addressing women who receive alimony.
In their defense of time limitation to alimony, they frequently claim that their
demands are designed in a way that would not aggrieve neither men nor women..92
However, they mostly tend to underline “costs of masculinity” and “men’s oppression”
in their daily posts as well as in the interviews we had. Men’s health problems in relation
to problems in marriage and divorce and inability to work, psychological problems due
to emotional and physical violence against men at home, inability to get remarried due to
alimony debts, and inability to take care of subsequent wife and children in the case of
remarriage are emphasized as evidence of men’s oppression (and male victimization).93
In this sense, Messner (1997) offers a useful distinction in understanding anti-alimony
discourse on that men are oppressed as much as (even more than) women. He argues that,
“(…) the view that ‘everyone oppressed by sexism’ strips the concept of
‘oppression’ of its political meaning and obscures the social relations of
domination and subordination. (…) Men tend to pay a price for their power.
They are often emotionally limited and commonly suffer poor health and a
short life expectancy than women. These problems, however, are best viewed
not as gender oppression but as the ‘costs of being on top”’ (Kann, 1986) –
or at least of trying to be on top. These shifts indicate that these men would
like to stop paying these costs but not that they desire to cease being ‘on top’”.
(Messner, 1997: 22)
This distinction between “oppression” and “costs of being on top” helps
understanding why this victimization needs to be defined as self-victimization, since it
lacks any questioning or criticism on gendered arrangements in work and family relations
in the male-dominated Turkish society. The laws that anti-alimony campaigners point as
sources of their victimization adopt gender equality or aim to combat violence against
90 change.org petition (2014). Nafaka Zulmüne Son Verin. Accessed September 15, 2020.
https://www.change.org/p/süresiz-nafaka-zulmüne-son-verin-30-yildir-uygulamada-olan-bu-çağdişiyasayi-
lütfen-güncelleyin-süresiz-yoksulluk-nafakasi-zulmüne-son-verin.
91 https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NafakaCinayetSebebidir&src=typed_query
92 Erdem, A.K. (2020, November 12). Kadın dernekleri Bakan Gül’ün “nafaka açıklamasından”
memnun… Düzenleme isteyenler tepkili: Bakan feministleirn provokasyonuna geldi. Accessed February
15, 2021. https://www.indyturk.com/node/271326/haber/kadın-dernekleri-bakan-gülün-nafakaaçıklamasından-
memnun…-düzenleme-isteyenler.
93 Yeni Akit (2019, January 12). 2 milyon nafaka mağduru. Accessed December 25, 2020.
https://www.yenisafak.com/gundem/2-milyon-nafaka-magduru-3430598.
72
women, and they offer ways to eliminate possible wrongdoings. Therefore, the main
reason underlying the request for amendment or annulment in the relevant laws is not the
elimination of “victimhood”, but the legal establishment of male privilege. “Victimhood”
here is stems from a subjective feeling of “entitlement”.
Chapter 2 has explored how breaks in the gender order to the detriment of male
privilege and domination due to large-scale social transformations such as modernization
or the rise of organized feminist movements resulting in changes in work and family life
create a “masculinity crisis” closely related to hegemonic masculine ideals, and the state’s
response to it. Kandiyoti (2016) locates reflections of this crisis in politics of masculinist
restoration which has bottom-up and top-down counterparts. Kimmel (1987a) argues that
men’s organized responses to masculinity crises vary and proposes a categorization as
“masculinist”, “antifeminist”, and “profeminist” responses (Kimmel, 1987a; cited in
Messner, 1997). In this context, based on their antifeminist arguments, this research
categorizes anti-alimony campaign as antifeminist response to masculinity crisis in
contemporary Turkey.
3.1.1 The Mobilization of BİAP and SNM
BİAP94 and SNM95 first appeared as a Facebook page; the former in 2014, the
latter in 2018. Both groups are still active on social media. BİAP’s emergence involves
SNM’s emergence too. I visited Serpil, the founder and head of the Platform, where she
lived in City C, and we spent the whole day together. She explained in detail the
establishment of the Platform, the participation of its members, their standards in
admittance of members to the Platform, how they contacted deputies from the ruling and
opposition parties, and how they were called to the Marital Breakdown Commission in
2016. Serpil confidently said, “The government did not attempt to make amendment in
this regulation out of blue, all by itself. They did it because we set out to realize our
demand for fairness in the regulation.”
The story of creating this Facebook page started with Serpil’s son Suat’s divorce
after a 4-month marriage in 2013. The court adjudged 150 TL alimony for Suat’s ex-wife.
94 BİAP’s Facebook page has 5,4K followers by February 25, 2020.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu.
95 SNM’s Facebook page has 3,3K followers by February 25, 2020.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1239969499490532.
73
However, because he did not pay it for a year, Suat received a notice that he would get
preventive detention if he did not pay his debt, upon his ex-wife’s appeal to enforcement
and bankruptcy office. With his mother’s help, he paid his debt and did not go to jail.
After a while, Suat’s ex-wife filed a case for increasing the amount of alimony and it was
raised to 200 TL. Upon these incidents, Serpil wondered whether his son was the only
one who had to deal with this kind of legal issues and searched on the Internet. According
to her account, she discovered some groups on social media that mostly consisted of men.
She described these groups as being “terribly misogynist” and defined them as “composed
of men who were victims because of their ex-wives”. After she received misogynist
reactions, she decided to create the BİAP Facebook page. A lawyer followed her posts
and encouraged her through direct messages. Serpil also met women from various
women’s rights organizations, but she complained that they were not interested in her
problems, and they did not defend her rights as a woman. Then, she had a meeting with
KADEM (Women and Democracy Association):
Q: How was your meetings with them?
Serpil: They were against any amendment at the beginning; but after I told
them victims’ stories, they were convinced. They said, “Bring 6 male
victims. We want to listen to them.” They formed a jury. (…) Those in
KADEM was shocked when they heard victims’ stories. They told us, “You
fight for a just cause. We will prepare a report for March 8”.
As it is understood from Serpil’s account, BİAP had an influence on KADEM’s
legal evaluation discussed in Chapter 2 (p. 54). KADEM’s stance in the debates caused a
conflict in BİAP. A couple of members published a post targeting KADEM, believing
that KADEM used them to reinforce its own popularity. Serpil got angry at their post,
because she did not want to provoke women’s rights organizations. But she had a strong
authority on BİAP and ordered other members to take back their retweets in private direct
message groups. Upon that, BİAP split up and these members in conflict with Serpil
formed Indefinite Alimony Victims (SNM).
As far as I understand from Serpil’s account, men who left BİAP expected Serpil
to have their demands for alimony accepted as soon as possible. When KADEM’s
evaluation did not accept all of their demands as they desired, they suspected that Serpil
did not sufficiently fight for their rights. This was not the first time Serpil had problems
with men in BİAP. At the beginning, men questioned how they could count on a woman
74
to stand up for men’s rights. She described how the men she met through BİAP were
misogynist most of the time, but she did not consider men that she admitted as members
to BİAP as misogynists, probably because they did not turn against her yet. She felt
empathy towards them and interpreted their misogynist reactions appeared time to time
as being “angry at all women because they had bad experiences.”
Serpil’s account on how BİAP became popular reveals media’s and certain
lawyers’ guidance and influence, their standards for admitting people to BİAP, and the
strategy they followed to be invited to the Commission of Marital Breakdown:
Serpil: We weeded out useless people and formed a group consisting of
informed people. I prepared some texts about the failures of the existing law
and posted them on our Facebook page. We taught people in our group how
to use Twitter, most of them did not know about it. We tried to call papers’
attention between 2014 and 2016 and randomly sent out articles. Some local
papers published our writings. In the meantime, the petition on change.org
started to draw attention.96 A columnist from Yeni Akit reached me after he
saw our petition. After that, we built a long-lasting connection. How were
we invited to the Family Commission97? It was December 2015. That lawyer
who followed my posts told me, “The Assembly established a commission
on marriage and divorce in January. Your writings are influential, send some
e-mails to people in the Commission.” We waited until January. The
Commission was formed, and then I started to write and share with other
people in our group. At certain hours in the evenings, we searched for email
contacts of all deputies in the Commission. We sent countless e-mails
to them, the e-mail started with “Father State, Mother State” to avoid any
distinction between the two genders. One day, I had a call and they invited
me to the Commission to talk about alimony. (…) I was told to inform
Ministry of Family about BİAP, that they tracked and investigated groups
like ours. They then gave me an e-mail address. We sent posts on social
media pages of deputies in the Ministry of Family. (…) The state authorities
think that various unfavorable ideologies may infiltrate most of social
organizations; therefore, they care a lot about the groups that are not
influenced by any ideology. Put this in your notes, it is very important. We
blocked people who came to our page to insult Kılıçdaroğlu or Erdoğan.
They frazzled me the most. I reached everywhere from the state authorities
to workshops, they endorsed me everywhere, but these men in our group
frazzled me the most.
96 The total number in the petition on change.org by February 25, 2020 is 17,452. Considering efforts
of pro-government media outlets, and the government’s frequent announcements on the topic, this number
can be viewed quite few. Moreover, it contradicts with the claim of alimony opponents on approximate
number of “alimony victims” is 2 million. https://www.change.org/p/süresiz-nafaka-zulmüne-son-verin-
30-yildir-uygulamada-olan-bu-çağdişi-yasayi-lütfen-güncelleyin-süresiz-yoksulluk-nafakasi-zulmüneson-
verin.
97 Serpil named what women’s rights organizations (and I, in this research) name as “the Commission
of Marital Breakdown” as Family Commission. The way of her expression is interesting to understand how
the anti-alimony campaigners and women’s rights organizations perceive it in different ways.
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Q: How was your experience in the Commission?
Serpil: I made a presentation and all deputies paid attention to what I said.
Nobody argued with me.
The Marital Breakdown Commission and increasing visibility in pro-government
media outlets such as Yeni Akit brought new members to BİAP. Serpil and other members
also stated that people who wanted to find someone to get married came to their Facebook
page too, but they did not allow this kind of things and blocked people who have such
intentions.
Serpil emphasized how the state attached importance to the social media groups
which did not adopt any specific ideology. The heads of SNM had the same claim. It
seems that these specific ideologies refer to ideologies that the government disapproves
of, because BİAP does represent an ideology intertwined with nationalist, patriotic, and
familialist ideas which can be considered under right-wing ideology. For instance, the
usernames of Serpil and many other members of BİAP and SNM on their social media
accounts include the hashtag #ToProtectTheFamilyIsToProtectTheNation
(#AileyiKorumakVatanıKorumaktır). Even though she claimed that she did not adopt a
specific ideology at the beginning, it seems that she actually adopted the dominant
ideology approved by the AKP government in order to fulfill BİAP’s demands. Their
preferences on who to meet to discuss their demands are informative about their political
stance, too.98 Furthermore, sometimes, these preferences may involve contradictions. For
instance, even though members of SNM had nationalist statements in their interviews,
they held a meeting with HÜDAPAR, a Kurdish and Islamist political party to discuss
their demands.99
3.1.2 Anti-Alimony Campaigners’ Political Stance and Anti-Feminism
Kandiyoti (2016) remarks that gender constitutes one central node of ideology and
practice in gender politics in Turkey. Gender, a key pillar of populist discourse, is used
98 Anti-alimony campaigners’ preferences of political parties to discuss their demands were briefly
introduced in Chapter 1. (p. 5).
99 İLKHA (2021, January 30). Süresiz nafaka mağdurları sorunlarının çözülmesini istiyor. Accessed
February 5, 2021, https://ilkha.com/guncel/suresiz-nafaka-magdurlari-sorunlarinin-cozulmesini-istiyor-
151151.
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to make a sharp distinction between genuinely national “us” and anti-national “them”.
She elaborates this argument as follows:
“Gender norms and specifically women’s conduct and propriety play a key
role in delineating the boundaries between “us” (God-fearing, Sunni, AKP
supporters) and a “them” consisting of all political detractors and minorities,
cast as potentially treasonous and immoral. (…) These modes of ‘othering’
inevitably expose many sections of the citizenry –not to mention women
and sexual minorities– who fail to meet government-decreed norms of
propriety to potential intimidation, harassment and violence. (Kandiyoti,
2016: 105-106.)
The accounts of anti-alimony campaigner interviewees on their approaches to
women’s rights activists, certain political parties, and ex-wives clearly show the influence
of this populist discourse. Feminists are the most prominent “anti-national them” in the
anti-alimony discourse. In terms of political parties, they sometimes oppose CHP
(Republican People’s Party) which has often been targeted by President Erdoğan. But
anti-alimony campaigners’ main “anti-national them” is HDP (People’s Democratic
Party), a left-wing, Kurdish political party heavily criminalized by the AKP government
with accusation of being in cooperation with PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).100 Another
“them” is divorce lawyers with other reasons than political ones: Alimony opponents
strongly believe that divorce lawyers are against any amendment in the existing alimony
regulation because they receive unearned income through attorney fees as the alimony
amount increases.
As Serpil talked about her attempts to contact political parties about complaints
and claims of the members of BİAP, she listed almost all political parties in the Assembly
of Turkey, except for HDP. That engaged my attention, and I asked her if she had
contacted HDP too, and she answered as follows:
Serpil: No. Because HDP has been aggressive towards this issue from the
very beginning, I cannot find anything to talk to them about. Also, I don’t
like that party. I liked Demirtaş at the beginning. He looked so democratic,
played saz and so on. But then, the trenches thing101 happened–what is the
100 As an example: Cumhuriyet (2019, March 2). Erdoğan’dan HDP’lilere: Sizin bu ülkede yeriniz
yok. Accessed September 20, 2020. https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/erdogandan-hdplilere-sizin-buulkede-
yeriniz-yok-1274348.
101 In December 2015, after the summer saw a peace process between the Turkish government and
Kurdish insurgents failed and the decades-long conflict flared up again, Turkey declared open-ended
curfews in several Kurdish towns and cities as part of their operations against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’
Party). In these strongholds of the Kurdish political movement, young people who were not officially PKK
militants but often had sympathies self-organized to unilaterally declare autonomy, leading to months-long
intense clashes with Turkish troops. These clashes came to be known as the incidents or the resistance of
77
meaning of a declaration of autonomy by a municipality from the Republic
of Turkey? That really opened up my eyes. I lost my trust in that party.
Purple Roof is that party’s extension, HPD has infiltrated there. Wherever
HDP gets into, problems arise. They work for something else.
Q: What do you think about their “real intention”?
Serpil: Probably to cause a chaos and establish a Kurdish state.
Q: How could they do it through women’s rights?
Serpil: They all are connected to Europe. They receive funds, money from
the Netherlands, here and there. A poster saying, ‘All women to the streets!’
came from abroad to Turkey. They aim to cause chaos and cause civil war.
The assumption that Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation is an extension of
HDP sets an example of misinformation circulated among anti-alimony campaigners.
Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation is an NGO established by feminists in 1990
for the purpose of combatting violence against women102, decades before the foundation
of HDP in 2012. Interviewees associated women’s rights organizations with HDP (by
also referring feminists as “feminazis” or “femifascist viruses” on their social media
accounts103) so they criminalize feminists and women’s rights organizations. The
comments implying that women’s rights organizations are puppets of “the West” and
“backyard of HDP” became much clearer in interviews with two groups of divorced men
in City A and City B. These comments also show how much AKP governments’ political
discourse on divorce, marriage, and procreation has influence on the campaigners. During
the interview with three divorced men–Fuat, Davut, and Selim–in City B, while we were
talking about legal regulations on alimony and prevention of violence against women,
Fuat suddenly carried the course of the interview to another direction:
the trenches, depending on one's position towards them, named after the canals, that dug around the
perimeter of neighborhoods to mark territory and stop armored vehicles from getting in. The PKK wasn't
directly involved, however, there is evidence that it did support the youth militia that coordinated the efforts.
The former co-party leader of HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, made a speech about these incidents in his defense
in the case where he was tried on accusation of “leading a terrorist organization”. He told that they, as
deputies of HDP, solved conflicts through convincing dialogues in 2014. However, he did not aware of
how trenches were more common, referring to incidents in 2015. For further information about defense and
self-criticism of Demirtaş: Sputnik Türkiye (2018, April 12). Demirtaş’tan hendek ve barikat özeleştirisi:
Yanıldım. Accessed September 20, 2020. https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201804121033008279-
selahattin-demirtas-hendek-barikat-ozelestiri/.
102 Mor Çatı Kadın Sığınağı Vakfı [Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation]. Who We Are?
Accessed September 20, 2020. https://en.morcati.org.tr/about-us/who-we-are/.
103 For some examples, https://twitter.com/trbiaplatformu/status/1241303896766779392, received
December 25, 2020.
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Fuat: Do you know how things are? All these are tricks. They enacted this
law [on alimony] in 1988, but they did not consider just that period, they
had plans for 8-10 years after. (…) They (“the West”) caused rightist-leftist
conflict in the 80s. After the 80s, there was the Alevi-Sunni conflict, but
they couldn’t achieve their goals. Now, there is the Kurdish-Turkish
conflict, but they cannot achieve their goals. Secular vs. anti-secular.
Muslim vs. anti-Muslim. The core unit of society is family. They say let’s
destroy the family structure through either TV series or laws, they say we
can achieve our goals in this way. Their goal is to create broken families,
children addicted to drugs.
Q: What do you mean by destroying the family structure?
Fuat: In the simplest term, this alimony issue. The second marriage is
destroyed. Erdoğan said “have 3 or 4 children”. But people cannot get
married, how can they have children?
Davut: According to the last data from TurkStat, there is a decrease in birth
rates. Divorces increased and marriages decreased. As our President said,
our family structure is under attack. (…) There are groups that are against
the new law [on alimony]. HDP is against it already. Feminist NGOs,
Women’s Councils (Kadın Meclisleri), We Will Stop Femicide, Purple
Roof, I know all of them. (…) The darkest moment in history is 1988. We
learned the truth behind it. There was a group called Daisies (Papatyalar).
Due to their pressure, the Law No. 3444 was enacted in 1988. Then, in 2002,
another amendment on sharing marital property was introduced, which is
another scandal. In 2012, the Law No. 6284 was passed. I don’t think there
would be any improvement to the nuclear family structure in this country
unless these legislations are corrected.
Yasin, residing in City A with other four campaigners–Melek, Emrah, Mehmet,
and Hamit– old that, in his opinion, feminists were related to “the Church” and wanted to
destroy family.
Yasin: There is a sister of ours (bacımız). She’s a true feminist and she
supports us. She said that she saw in person that feminists received a lot of
cash from the Church. They gave money to them so as to help feminists
destroy family structure. When she witnessed that moment, she decided that
these feminists were ill-intentioned and decided to support us.
What Yasin said sounds almost like a conspiracy theory, but AKP governments
have normalized this kind of expressions that some “the West”, “external powers” and
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“inner enemies” conspire against Turkey “to destroy family and country’s existence” in
its populist discourse.104
As seen in Yasin’s account too, “the true feminist” was another topic in the
interviews. Serpil told how important it was for women to have an occupation, how
families should not only steer their daughters towards marriage and instead should attach
importance to their daughters’ education. I commented that she sounded like a feminist.
Upon that, she said “I am a true feminist”, because she argued that women should find a
job or apply to receive social aid to eliminate their need for alimony after divorce.
According to her, she was the one who wanted divorced women to be free from their exhusbands
whereas feminists wanted to keep women in touch with their ex-husbands, and,
accordingly, put women’s lives in danger, because ex-husbands who experienced a
mental breakdown due to alimony debts would commit violence or murder. This was an
unusual perspective to me, because as a feminist activist who has spent many years in
women’s movement in Turkey, I was quite sure that feminists did not want women to be
murdered by their ex-husbands, or to become needy. I pushed a little more and asked
about the role of the state, its policies, social and cultural structure of the Turkish society,
and the subordination of women. Though she accepted these factors affected women’s
lives deeply and radically, she tended to find mothers responsible in their wrong ways of
childrearing, and to lay the burden of “standing on their own feet” on women alone.
Indeed, some statements of the campaigners show similarity with what feminists
defend, such as girls’ education or access to employment and childcare services. At what
point then do they separate from women’s rights defenders? Feminists want equality for
every woman no matter their marital status or age whereas anti-alimony campaigners’
statements refer to women who are not within their families yet or anymore. For instance,
in their accounts, divorced men did not particularly demand their subsequent or future
wives achieve these equal opportunities. They did not ask for these opportunities to make
104 For instance, the President Erdoğan’s in his speech in 2020, at the meeting of 86th Anniversary of
Suffrage of Women declared that they consider any attacks to family institution as an attack to their
existence as the party. Gündoğmuş, Y.N., Yıldızalp Özmen, M. & Kaplan, E. (2020, December 3).
Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Aileye yönelik her saldırıyı, varlığımıza yapılmış kabul ediyoruz. AA. Accessed
February 7, 2021. https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-aileye-yonelik-her-saldiriyivarligimiza-
yapilmis-kabul-ediyoruz/2064314. In his another speech, among many similar others, the
President Erdoğan emphasized that internal and external powers constantly try to divide Turkey. Samsun
Kent Haber (2019, May 19). Cumhurbaşkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 19 Mayıs’ın 100. yılında Samsun’da
konuştu. Accessed December 26, 2020. http://www.samsunkenthaber.com.tr/haber/guncel/cumhurbaskanirecep-
tayyip-erdogan-19-mayisin-100-yilinda-samsunda-konustu/8061.html.
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women their equals, they wanted these so as avoid paying alimony and compensation or
sharing their marital property. Furthermore, feminists mainly criticize male privilege in
gendered arrangements in work, family, and social relations whereas anti-alimony
campaigners are gender-blind in terms of inequalities faced by women in society. They
tend to ignore institutionalized male domination in state, society, family, and work life
completely–all criticized by feminists. Serpil’s perspective also shows how she
normalizes and justifies violence against women and femicides on the grounds of
psychological struggles that men face. This way of thinking is far from feminist criticism
of male violence and femicides, which points to gender inequality as one of the main
reasons.
Besides, these distinctions in anti-alimony discourse may be considered as a useful
tool for campaigners in the construction of male self-victimization since this sort of
discourse guides public opinion to make moral calculations, decide on who is “good (us)”
and “evil (them)” (Bouris, 2007: 4). At first glance, it may seem that anti-alimony
campaigners mainly put people into “good us” and “evil them” clusters depending on
people’s positions towards anti-alimony campaigners’ goals. But the campaigners’
accounts on feminists, women’s rights organizations, and certain political parties as well
as their distinction between being “pro-family” and “anti-family” also reveals that
political and ideological polarizations reinforced in populist discourse of the AKP
government have an impact on the anti- alimony campaigners in their way of grouping
people. This indicates that anti-alimony campaigners construct “male victimization” in
the framework that is approved by the dominant political atmosphere.
3.1.3 Demands of Anti-Alimony Groups
There are some differences between demands of BİAP and SNM. The members
of BİAP explained their main demands as 1) Alimony payments should be limited to one
year at least, and five years at most. The last proposed amendment in alimony regulation
announced by the Minister of Justice in 2020105 seems to be inspired by the BİAP version
of this demand (as maximum limit is 6 years, minimum limit is 2 year). 2) If the woman
105 Independent Türkçe (2020, November 11). Accessed January 10, 2021.
https://www.indyturk.com/node/270711/adalet-bakanı-gül’den-“nafaka”-açıklaması-değişiklik-için-yasaldüzenleme-
gerekiyor.
81
who receives alimony is still in poverty after 5 years, the Republic of Turkey should fulfill
its duty as a social state and create a social aid fund, then provide financial assistance to
the woman through this fund. They have a suggestion for how this fund could be created:
Couples would make a small payment to the municipalities when applying for civil
marriage.
As I investigated their Facebook page106, I realized that there were slight
differences between what they told me in the interviews and their demands on social
media:
1) Alimony must be in proportion to the duration of marriage.
This simply means that the duration of alimony payment must be determined
according to how long a couple was married for. For instance, if a couple was married for
5 years, the duration for alimony payment would be limited to 5 years. This demand may
be shaped after KADEM’s legal evaluation of alimony, because they proposed the same
recommendation.
2) For alimony debtor men who work for minimum wage, the state must create a
fund and the alimony for the woman must be paid through this fund.
3) The waiting period for rejected divorce cases must be reduced from 3 years to 1
year.
4) Joint custody.
5) The current implementation of seeing children must be removed. Child delivery
units must be established in the provincial directorates of the Ministry of Family, Labor,
and Social Policies.
I need to briefly discuss the fourth and the fifth demands. First of all, joint custody
means elimination of child support, the economic support paid by the parent who does
not have child custody. Arrendell’s (1992, 1995) study on divorced fathers in the US
suggests that fathers’ rights discourse lacks a discussion of their responsibilities towards
children before the divorce (Arrendell, 1992, 1995: cited in Messner, 1997). But they
passionately argue for the right to joint custody after. This observation is true for “victim
fathers” who demand joint custody in Turkey. According to AÇEV’s (Mother Child
Education Foundation) survey on fatherhood in Turkey in 2017, the majority (91%) of
fathers with children aged 0-10 states that the primary caregiver to their children is their
wives. On an ordinary weekday, fathers spend approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes with
106 Boşanmış İnsanlar ve Aile Platformu [The Platform for Divorced People and Family]. “About”.
Accessed January 10, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu/about.
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their children, 9 hours and 20 minutes at work, and 1 hour and 20 minutes with their
friends.107 TurkStat’s statistics on children in 2019 show that mothers are entrusted with
child custody with a rate of 76% whereas this rate is 24% for fathers.108 It seems that the
common legal assumption after divorce is that children should spend the majority of their
time with mother for their best interest. In their analysis of interviews with father’s rights
activists in the US, Bertoia and Drakich (1995) conclude that “the rhetoric of fathers’
rights gives the illusion of equality, but in essence, the demands are to continue the
practice of inequality in postdivorce but not with legal sanction” (Bertoia and Drakich,
1995: 252; quoted in Messner, 1997: 47). This is true for demands of “victim fathers”,
because they mainly want to support their children economically however and whenever
they want without any legal sanction (this pattern will be seen in the interviews with
divorced men in the second section and with women in Chapter 4). Furthermore, as it will
be discussed in Chapter 4 focusing on women’s accounts, child custody may be a tool to
threaten women in the divorce process and to continue harassing women after divorce.
Therefore, joint custody would probably pave the way to “legalize” these harassments
over children and lay child’s economic needs solely on women. In addition, even though
anti-alimony campaigners frequently underline that they are only against indefinite
alimony and not child support, this demand indicates the opposite.
1) The payment term should be limited to 1 year at most for short-term
marriages and, 3 years at most for long-term marriages.
The problem with this demand is that it does not specify the duration determining
“long-term” and “short-term” marriages. For instance, a 25-year marriage could be longterm,
and limiting alimony to 3 years may mean leaving the woman without any financial
support or opportunity to work at an old age. Moreover, considering the absence of any
proposed improvement in average amounts in the proposed amendment, approximate
amounts of alimony109 would not be enough to sustain a person.
107 For further information about the research on fatherhood in Turkey: Akçınar, B. (2017, June.)
Involved Fatherhood and its Determinants in Turkey; Executive Summary. Mother Child Education
Foundation. https://www.acev.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1_involved-fatherhood-and-itsdeterminants-
in-turkey.pdf.
108 Turkish Statistical Institution (TurkStat). İstatistiklerle Çocuk 2019 [Statistics on Children 2019].
Press release numbered 33733 (April 17, 2020). Accessed January 15, 2021.
https://tuikweb.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=33733.
109 According to the results of the research conducted by The Foundation of Women’s Solidarity
(Akçabay, 2019), the average amount of alimony adjudged by courts is 370 TL, and the average amount
for over 66% is 262 TL. Akçabay, C. (2019). Yoksulluk Nafakası Araştırması (Sosyo-Hukuki Bir İnceleme),
Kadın Dayanışma Vakfı, Ankara. https://www.stgm.org.tr/sites/default/files/2020-09/kadin-dayanismavakfindan-
yoksulluk-nafakasi-arastirmasi-raporu.pdf.
83
2) When determining the duration of alimony payment, criteria such as age,
education, socioeconomic status, alimony creditor’s ability to work, and length of
marriage should be taken into account.
This demand arises from the false assumption among anti-alimony campaigners
that women are entitled to alimony without any criteria and simply because they are
women. Yet there are criteria in adjudgment of alimony: risk of falling into poverty due
to divorce, written or verbal request of the person requesting alimony, condition of not
having fault or gross fault and financial capability of the debtor (Akçabay, 2019).
Considering TurkStat’s statistics on women and discussion in this research in terms of
gender inequality in social, economic, and familial relations, alimony is already provided
for women in most of the cases because of the unequal conditions women face in
education, socioeconomic status, ability/opportunity to work, heavy burden of caregiving.
3) The duration of alimony payment should be based on the start date of the case.
This demand actually targets temporary alimony. Temporary alimony is an
amount adjudged as a precaution during the divorce case. The ultimate amount of alimony
may be higher than temporary alimony according to the alimony debtor’s level of income.
What SNM demands is both introduction of time limitation into alimony and involvement
of temporary alimony into this duration. That is, if a divorce case lasts a year (as will be
seen more clearly in Chapter 4 in detail, the case is extended in case of contested divorces,
if one of the parties does not accept to get divorced) and if the duration of alimony
payment adjudged as one year, there would not be a need for alimony at all at the end of
the case.
4) The decision of Supreme Court dated 2012, “The minimum wage does not
save the woman from poverty” should be declared null and avoid.
The Foundation of Women’s Solidarity’s research (Akçabay, 2019) on alimony
discusses the decisions of Supreme Court110 in relation to hunger and poverty thresholds
110 The report explains that because of the legal definition on what should be understood from the
concept of “falling into poverty” mentioned in the Article 175, it is determined through rules in judicial
practice (YHGK, 4.4.2018, E. 2017/1579, K. 2018/673). Indeed, in the decisions of the General Assembly
of the Supreme Court (YHGK, 7.10.1998, E. 1998/2-656, K.688; YHGK, 16.05.2007, E.2007/2-275,
K.275; YHGK, 11.03.2009, 2009/2-73-188), it has been adopted that those who do not have an income
sufficient to meet the compulsory and necessary expenditures in order to improve the material existence of
the individual such as “eating, clothing, housing, health, transportation, culture, education” should be
considered as “poor”. In the settled decisions of the Supreme Court, “having an income at level of minimum
wage” is not considered as a phenomenon that makes it impossible to pay alimony. (YHGK, 07.10.1998,
E. 1998/2-656, K.688; 26.12.2001, E. 2001/2-1158, K. 1185; 01.08.2002, E. 2002/2- 397, K. 339;
28.02.2007, E. 2007/3-84, K. 95; 16.05.2007, E. 2007/2-275, K. 275; 11.03.2009, E. 2009/2-73, K. 118;
84
in Turkey.111 The Supreme Court have various decisions adjudging that minimum wage
is not enough to eliminate poverty, therefore, it cannot be evaluated as an obstacle to
receive alimony. But minimum wage is considered while determining the alimony
amount (Akçabay, 2019). That is, courts do not adjudge the amount disproportionately to
the alimony debtor’s financial power.
By October 2020, the hunger threshold for a family of four is 2,482 TL; and
poverty threshold is 8,086 TL.112 The net minimum wage in Turkey in 2021 is 2,825.90
TL, which is slightly higher than the hunger threshold for a household with one provider.
The Foundation of Women’s Solidarity’s report (Akçabay, 2019) states that “considering
that majority of women have a low level of education, are excluded from workforce, and
are not even covered by social security, it is observed that, under difficult economic
conditions, women become increasingly vulnerable to economic violence and then
psychological and physical violence” (Akçabay, 2019: 37; translation is mine). As of
February 2021, the rate of unemployment in Turkey is 28.8%; however, this rate is 37.7%
for women.113 Moreover, as of September 2020, gender wage gap in Turkey is 15.6% and
this gap widens as age increases and educational level decreases.114 Women are affected
by the rise of poverty more than men. However, the newspaper reports about men who
committed suicide because of depression due to unemployment show that the rise of
poverty and unemployment seriously affect men as well.115 But what lacks in antialimony
discourse and demands is that there is not any calls to the state to fulfill its
responsibility towards its citizens’ welfare. Instead, anti-alimony campaigners associate
poverty with alimony debts while the average amount of alimony adjudged by courts is
as low as 370 TL in average (Akçabay, 2019). Anti-alimony discourse focuses on men’s
13.05.2009, E. 2009/3-165, K. 186; 04.05.2011, E. 2011/2-155, K. 2011/278). (Akçabay, 2019: p. 29;
footnote numbered 39).
112 Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions. Ekim 2020 Açlık ve Yoksulluk Sınırı [Limits of Hunger
and Poverty by October 2020]. Accessed February 15, 2021. http://www.turkis.org.tr/EKIM-2020-ACLIKVE-
YOKSULLUK-SINIRI-d451750.
113 The Research Center for Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (2021, February
10). DİSK-AR İşsizlik ve İstihdamın Görünümü Raporu. Accessed February 15, 2021.
http://arastirma.disk.org.tr/?p=4894.
114 International Labor Organization & Turkish Statistical Institute (2020, September 30). Measuring
the Gender Wage Gap: Turkey Case. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---europe/---ro-geneva/--
-ilo-ankara/documents/publication/wcms_756660.pdf.
115 For instance, one citizen wrote “work and food” in his hand and suicided in 2020. Sputnik
Türkiye (2020, December 1). Eline ‘iş, aş’ yazan şahıs intihar etti. Accessed February 10, 2021.
https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/202012111043380695-eline-as-is-yazan-sahis-intihar-etti/. Another
man who was a geophysics engineer suicided because he was depressed due to unemployment in 2017.
Evrensel (2017, September 9). İşsizlik bir can daha aldı. Accessed February 10, 2021.
https://www.evrensel.net/haber/331885/issizlik-bir-can-daha-aldi.
85
oppression by legislations aiming gender equality. As will be presented in the accounts
of men in the second section, the number of men who would not allow their new wives
to work in case of remarriage is also noteworthy. In this context, this is an indicator that
anti-alimony discourse is a demand for privilege for men rather than a demand for civil
rights and welfare for citizens.
5) The state should create a Social Aid Fund for alimony payments to the
woman who is unable to work due to old age, and health problems at the end of the
alimony payment period.
6) A Marriage Fund should be created.
These two demands are similar with BİAP’s demand for a social aid fund which
would be collected through payments made by newlywed couples as a part of their
application of marriage to municipalities. However, SNM repeats its conditions they put
forward for alimony in their second demand. Gender-blindness can be observed here as
well, and the common misbelief among anti-alimony campaigners that women do not
work so they can continue receiving alimony underlines this demand. For women, “being
unable to work” is not related to personal choices for most of the time but to the state’s
policies, patriarchal social norms, and inegalitarian job market as discussed in Chapter 2.
What makes the struggle for gender equality is so important is its struggle to eliminate
these structural obstacles for women’s empowerment in family and work life. What the
state should do is to provide for women equal opportunities in education, employment,
and free daycare services for the child, the elderly, and the disabled.
7) At the end of the period of alimony payment, support alimony (yardım
nafakası) from descendants and ascendants should be provided for women (Turkish Civil
Code Article No. 364).
Article no. 364 of TCC says “Everyone is obliged to give alimony to their
descendants and siblings who would fall into poverty if they did not provide help.
Siblings’ alimony obligations depend on their welfare.” Descendants refer to the person’s
children, grandchildren, and grand grandchildren, while ascendants refer to the person’s
parents, grandparents, and grand grandparents. The person may also ask for alimony from
their siblings. This demand simply says that at the end of limited alimony payment period,
the woman’s family members should take care of her.
8) Preventive detention for those who cannot fulfill their responsibility for
paying alimony should be abolished.
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Alimony is a debt necessitating preventive detention in case of default. As will be
seen in Chapter 4 focusing on women’s experiences and problems in collecting alimony
and/or child support, preventive detention is an effective tool to prevent alimony debtors
from not paying alimony and/or child support. In this sense, SNM demands not only time
limitation to alimony payments but also the annulment of legal sanctions if alimony
debtors (men) does not pay alimony even in that limited time.
9) As of the date of enactment of the limited alimony regulation, alimony debtors
who complete or exceed their duration of payment should stop paying.
This is a retrospective demand. It basically means that those who have divorced
under the existing family law should be exempt from its requirements.
10) The duration of de facto separations must be reduced from 3 years to 1 year.
11) All the demands above should be valid for both consensual and contested
divorces.
This is an interesting demand, because consensual divorce is sort of an agreement
between the couple. This agreement may vary depending on couples’ specific conditions
and needs. These conditions and needs may require alimony payment to last longer than
3 years. This demand may indicate the regret that men feel after they accepted the
conditions that they have determined together with their ex-wives.
Lastly, it is unclear that these demands address only poor men as anti-alimony
campaigners claim. Interviewees were men who received pension, had rental income, or
owned small businesses. Only one of them was a subcontracted worker. Most of them
had their own real estates. In addition, it seems that campaigners consider even wealthy
celebrities as “alimony victims”. During the interviews, they referred to Acun Ilıcalı many
times, saying “he could be a victim one day under this law.” Acun Ilıcalı is a TV producer
who was the 43rd among the top taxpayers in 2018.116 His consensual divorce with Şeyma
Subaşı created a stir because of the total amount alimony and child support, a whopping
125,000 TL.117 Once more, this indicates that being a man underlies being a victim in the
anti-alimony discourse regardless of class inequalities. Besides, melting all men from
various social classes in the same pot in terms of being “alimony victim” ignores poor
116 NTV (2018, November 2). Acun Ilıcalı ve Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ vergi rekortmenleri listesinde. Accessed
February 10, 2021. https://www.ntv.com.tr/yasam/acun-ilicali-ve-kivanc-tatlitug-vergi-rekortmenlerilistesinde,
EqXoddeciUWX-cwzG2fwGg.
117 Haber Türk (2018, November 28). Acun Ilıcalı eski eşlerine ne kadar nafaka ödüyor? Accessed
February 10, 2021. https://www.haberturk.com/acun-ilicali-eski-eslerine-ne-kadar-nafaka-oduyor-
2239096-magazin.
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and unemployed women and men and their financial problems. In the interviews or news
reports on pro-government media outlets, I did not observe any discussion or criticism on
the rise of unemployment and poverty in Turkey.
3.2 Anti-Alimony Campaigners’ Experiences on Marriage and Divorce
Before I present the accounts of anti-alimony campaigners, I would like to explain
conditions during the interviews. I had on-one interview with only one of the divorced
men. Other interviews were in groups of 3 and 5 people. I believe that this was an obstacle
to delve into the details that would allow us to see the nuances in the personal stories. In
any case, I asked my interview questions that were designed as specific to divorced men.
But interviewees tended to avoid many questions. During the interviews with groups, I
frequently had a feeling that interviewees may have perceived me as an audience who
had to make a decision about which side was right and which side was wrong in alimony
debates. Because there were various answers coming from various interviewees at the
same time, sometimes, I felt disorientated in asking the next question related to their
answers. On the bright side, how anti-alimony campaigners interacted with one another
made it possible to see common grounds that they agreed on. Moreover, these interactions
made it easier to understand how misinformation about alimony and Law No. 6284
circulated among anti-alimony campaigners.
When I asked, “How did you decide to get married?”, the answers were short and
clear, only describing how they started a new family and how this marriage was broken.
Interviewees tended to jump to the divorce process and its aftermath. Even though
divorced men did not give details about their experiences within the marriage, their brief
accounts on the path leading to divorce give an insight into their general apprehension of
having a family, division of domestic responsibilities, marriage, and divorce.
How interviewees described their marriage types can be seen in Table 3.1. While
two cases were consensual, seven divorces were contested. The ground for divorce case
on paper in general is irreconcilable difference. The data in TBNA Report 2014 shows
that the top five reasons for men to divorce are inner circle/relatives, emotional
relationship, economic problems, adultery, and domestic duties and responsibilities (p.
73). Divorced men’s accounts were coherent with this data, especially in terms of a strong
belief that the effect of “inner circle” had on their divorce. Inner circle mainly refers to
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the people around the couple such as family members, relatives, co-workers, and friends.
Divorced men tend to seek out the reason that ended their marriages.
Table 3.1 Level of education, type of marital union, and age of marriage for
interviewee group consisting of anti-alimony campaigners
Fuat was 39 years old, a primary school graduate. He was a worker and, according
to his account, he made good money. I visited Fuat, Davut, and Selim in City B. We met
in Selim’s café and the interview lasted almost 4 hours. How these three interviewees
interacted with one another will be seen in some quotations. Fuat was married when he
was 32, and after a 2- or 3-month marriage he got divorced. His ex-wife was pregnant
when she wanted to get divorced and gave birth during the divorce process. The child
passed away due to a heart disease, known as the blue baby syndrome. Fuat explained
how they got to the point of divorce as follows:
Fuat: They [his family-in-law] wanted me to move somewhere close to
them. I said “She’s pregnant. Our home is close to my workplace.” They
insisted. I knew why they wanted it. They looked for a man to control.
Would I allow them to control me? I started a new family for myself. If I
beat your daughter, if I let her down, come and knock my head off. (…) We
had an argument with my mother-in-law once more, they took my wife to
their home. After 6 months, I received a notification for divorce. They got
this stubborn because I did not accept to move somewhere near them. I
thought that now that she was pregnant, everything would be alright; so, I
did not submit any documents.
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According to Fuat, his family-in-law’s involvement in his marriage had influence
on his marriage ending, which can be considered as the “inner circle” effect as showed in
TBNA 2014 Report. One common response by men to the decision of divorce, if they
were not the party who filed for divorce, was that they did not sense it before their exwives
announced their decision or they have refused to accept it. This common “shock”
and “denial” against the divorce decision among men is also discussed in Chapter 4.
Davut was 52 years old, recently retired. Two years after his former wife’s death,
he got remarried. According to his account, his ex-wife filed for divorce case after 8-year
marriage but then withdrew it. After a while, Davut filed for divorce, and they got
divorced. Davut had 2 children, one disabled. He explained how he decided to get
remarried as follows:
Davut: I was a widower for two years. My mother looked after my children.
My relatives found a divorced woman for me. She made her ex-husband sell
their apartments and then gave the custody of their two children to him. We
saw each other, talked. At first, her older brother tried to convince her not
to get married with me. So, we eloped. We were on the edge of divorce
because of her child. His father did not look after him and she wanted to
bring him to our home.
Q: Did not you think about bringing her children to your home?
Davut: I have a daughter and both of her [his ex-wife] children are boys.
That would be improper. She agreed to this from the beginning.
While he was a widower, Davut got help from his family members for childcare
and domestic labor. As he shared details about how his new wife “gave the custody of her
children to their father”, the tone of his voice actually implied an image of a woman who
did not fulfill her motherhood performance. Even though he emphasized on how she
“made her ex-husband sell their marital property” as if she forced him to do so; division
of marital property is a legal process upon divorce according to family law that regulates
sharing property obtained in the marriage. This kind of details shared by divorced men
actually serves the purpose of creating a “victimizer”, who is the greedy, immoral, and
ill-intentioned ex-wife. Davut decided to file for divorce after he received a restraining
order upon an argument with his ex-wife and his mother.
Davut: Later, I learned that she said to our neighbors “I would have a
surprise for Davut”. She waited for me to retire to file for divorce. (…) One
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day, my mother visited us to ask her about all this gossip. (…) She told her
“What’s going on? You have already broken up a family, now will you
break up another one? What’s wrong with you?” They had a fight. I held my
ex-wife by her shoulders, and my daughter held my mother to calm her
down. Maybe I held her very strongly, because she was a strong woman;
she had beaten her ex-husband. Upon that, I kicked her out of my home,
and she left. She went to the lawyer, saying that we had beaten her; she
reported that she was beaten. My mother had beating marks too, so I filed
for a report of being beaten for her. There were some marks on her shoulders
because I held her, that’s all. Then, she called my daughter to say that she
had gotten a restraining order for 6 months. She said, “Your father cannot
touch me. I will stay at home until we divorce.” We were living in the same
house while she had a restraining order. It was a psychological war. If she
had gone to her family home, everything would have been different. There
was no such thing as a restraining order in the past. In the past, you bought
chocolate and flowers, and visited your wife’s family home, the elderly
intervened, and you made peace and brought your wife home back. Now,
there is no such thing. I felt degraded because of this restraining order. I was
virtually sentenced because of violence against woman even when I did not
resort to violence. I filed for divorce after that order. I would have not done
it, if she had not filed for any order.
Davut depicted an ex-wife who suddenly began to sneakily scheme and turn
against him in order to screw him out of money (as if waiting for his retirement grant)
while everything was going well. The experiences leading to divorce is not clear. He
added his ex-wife’s violence against her ex-husband to portray her as a “victimizer”.
Moreover, living in the same house while there was a restraining order indicates how
loosely the law enforcement officers implemented policies following a restraining order
and whether requirements were fulfilled. Davut’s ex-wife filed a complaint against Davut
and his mother. In return, Davut’s mother filed a complaint against her daughter-in-law.
After they had a quarrel at home, Davut’s ex-wife called the police. Then, he received
restraining order for another month. His ex-wife filed for divorce case as well, then the
court joined both cases. According to his account, his ex-wife tried to make peace with
him during the case process, and she said that she would withdraw her complaint. She
and Davut’s mother withdrew their complaints against each other, but Davut’s ex-wife
did not cancel her complaint against Davut. Subsequently, the complaint against Davut
was referred as a case to the criminal court. Davut said, “Nobody listened my witnesses.
I was released on 5-year probation just because I was a man. Despite of 4 witnesses,
evidences, and other statements, I was considered as the party with gross fault because of
the decision of probation, I was sentenced to compensation, I was sentenced to alimony.”
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This dramatic way of expression that equates alimony with prison sentence was common
among the interviewees.
Davut’s cherishment of the past in terms of how things were different when a
couple had a fight and that there was no legal sanction was common among interviewees.
As will be observed through the accounts, this is a past where there were not legislations
regulating gender equality in marriage or divorce, as well as prevention of violence
against women. In other words, this is a past where the power of men over their families
and wives was not regulated or limited by laws.
Osman believed that his ex-wife planned for divorce from the very beginning. He
was 52 years old, living in City A with his subsequent wife and two children. Osman is
the most prominent “alimony victim” on media outlets, because he claimed that he had
been paying alimony for 29 years for 10-day marriage. His story is complicated to
understand, because of the contradictory information he shared on media outlets and with
me. For instance, his profession: Osman declared three different professions to different
TV channels. We had a short conversation on the phone, and he told me that he was
working as a security employee. One other interviewee from BİAP told me that he was a
policeman. Osman declared that he’s a lawyer on a TV program. In various media outlets
he stated his occupation was associate professor, however, when I checked the Council
of Higher Education database to confirm this information, I could not find any record.
Due to this confusion, it is not possible to specify which one is his actual profession, or
what his education level is. A similar confusion dominates his story about his marriage
and divorce too:
Osman: I got married when I was 21. It was an arranged marriage. 10 days
after the wedding, I left for my military service as sergeant. During that time,
my ex-wife had a fight with my mother and beat her. She and her family set
my mother’s home on fire. My mother said that a cow at the farm kicked
her in the eye, because she did not want my marriage to end. We did not
even sleep together more than three times. I filed for divorce in 1992, but it
lasted 11 years.
The story that Osman told is shocking, however, the motivation behind this
violence that his ex-wife and her natal family perpetrated is not clear. I could not arrange
another interview with him, even though I called him a couple of times, because he was
busy. I followed his various interviews online, and tried to figure out the whole story, but
I could not manage to do it, because every other piece of information, except that he has
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been paying alimony for 29 years for 10-day marriage frequently, varies. Therefore, I
only included what he told me on the phone for this research. According to his account,
“10-day marriage” actually includes the days he had sexual relationship with his ex-wife,
not what is on legal documents.
Hasan believed that his ex-wife and her natal family planned for divorce from the
very beginning. Considering it was a 16-year marriage with 2 children, this belief is
interesting. Hasan was 46 years old, a high school graduate. He got married at his parents
request when he was 25. It was an arranged marriage. He explained that even though there
were problems in the marriage, they waited for children to grow up before divorcing. One
of his children was 20 years old, and the other 17. He ran his own small business in City
A, where I met him. He mentioned his health issues many times during the interview. He
had an operation because of vasodilation ascribed this disease to his unhappy marriage.
He repeated having to deal with a divorce case while he was ill more than once. He filed
for divorce after the operation. His 16-year marriage ended in 2014. In 2018, he got
remarried. His family paid “mother’s milk money” (ana sütü parası), a sort of dowry, to
get married with his wife.
Hasan: Before we got married, they brought a paper for me to sign. The
paper said that I would give household goods to my wife in the event of
divorce. A newlywed person would not think of that kind of things. My
relatives were shocked as well. They planned it to be this way from the very
beginning. (…) If it had been up to me, I would have broken up with her at
that moment. But I had a well-established family, so I could not say
anything. (…) For us, divorce is bad even for men, it was like that at that
time. Now, divorce became fashionable. Now, it is like “We don’t go well
together, let’s divorce.” As Ömer Uğur Gençcan said, “I spat, you spat, let’s
divorce.” He’s like our father, you know. There is no patience, no toleration,
no respect. The woman says that the law is in favor of her. Is marriage this
simple? (…) I saved her from poverty.
Hasan shared the same longing for the past with all other interviewees. He
described his in-laws as uneducated, poor people living in a small village in the East of
Turkey. The money which Hasan’s family-in-law asked under the name of “mother’s
milk money” seems a sort of “trade” for the bride between two families. Moreover, I
realized that divorced men casted themselves as the “savior” while they talked about how
they had saved their ex-wives from difficult life conditions. For instance, Davut described
his role in his ex-wife’s life as follows:
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Davut: (…) She’s a primary school graduate, she had never worked before.
She got a driver’s license thanks to me. She was wearing headscarf. She
went to holiday for the first time in her life thanks to me. We were in the lap
of luxury. To be honest, I believe that she got spoiled.
He was not the only one. Selim was 52 years old. He held a bachelor’s degree and
was retired from a well-paid occupation. He had multiple properties and ran his own small
business in City B. This was his second marriage, and his divorce case was still going on
when we interviewed. Therefore, he did not yet pay alimony. Selim stayed at his
workplace because his ex-wife lived in their marital property, and Selim had obtained a
restraining order. Selim also saw himself as the savior in his ex-wife’s miserable life.
Selim: I loved my ex-wife and married her. She was a primary school
graduate. I saved her from outskirts of the city. (…) I took her and her child.
I was a father to her child for 10 years. (…) His father was barely able to
feed himself. I provided supplies for her family throughout our marriage. I
have all of the receipts in my case file.
What divorced men narrated about their ex-wives’ lives before them is actually
how these women started to face inequalities in their natal families in terms of access to
education, individual choice of marriage, or employment, but interviewees did not
perceive it as an inequality. It seems that their ex-wives were socioeconomically inferior
and younger than them in general. Divorced men’s accounts sounded like a profit and
loss statement because they focused on how much they spent during and after the
marriage. This pattern continued through all the interviews. This shows how society’s
perception becomes one with men’s perception of themselves, which is being the
provider, the breadwinner. As they see themselves as the primary money handler, and the
one who increases the welfare level of their ex-wives’ lives, they also strongly believe
that their ex-wives and families-in-law see them as a “cash cow.”
According to his account, Selim’s ex-wife blamed him for being a penny pincher.
He strongly believed that his ex-wife decided to divorce him because she envied divorced
women around her who received compensation and property after divorce and wanted to
screw him out of money.
Selim: She told me for 10 years, “Give me a car and a home”, but I resisted.
I fell in love with my new wife. She’s 13-year younger than me. But she left
me out of the blue. She stabbed me in the back. I could have never imagined
that she could do something like this. There was a woman at her workplace.
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That woman screwed her ex-husband out of 5 trillion. She [his wife from
second marriage] envied her, she envied properties that that woman got after
divorce, I guess. I looked after her child for 10 years, and she said “I want
him to be punished” at the courthouse. I am unable to understand this. How
could a woman do this to me? I begged her. I told her, “If we are going to
divorce, let’s do it civilly, we have a 10-year past.” I bought flowers, made
a special cake for her birthday. (…) Three years earlier, she was going to
divorce, but I bribed to her just to make her put it off. I deposited money in
her bank account. I could not understand why she wanted to divorce. She
blamed me to be a penny pincher. Can this be a ground for divorce? (…)
She turned them all down. I told her, “Don’t do it, I will take you to Paris, I
will buy you a solitaire ring. I will give the house to you. I will give you
all.” But I think she could not turn down the lawyer, because of that 15%
cut of the lawyer. After that, I swore I would not pass by her house again.
It’s been 12 months now since I haven’t seen her face.
To my surprise, I heard “offering money” to make the woman abandon the idea
of divorce when she declared her decision for divorce more than one time during the
interviews with both divorced women and divorced men. I will briefly discuss this
response from men to the decision of divorce in Chapter 4.
Hamit experienced two divorces. I met him in City A at a café with other four
members of SNM (Mehmet, Yasin, Emrah, and Melek). Hamit and Mehmet made the
decision to separate from BİAP together and then formed Indefinite Alimony Victims
together. Hamit was 42 years old, he held a bachelor’s degree, and worked as an
accountant in City A. According to his account, he was defrauded in his first marriage.
After he got married, his then wife and family-in-law took fled with all of the jewelries
given to the couple at the wedding. He married for a second time with another woman
who worked in a nearby workplace after a short flirtation period. After a 10-month
marriage, he got divorced in 2014.
Mehmet was 39 years old. He was a middle school graduate and had his own
workplace in City A. He got married when he was 27. After a 2-year marriage, he got
divorced in 2009. Two years after the divorce, he got remarried. He and Hamit were quite
active in arranging meetings with political parties and various groups.
Emrah was 35 years old. He got married in 2013 and after a 3-year marriage, he
got divorced in 2016. Emrah was a primary school graduate and a subcontracted worker,
so he did not have a regular income. He emphasized that his ex-wife was 3 years older
than him and marrying for a second time.
Yasin, the fourth participant of the interview with members of SNM, was 32 years
old. As we conducted the interview at the end of 2019, his divorce case was still in
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process. He held a bachelor’s degree and worked as an engineer. After a 10-month
marriage, his ex-wife filed for divorce, and he had been paying temporary alimony since
then. His ex-wife is 2 years younger than him and a high school graduate.
As I shared in Chapter 1, considering her support to anti-alimony groups while
she herself experienced a severe divorce and a post-divorce process, Melek’s story was
striking. Melek got married when she was 26 (she is now 39) and after a 7.5-year
marriage, she got divorced upon her ex-husband’s request while she did not want to do
so. At that time, her child was only an 11 month–old baby. She was bullied into not asking
for alimony during divorce process and received only 250 TL as child support. For the
last 2 or 3 years, her ex-husband did not pay that amount either. After their divorce, Melek
started living with her family, got into university, and graduated just a couple of years
ago. According to her account, even though Melek wanted to get remarried, nobody
wanted to get married with her, some suitors hesitated because Melek already had a child.
I met Melek together with other 4 members of SNM, all divorced men, at a café in City
A. Her voice was suppressed through the interview; therefore, I could not find a chance
to understand her motivation to become a supporter of the anti-alimony campaign.
I visited Serpil, the founder and head of BİAP, in City C where she lived. We
spent the whole day together. Even though she mostly tended to share her opinions on
alimony debates and BİAP, at some point, she shared her own story too. Serpil was
divorced a long time ago when she already had two children. After the divorce, she moved
to City C to stay away from her ex-husband. Even there, she faced difficulties imposed
by the society, such as gossiping and social exclusion, just because she was a divorced
woman. However, people gradually accepted her “respectability” thanks to her reputable
occupation. Years after her divorce, she met someone and decided to marry him.
However, the natal family of the man did not accept Serpil as a suitable wife for him since
she was divorced and suspected that she wanted to marry because he was wealthy. Finally,
the couple managed to convince the family. Serpil tended to ascribe this “success” to
herself and, even though she was aware of gender inequality against women in society,
she strongly believed that a woman could overcome all of it if she wanted to.
What Emel become an alimony opponent is her ex-husband. Emel did not tell her
own story until the end of our 2-hour interview. We met at a café in City A. She got
married when she was 15 upon her family’s request, regardless of her own opinion. Her
ex-husband was a businessman. At the first year of their marriage, when she was 16, Emel
attempted suicide. She explained that her conversation with the doctor who saw her after
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the attempt changed her perspective radically. The doctor gave her some books and
advised her to improve herself through reading and learning. She worked for the company
of her ex-husband. She had four children with him. After they got divorced, her exhusband
covered the expenses of the children, and accorded their home and some rental
income for Emel and children. Then, Emel’s ex-husband remarried with another woman,
Feride, who was 15-20 years younger than him. After an 8-month marriage, they
divorced, and the court adjudged 500 TL as alimony for Feride. Emel was somehow a
part of this second marriage, too. She opened her doors to Feride whenever she needed.
Her ex-husband looked for ways to get rid of the alimony liability and found BİAP on
Facebook. Upon that and what he told Emel about how alimony was unjust and how
Feride tried to screw him out of money, Emel decided to support BİAP. She participated
in some interviews on media outlets as a “female ally” in BİAP.
Divorced men’s accounts on their former marriages indicate that they do not want
any familial, financial, or legal control over men while they want to control their ex-wives
lives and choices. This pattern will be seen clearer in the following sections. They
commonly do not accept any responsibility about internal conflicts or problems leading
to divorce in their marriages whereas they blame the effect of “inner circle” on their exwives’
decision of divorce. As also will be discussed in Chapter 4, Delaney (1991)
observes that men have their own families as women become a part a man’s family. This
lack in feeling of responsibility as well as their protests about any familial, financial, and
legal control over them in divorced men’s accounts may reveal that men do not perceive
themselves as part of their families but “owner” of their families. The female allies are
women who has experiences patriarchal oppression and gender inequality in their own
lives in various ways, but as will be seen in the following sections as well, they did not
relate their experiences with gender inequality or patriarchal structure of society and
family, instead, with “the nature of things”. Even though they are also divorced women
and “ex-wives”, it seems that they make a distinction between themselves and ex-wives
who are portrayed as “self-seeker victimizers” that is also a prevalent theme in the
accounts. The common ground of divorced men and female allies is their claim that they
defend family institution. This perception of family where the power of men over their
families and wives is not regulated or limited by laws as in the past which they commonly
cherished actually serves to construct, nurture, and support the man’s power and
hegemony.
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3.2.1 Division of Domestic Responsibilities in Marriage
As Carbone (2015) emphasizes, investigation of the impact of divorce starts with
examination of gendered division of labor due to women’s invisible unpaid domestic
work that may cause them to fall in poverty upon divorce. Even though they are working
women, gendered division of labor poses a risk for women because it may disrupt their
career. According to the data of TurkStat on time use based on gender in 2014-2015 with
women and men aged between 15 and 64, women spend 3 hours and 31 minutes a day on
unpaid work whereas men spend only 46 minutes.118 According to OECD’s data, women
spend 5 hours and 8 minutes a day on unpaid work, whereas men spend 68 minutes.119
Unpaid work includes housework, shopping, child and adult care, volunteering, and other
kinds of unpaid work. Since understanding gendered division of domestic labor is
inseparable from understanding the underlying reasons of alimony and prevailing gender
inequality within family, I included questions about the division of labor at home during
their marriages. Most of the time, I did not need to even actually pose these questions
since women’s marital experiences were intertwined with their overwhelming domestic
responsibilities.
Adams and Coltrane (2004), in their research on how men and boys have trouble
with being “in” a family while they “have” or “come from” a family in terms of emotional
intimacy or taking care of themselves explain that,
“Moreover, even though in recent decades women have increasingly entered
the paid labor force and share, more than ever, the burden of providing
financially for the family, men continue to do significantly less than their
equal share of housework, claiming disinterest, disinclination, or general
lack of aptitude (Deutsch, 1999). Along this line, doing household labor has
been equated with doing gender; women do it and men don’t, and
disruptions in this pattern can be threatening to a family’s gender order”
(Adams and Coltrane, 2004: 240).
In this context, I asked questions to divorced men about how domestic
responsibilities were shared at home. However, what they understood from division of
labor did not involve unpaid domestic labor such as cleaning, childcare, or even cooking.
In some interviews, I had the chance to elaborate on my questions and specify domestic
118 Turkish Statistical Institution (TurkStat). Zaman Kullanımı Araştırması [Research on Time Use]. Press
release numbered 18627 (December 17, 2015). Accessed December 15, 2021.
119 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Time Use. Accessed
December 15, 2021. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TIME_USE.
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responsibilities; but in others I couldn’t because interviewees may have treated me as an
audience, rather than a person they had a conversation. Instead, they preferred to jump to
another topic that they wanted to talk about. Nonetheless, I managed to determine an
outline of an answer to these questions from their comments on questions different than
division of domestic responsibilities.
As we talk about division of domestic labor, I asked interviewees about their
opinions on the relationship between unpaid domestic/care labor and alimony. Hamit
gave an example to ridicule feminists’ argument on exploitation of women’s domestic
labor. I would like to share it, because I run across similar expressions in interviews with
and posts on social media from various men regardless of their membership of BİAP or
SNM. I think that it is a clear example on how some men consider exemption from
domestic labor as their natural right.
Hamit: Think of an air hostess. She serves tea on a plane for other people,
other men. Or the woman serves for her boss at her workplace. But you cannot
ask for a cup of tea from her at home. She doesn’t want to serve her husband.
Serving on a plane as a part of a profession provides money, another line in her CV,
and another evidence of experience in her career for the woman. Contrary to this,
domestic labor is unpaid, considered as a “female duty” in any given male-dominated
society, and, in most of the cases, creates difficulties for career advancement for women.
Besides, Hamit actually implied that the man is the boss at home.
During our interview with Selim, Davut, and Fuat in City B, the topic was division
of labor at home. Selim’s and Fuat’s ex-wives were working during their marriage, but
Davut was the only provider.
Selim: How was the division of labor at home… She was spending what she
earned for her child or natal family. She expected me to give her money.
She said things like, “My salary is 1500 TL and I spend it all, you have no
right to touch my money. But why don’t you give me money?” Why would
I do that? She had a job. I did not ask for a penny from her. If you ask for
money, then, don’t work. I was the one who paid the price for her working.
There was no breakfast in the mornings, no lunch, no dinner. But she was
doing the cleaning, I cannot say anything bad about it.
Davut: The division of labor… She did not work anyway. I gave her
everything that she could not get from her former husband. She got a
driver’s license thanks to me. She went on holiday thanks to me.
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Q: How was her relationship with your children?
Davut: She looked after my disabled kid very well. I cannot say she did not.
Q: How was your relationship with her children?
Davut: I was blackmailed. She was sorry for her kids, so I sent them pocketmoney
time to time. But not every month, because their father was alive and
working. After I retired, she told me, “I look after your children, you will
send 500 TL as pocket-money for my children.” Moreover, she said that I
were to increase this pocket-money every year. For the rest of my life. Look
at that blackmailing. Okay, I could support them until they were done with
their military service, or got married, or found a job. But how could I send
money for the rest of my life? I paid 3,000 TL for 6 months, then this divorce
and arguments started. She blackmailed me.
After remarrying, care and housework became the responsibility of Davut’s
subsequent wife, but it seems that Davut did not see this as any sort of labor. He defined
his ex-wife’s request from him to send money to her children every month as
“blackmailing.” He did not undertake any responsibilities to take care of them and, at the
same time, did not let them live with him because of his concerns about his own children.
At this point, the invisibility of woman’s unpaid labor is clear. While Davut could show
how much he spent for his ex-wife’s children refuse to look after them for the rest of his
life; he expected his ex-wife to take care of his own children, and what she had done to
care for a child with special needs cannot be expressed in currency. The topic of division
of domestic responsibilities was invisible in divorced men’s accounts in general, except
these brief accounts of Selim and Davut above. However, they mentioned how money
was spent in the marriage many times, and they held a double standard of gender bias. As
seen in Selim’s account above, he complained about how his ex-wife did not fulfill her
domestic responsibilities such as cooking because she was working and how she spent
what she earned for her natal family. Fuat had a similar complaint.
Fuat: She was working while we were married. She gave the money she
earned to her mother. I could not accept it. I said, “I am responsible for
taking care of you, but if you work you have to contribute to home
economics.”
As Fuat and Selim demanded contribution to home economics, they did not see
themselves responsible for domestic work. As Davut described the process of their
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marriage leading to divorce, he mentioned some money-related problems and it was
interesting, considering how Fuat and Selim complained about their ex-wives’ behaviors.
Davut: (…) Then, my father and my sister got ill one after another. Because
I had a car, I had to take care of their commute. At every argument, my exwife
told me that you and your family never go better. After I got retired,
she taunted me at every chance. She was against me spending money for my
family.
It seems that in Davut’s marriage the money he spent for his natal family was a
problem. Considering accounts of Fuat and Selim who complained about how their exwives
spent what they earned for their natal family and deemed it a reprehensible
behavior, this may imply that the control of money, no matter who earns it, belongs to
men. Moreover, the fact that they did not express any sense of responsibility regarding
domestic work shows how unpaid domestic labor of women is considered taken-forgranted,
like a natural vocation.
3.2.2 Grounds and Bargains during and after Divorce
Table 3.2 shows the financial aftermath of the interviewees’ divorces. Selim’s
divorce case was still in process when I interviewed him; therefore, there was not a
determined amount yet. As he expressed, he fought for sparing his property and savings
from his ex-wife, as will be seen in his accounts later. Hasan declared that he paid 900
TL as alimony on media outlets. But during the interview, he explained that 600 TL of
this amount was child support and, after one of his children turned 18, he filed a case to
stop paying for him; therefore, he only pays 620 TL in total. But in his interviews
published on media outlets, Hasan gives false information about the total amount of
alimony, saying he has been paying 900 TL. Besides, his was a consensual divorce, which
means that he defined the alimony and child support amount on paper together with his
ex-wife. He includes child support in the alimony while these two types of financial
support are different from each other. Misinformation on alimony regulation reciprocally
influences members in these groups and spreads fear among campaigners, making them
believe that they would pay alimony for the rest of their lives. For instance, Yasin
expressed a deep fear about this possibility during the interview. Yasin’s divorce case
was still in process when we had the interview, and he had been paying temporary
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alimony for a few months. This amount could be decreased or increased when their
divorce finalizes, but it is not the ultimate amount. Furthermore, Article 176 of TCC
regulates very strictly the conditions for continuity of alimony payments. I need to admit
that I hesitated to include information on Osman in the Table 3.2 because of the constant
contradictions in his accounts on his occupation and education level and because these
are solid indicators of a person’s average income, which would explain why the amount
of alimony that he pays is that high.
Regularity in paying alimony is pointed as a major problem in the TBNA Report
2014, as well as Chapter 4 of this research focusing on accounts of divorced women. I
could not obtain exact data on how regularly they paid alimony during my interviews
with divorced men. Because, except two men (Hasan and Osman), I conducted interviews
with divorced men as groups. Therefore, most of the time, I lost control of the interviews
since their comments became a propaganda for their ideology rather than a conversation
on personal experiences. The same problem is valid for monthly income. The monthly
income is a significant information in evaluating whether the alimony amount is in
disproportionate to alimony debtor’s financial power.
Table 3.2 The amounts of alimony and child support with status of custody
I did not include compensation amounts in Table 3.2, because I could not gather
concrete information. For instance, Davut said “I was sentenced to compensation”; but
he did not specify how much the amount was and actually appealed against this decision,
as far as I can understand, and did not yet pay any compensation.
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After getting divorced, Fuat paid 200 TL as alimony and 200 TL as child support.
After his child passed away, his ex-wife filed a case to increase the alimony amount to
500 TL. But the judge’s decision was 400 TL. Fuat appealed against the amount of
compensation adjudged at divorce, which was 30 thousand TL, and the Supreme Court
decreased it to 7.5 thousand TL.
I asked interviewees whether they had financial problems due to alimony. I
defined financial problems as the inability to meet even their basic needs. Interviewees
mostly put forward emotional and psychological problems more than financial problems.
Q: As far as I understand, alimony did not affect you economically but
emotionally, is that true?
Fuat: I am able to pay it, thank God.
Davut: My retirement pension was 3,500 TL at that time, and the court
adjudged 500 TL as alimony. Maybe it was because I had a child with
special needs. The diapers that the state gave me were not enough, I had
many expenses. If I had a child with her, agreed, I would pay child support.
She received orphan pension, she worked, she received compensation from
me. Is she poor now? She turned divorce into an art.
Q: Can’t you apply for reduction?
Davut: They did not decrease it. They say, “If you are a man, you have to
pay it.”
It was evident that his ex-wife’s care and domestic labor was invisible for Davut
in his previous accounts. It is understood from his account that he receives state support
for his child with special needs. Even though he mentioned that it was not enough, he did
not criticize state’s failure to fulfill its responsibility to ensure its citizens’ welfare. I later
found out that Davut did not receive financial support for childcare from the state because
his income was high.
TBNA Report in 2014 mentions men’s tendency to avoid agreeing on the alimony
amount to determine and pay, to hide their marital property and other assets, or to register
their assets on someone else before divorce. This general attitude of men in divorce was
stated almost as a norm during the interviews with lawyers because they encountered this
kind of incidents countless times. According to anti-alimony campaigners, the existing
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legal regulations force men to try every trick in the book. Therefore, men do not have any
choice but to appeal to these illegal strategies to avoid financial consequences.
Serpil: If you shackle someone for his entire life, of course he hides his
assets, he works informally. The problem is that there is no time limit [on
alimony]. The underlying problem is that you are punished with a lifelong
debt. You don’t have any children with that woman, but you have to take
care of her; this is a human rights violation. Women work informally, they
do not get married at all or prefer Islamic nikkah when they do120. Men say
that enough is enough and also start to work informally.
Although Serpil pointed out alimony without time limitation as the reason behind
hiding assets, assets are not a matter in question when determining the alimony amount.
Marital property distribution is related to the assets obtained during marriage. The
amendment in Turkish Civil Code, enacted in 2002, introduced the equality principle and
recognized women’s unpaid domestic work as a ground for equal division of marital
property. The legislation did not assign a gender to the asset owner; that is, if the woman
is the party who obtains assets during marriage, she will have to share them too.
When I asked divorced men about men’s strategies to decrease the alimony
amount such as hiding assets and working informally, they admitted that these were
common phenomena, but they tended to also justify the reasoning behind this.
Selim: Legislation articles regarding marital property distribution lead to
various kinds of victimization. There is a lien on my properties, motorcycle,
and car, without notice. I have my own business, I engage in trade. I have 2
billion TL cash in my bank account. If I did not hide my money from the
court, what would have happened? I would go bankrupt. I bought my house
with my own money that I have earned before I got married. But I was only
able to get the title deed 15 days after I got married. Would it be fair if I
gave half of my house to that woman121?”
The anti-alimony campaigners have double standards for men and women in terms
of working informally. They are tolerant towards men. They claim that men are obliged
to do it, because they are sentenced to “imprisonment” of paying alimony for their entire
life. But they denounce women for working informally. They claim that women prefer to
work informally because they want to continue receiving alimony. Men’s illegal
120 Nikkah is a religious ceremony that is common among Muslims to be married under Islamic law.
It does not bring along with any legal liability. Only four witness and one imam is enough to be accepted
as married before God.
121 I will discuss this expression “that woman” in the fourth section. To avoid falling into repetition, I
emphasized two examples in italics in this page.
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strategies for avoiding alimony are represented as a part of male self-victimization. Men’s
agency is rendered invisible whereas women’s alleged influence is put forward. Acts such
as hiding assets or hiding income are not questioned. If men mostly hide their assets or
income, this means that it is them who mostly have assets and income whereas women
don’t, and this only indicates the impact gender inequality has on financial power.
Nonetheless, as discussed in Chapter 2, the conditions that impel women to work illegally
or flexibly are a part of the gendered social security system and job market. Therefore, it
is not possible to generate data on if the woman works illegally because she wants to
continue receiving alimony or simply because she has no other choice.
Hasan’s experience with his ex-wife shows that his ex-wife appealed to “tricks”
after divorce in a different way.
Hasan: They [his ex-wife and children] got in wrong with me. They abused
my goodwill. I gave them my debit card, they spent from my retirement salary
for 9 months. One day, the card was stuck in the ATM. I told them, “Give the
card back then, you don’t know how to use it.” Normally, I should deposit
alimony and child support into the bank account determined by the court so
that I would not have to deal with the enforcement and bankruptcy office. The
total amount of what they took from my debit card and what I handed to them
is 3 thousand TL. They applied to the enforcement and bankruptcy office
asserting that I did not pay my alimony and child support debt. Her lawyer
sent me a writ of execution for 14,400 TL. This is revenge, she [his ex-wife]
wants to payback, because I was the one who filed for divorce. I proved that
I paid my debt and did not pay anything more. My daughter encourages her
too. After she turned 18, I applied to annul the child support. At that time, I
had just started a business, I was in debt. I gave them what I earned. How
could they apply to the enforcement and bankruptcy office, just because I did
not pay the full amount for only 4 months?
It was hard to follow the whole story. While Hasan said that he did not pay the
full amount for only 4 months, he also said he gave extra money to his ex-wife and
children. However, Hasan and other interviewees commonly claimed that women tend to
take alimony debtors to the court, even when they received money through different
channels than the formal bank account determined by the court. The resistance to deposit
alimony and/or child support in the formal bank account is interesting, because it protects
alimony debtors from this kind of issues, proving that the amount is paid.
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3.2.3 Control over Money and Ex-wife’s Life
Hasan was the only interviewee who had children and paid child support. During
our conversations about his relationship with his children, he said that his son left his
mother and moved to his home after his mother started a new relationship. Upon that, he
got custody of his son with an interim decision. However, at the time when we had the
interview, his son did not live with him anymore.
Hasan: I told her, “Why do you do that in front of your children? Of course,
you will see other people, you will start a new life, but you cannot do it this
way. My son wanted to stay with me, we visited a child psychologist, and,
with an interim decision, I got the custody of my son. Her [ex-wife’s] father
called her and said, “Your husband left you, your son left you, why do you
still stay there? Send your daughter to her father.” My daughter intervened
but she will regret it, I know that.
From the perspective of the woman, it seems that there were three men in Hasan’s
ex-wife’s life who claim to have a say about her life: her son, her ex-husband, and her
father. Hasan did not associate his comments on how his ex-wife should have had a
relationship “the proper way” with the alimony he paid. He associated it with his
fatherhood. He shared what his ex-wife’s father said in order to reinforce his argument,
but I could not have any answer to my questions about how he knew what his ex-fatherin-
law said to her. This may indicate that he was still in contact with his ex-family-inlaw.
In fact, Hasan was not the only interviewee who knew about his ex-wife’s life in
detail even after divorce. During the interviews, interviewees frequently mentioned
whether their ex-wives had a relationship, where they worked, how much they earned.
Hasan said that he resented that his daughter took her mother’s side and, because she does
not want to talk to him, he did not give child support or extra money to her, which can be
considered as a “punishment”.
Another prominent statement appeared in the interviews was that they did not
want to send money to a woman whom they did not even want to see. Emel summarized
the thoughts of men in BİAP and those around her as “Men think that she [the ex-wife]
spends the money they gave with other men, that she cohabitates with another man.”
Ahmet, as a divorce lawyer, and Hale and Ayşe, as feminist lawyers, also mentioned that
in some cases they witnessed men reluctant to even pay child support because they
suspected that their ex-wives spent that money with another man. In this sense, it can be
argued that another underlying reason behind this backlash for divorced men who do not
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actually have financial difficulties due to alimony is that they do not have the power to
influence how women spend the money they give as alimony and/or child support. It also
indicates how disturbed men feel about another man’s presence in their ex-wives’ life.
But would this wish to have control over women end if alimony was removed?
Considering women’s accounts in Chapter 4 on their ex-husband’s constant harassment
after divorce even when they did not pay alimony and/or child support together with some
other interviewees’ accounts in the third section of this chapter on men’s violent reactions
during the divorce process, it seems that the answer is mostly no.
During our interview with Selim, Davut, and Fuat, we talked about their claim
about women working informally and cohabitating without being legally married to
continue receiving alimony. The conversation evolved into the woman’s duty to be loyal.
Fuat: The state must fulfill its duties as a social state. The woman takes 300-
500 TL alimony from me, but she’s still a victim. Of course, the state is not
a donator. It should provide a job for the woman and if she doesn’t work,
the state will not help her. My ex-wife works informally now, she lives a
dishonorable life.
Q: What do you mean by “dishonorable life”?
Fuat: She cohabitates [with a man] without being legally married.
Selim: As long as the woman receives alimony, she has a duty to be loyal
[to her ex-husband].
Davut: No. Only until the divorce case is finalized.
Selim: No, she has. That’s why when you can prove immoral cohabitation,
alimony payment stops.
Davut: No. Until divorce case is finalized.
Fuat’s account on how the state can help women who are in poverty is actually a
definition of employment, rather than help. Selim’s insistence on the duty to be loyal as
a condition to continue receiving alimony was not surprising since I heard how men were
right to expect something in return from their ex-wives for the money they paid.122
122 When I was following the discussions on alimony on social media before I decided to conduct a
research on this topic, I saw a tweet from a woman who actively participated to the discussion in favor of
men. She is an author and “family counselor”. She said that “Those who give money expect goods and
services [in return]” referring to alimony
(https://twitter.com/inciyesilyurt/status/1001775731712708608?s=20). To be honest, I was shocked,
because “goods and services” was quite dehumanizing. Then, I encountered this kind of expression on
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According to the Civil Code, cohabitation without being legally married is a reason for
termination of alimony payments for alimony claimants. Because cohabitation means that
alimony claimant has someone else in their life who could take care of them financially.
Another double standard that interviewees had towards men and women was “the
duty to be loyal”, alongside with working informally. Osman got remarried while his
divorce case was still in progress. His subsequent wife was his relative and it was not a
civil marriage but an Islamic nikkah (imam nikahı) because, according to the law, one
person cannot be legally married with two different people at the same time. Four months
after Osman got legally divorced, he had a child with his subsequent wife. According to
the Turkish Civil Code, spouses are equally obliged to stay loyal to one another until the
conjugal union ends for good, according to Turkish Civil Code. While anti-alimony
campaigners widely accuse women of cohabitation without being legally married in order
to continue receiving alimony, they are tolerant towards men. Many interviewees
mentioned Osman during their interviews, referring to him as a “true victim” due to being
forced to have an illegal marriage. Interviewees are also tolerant towards women–as long
as they are on their side. I will discuss this distinction in detail in the fourth section.
3.2.4 Socially Privileged (and Fragile) Status as the Head of the Family: The
Meaning of Marriage and Divorce for Divorced Men
Anti-alimony campaigners claim that the existing legislation prevents men from
starting a new family or taking care of their new family if they remarry. Among
interviewees, three men had remarried after divorce. Other interviewees had not remarried
yet, but when I asked them about their thoughts of marrying for a second time, they found
it favorable. Two interviewees’ divorce cases were still in progress, and other two got
divorced a short while ago. I did not encounter this willingness to remarry during
interviews with divorced women, detailed in Chapter 4. On the contrary, women were
reluctant to remarry as long as they managed to keep working, because they did not want
to experience similar difficulties that they had to face in their previous marriages. Could
this difference between willingness and reluctance be thus related to gendered relations
in family? If so, how? How does alimony pose an obstacle for getting remarried? In what
different levels of openness on social media and in the interviews. As will be seen in the fourth section,
feminist lawyer Hale mentioned that she received this kind of statements on Twitter.
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sense do divorced men attach an importance to being married? How do they position
themselves as victims in relation to marriage and divorce?
When I asked his observations on general tendencies of women and men during
the divorce process, Ahmet (who has been a divorce lawyer for over 15 years and resides
in City A) provided a rich and illuminating answer supporting these arguments on
relationship between hegemonic masculine ideals and marriage.
Ahmet: I don’t say this as a lawyer, but as a man. I believe that being married
is a very important status for a man. There are many advantages. You
become more “reliable” in business life and society and more likely to be
successful in your career because you have a steady family life. And because
you are married, you are not a “dangerous” man in your social circle or when
communicating with a woman. As a man, you lose so many things as a result
of divorce. So, marriage is not something that men can give up very easily.
That’s why men do not file for divorce that much, but women do.
The interviews with divorced men also provided similar implications. For
instance, during our interview with 5 members of SNM in City A, the conversation went
on as follows when I asked interviewees “How does being a divorced man affect your
lives?”:
Hamit: When you get divorced, people stop inviting you to their gatherings.
They see you as a threat, as someone who could harm them.
Yasin: If you are not married, they don’t deem you suitable of a management
position.
Hamit: People suspect that you have a problem… I mean… problem with
your virility. They say, “Why don’t you get married, do you have a
problem?” What can you do? How can you prove that you don’t have a
problem? They see you as [sexually] insufficient.
What Hamit’s account revealed was interesting. I tried to ask him whether he
actually heard anything like that and he answered no, but it must be taken into
consideration that he was among five other people, mostly men, and he might have
hesitated to share such private information. However, even though interviewees shared
that they had not heard such claims about their virility, they emphasized that it is a
possibility. This possibility shows how their virility being questioned poses a problem for
men. Marriage is a sign for men to prove that they are heterosexual and have a regular
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sexual life. This issue of cutting off a divorced person is also true for divorced women,
as it will be seen in Chapter 4.
Hamit continued to share more on the difference between being married and being
divorced. This time, he actually expressed how this difference influence his perception
about himself.
Hamit: A single man can just quit his job. Being married means you have a
responsibility to your family. I am single now, who can make me stay at a
job [that I don’t want]? If I had a family, I would know that I need to take
care of them, that I couldn’t act however I wanted. Employers are aware of
this.
All the campaigners whom I interviewed still have their jobs, and their marital
status did not seem to influence their positions at the workplace; therefore, these careerrelated
reasons that they mentioned may be considered as only a speculation.
When I asked about in what sense being married is different from being divorced
in order to understand the meaning of family for the interviewees, two certain concepts
became prominent as both are closely related to the domestic role traditionally ascribed
to women as wives and mothers: “empty house” and “being welcomed at the door”.
During our five-people interview, Hamit was the first one to answer this question.
It was a short answer, but it triggered a response from the others.
Hamit: I now live alone. I come home, it’s empty. I don’t like it. Wouldn’t
it be nice to be welcomed at the door?
Yasin, as the youngest one among other members, agreed with him and said:
Yasin: I am still young. I want to continue my bloodline. I want a home
filled with children and my wife instead of being alone in an empty house.
I am a religious person. I want to fulfill my needs [implying sexual
relationship] in accordance with my religion.
The idea that “being welcomed at the door” points to a certain perspective.
Interviewees expect women to be at home when they come back from work. Even when
the woman works, it seems that she is supposed to come home earlier than her husband.
This expectation seems to contradict anti-alimony campaigners’ argument that women
have to work and stand on their own feet. But when considered who are expected to do
this, it becomes clear that the woman who “has to” work is not those in the man’s family,
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but the man’s ex-wife so that he does not have to pay alimony. I claim this because of
the answers I got to my question “Would you prefer to get married with a working
woman now?” Most of divorced men answered yes, except Emrah who was a
subcontracted worker (he was the interviewee with the most unstable financial status).
In addition, the new wives of two interviewees who got remarried were unemployed
even though they were working before their marriage. Interviewees said that this was
the women’s choice.
During our interview in City A, Emel expressed similar sentiments which show that
this ideal of a “full house with a woman and children” is not peculiar to divorced men.
When we talked about a new life after divorce for men and women, she made a
comparison and concluded that:
Emel: The woman will have someone new in her life for sure, if her children
are young. Of course, there are women who do not prefer that. But she has
to build a new life.
Q: Statistically, it seems that men who get remarried are higher in number
than women. What do you think that is?
Emel: Because women can survive on their own. But if the man is all alone
in an empty house, he cannot cook. He cannot do the dishes. Do you know
what is the reason behind it? It’s all because of mothers. (…) It’s us,
mothers, who raise good and bad people.
The accounts of divorced men on their experiences regarding how they got help from
women around them for childcare or domestic responsibilities after divorce made me
realize that Emel’s empathy towards divorced men in terms of their incapability to take
care of themselves is more common that I originally thought. Hasan started to stay at his
workplace after the divorce. He told that, during the first 6 months, his neighbors, friends,
and some customers brought him food. When he found a place to live, his daughter came
to help him with cleaning. As another example of how women around divorced men
support them in domestic responsibilities after divorce, Davut proudly told how his
daughter was represented as the “little mother” in a newspaper report because she took
care of the housework and her sibling with special needs.123 The interviewees’ accounts
123 In order to protect anonymity of the interviewee, I avoided sharing the relevant newspaper report.
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on how they were unable to sort out their personal or household care while they were
single, and how their ex-wives did not take care of the house or them because they worked
were expressed as a sign of victimization. Considering all of these, women around men
have a role in reproducing this traditional gender order in which women are considered
as the primary caregiver whereas men are responsible for being the provider.
Furthermore, the father’s role in teaching their sons self-care and domestic
responsibilities was not even mentioned during the interviews. This responsibility (or
unfulfilled responsibility) was perceived as “mothers’ business”.
Interviewees saw alimony as an obstacle to remarry, because they believe that a
woman would not accept a man who was still in contact with his ex-wife and paid her
alimony, even though there were many examples of men who got remarried in BİAP and
SNM. As he told how alimony causes difficulties for remarrying, Davut equated marriage
with life, which showed the significance of marriage for him.
Davut: Alimony is an obstacle for a second or third marriage. I already have
a disabled child, it’s hard for me to find a wife. Moreover, I pay alimony.
Would any woman come to me? One in a thousand, maybe one in a million.
Our lives are over.
Other interviewees who had not yet remarried shared Davut’s concerns about being
unable to marry again.
Many (Connell, 2005; Kimmel, Hearn, and Connell, 2005; Nock, 1998) have shown
that marriage offers men an area to perform hegemonic masculine ideals. The ideals of
masculinity are sustained when men are fathers to their wives’ children, are providers of
their families, and act as protectors of their families (Nock, 1998). Connell (2005) argues
that conventional marriage is closely related to heterosexuality which is the most
important feature of contemporary hegemonic masculinity, because being married with a
woman is a way for a man to prove his heterosexuality to the society (p. 187).
Sancar (2013) discusses how being the head of a family is significant for achieving
hegemonic masculine ideals in the context of social transformations in family and work
life. She states that industrial capitalistic manufacturing is concentrated in heavy industry
with muscle power of the male worker whereas female workers work in lower-paid jobs
without social security. This industrial distinction has accompanied a new family model
in which women provide unpaid domestic service and men are responsible for attending
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to their family as the head of the family. This may become the only way to achieve
“successful” masculine ideals, especially for men from lower-middle class without
property. Only young men’s personal efforts and accomplishments may lead them to a
prestigious status of manhood in society, and family plays a crucial role in this sense.
“Having a family” and managing to sustain it means having their own “area of power”
for men (Sancar, 2013: 124).
However, this privileged status of being head of the family is vulnerable. Any
shifts in marital roles, for instance the man losing his role as the sole provider, may cause
the loss of this privilege. (Boratav, Fişek, and Ziya, 2014; cited in Yıldırım, 2017). When
men are excluded from conjugal union, they lose this fundamental means to prove their
masculinity. Since “masculinity is not an ascribed but achieved status, one that is never
permanently achieved because the danger of being unmanned is ever-present” (Kandiyoti,
1987: 327), divorce is a significant loss accompanied with economic, social, and
emotional consequences for men. In addition to society’s perception of men, Collier
(1995) argues that, historically, being married indicates becoming a “respectable family
man” and is “set against and constructed in relation to what were perceived to be the
extra-familial and ‘dangerous’ masculinities of the undomesticated male” (Collier, 1995:
220; quoted in Adams & Coltrane, 2005: 239).
Considering the arguments on the privileged status of being a married man and
divorced men’s accounts on the differences between being married and divorced, these
concerns may disclose a yearning for regaining their privileged status in society through
affirming that they hold hegemonic masculine ideals as well as for benefits of marriage
in terms of sexual properties and domestic and care labor of the woman. Nock (1998)
argues that conventional family may work for the man as long as he has a wife willing to
care for him. Given the fact that the woman is the party who usually files for divorce124,
divorce is an indicator of a woman who is not willing to care for her husband anymore.
In that case, divorce means losing the privilege that comes along with “having a family”
against the man’s will. Then, it can be argued that another underlying reason behind the
feeling of “being victimized” is that the woman who wishes to divorce or who does not
124 According to the data in the TBNA Report 2014, women are the party who mostly demanded divorce.
Research on Reasons for Divorce in Turkey 2014 (TBNA 2014), The Ministry of Family and Social Policies,
General Directorate of Family and Community Services.
https://ailevecalisma.gov.tr/uploads/athgm/uploads/pages/indirilebilir-yayinlar/research-on-reasons-fordivorce-
in-turkiye-2014.pdf.
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accept getting married with a man who pays alimony deprives a man of the socially
privileged status as the head of the family. Furthermore, alimony is a solid sign of divorce
and divorce is perceived as failure, loss of the area of power. By preventing men from
starting a new family, as alimony opponents claim, alimony actually prevents men from
having a new area of power. Lastly, in the case of remarriage, alimony as an expense from
the family budget may shake the man’s area of power, because he would not be
considered as a sufficient provider for his family. Accordingly, the patriarchal bargain
between the man and woman in which woman is the primary caregiver and man the
primary provider may be broken.
3.3 Male Self-Victimization in the Justification of Violence against Women and
Femicides
“Knowing that I am going to pay her alimony for my entire life makes me
her enemy and provokes me against her for my entire life. Nobody can
figure out when I could flare up. The laws make me a potential killer. Just
like alimony. There are those who think ‘If I could catch her one day, I
would kill her in some way, she would kick the bucket–at least I would get
rid of alimony.” (Selim)
This understanding that women provoke men into resorting to violence was common
among interviewees, and it is not new. Behind this understanding, “there is the idea that
the head of the family is the boss, and he reserves the right to resort to violence against
or kill his wife if he deems necessary” (Jacobson and Gottman, 1998; cited in Yıldırım,
2017; translation is mine). This widely familiar “victim-blaming”, especially from sexual
assault cases (Bouris, 2007), turns into a different form of victimization in the antialimony
discourse: According to them, men are the true victims of their violent actions
because legislations force them to act so.
The report of Human Rights Watch in 2020125 refers violence against women in
Turkey as “endemic”. According to the report in 2011, even when women report that they
are subjected to violence, they are still forced to reconcile with their abusive husbands in
the name of protecting the family. The report explains this failure in implementation as
follows:
125 Human Rights Watch (2019). World Report 2020: Türkiye. Accessed January 2, 2021.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/turkey#.
114
Survivors of abuse who are referred to family courts for protection orders face
yet more barriers. Prosecutors are sometimes reluctant to forward a request to
a judge or to start the process of their own accord; judges may take too long
to decide whether to grant an order or may require medical or other forms of
evidence that is not required for an emergency protection order by national
law. This causes delays and may even end the process if a woman is unable
to obtain a medical record or witness statements.126
According to TBNA 2014, the most reported problem by women is violence with a
rate of 56.6%, among the problems encountered in marriages resulted in divorce. The
widespread research conducted in both 2008 and 2014 on “Domestic Violence Against
Women in Turkey”127 shows that women who were subjected to physical violence by
their husbands or ex-husbands in any period of their lives across the country is 36% (8%
in the last 12 months). It is seen that this rate is 39% in the research dated 2008. The rate
for women who have experienced emotional violence in any period of their lives is 44%.
The rate for sexual violence is 12% (%5 in the last 12 months).
According to the Shadow Report of KADEM128, dated 2016 and submitted to
CEDAW, women between the ages 15-24 are at a higher risk of being subjected to
violence than women in other age groups. Approximately half of the women who married
before the age of 18 were subjected to physical violence and one fifth to sexual violence.
This report, referring to the TBNA 2014, notes that the proportion of women subjected to
physical or sexual violence is probably higher than what has been reported or known. The
rate of women who stated that they did not apply anywhere to report physical or sexual
violence is 88.5% in urban areas, whereas this rate is 92.5% in rural areas. Again, 92.9%
of women whose education level is below primary school and 81.1% of women with a
bachelor’s or higher degrees do not apply anywhere in case of physical or sexual violence.
The report also states that women who go to the police encounter various problems.
These problems are rooted in the sexist perspective predominant in the police force. In
some cases, the police remain insensitive to violence against women or send women back
to her family where she was subjected to violence. According to the information provided
126 Human Rights Watch (2011, May 4). “He Loves You, He Beats You”: Family Violence in Turkey and
Access to Protection. Accessed January 2, 2021. https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/05/04/he-loves-youhe-
beats-you/family-violence-turkey-and-access-protection.
127 Turkish Republic Prime Ministry, Directorate General on the Status of Women (2009). Domestic
Violence against Women in Turkey. http://www.hips.hacettepe.edu.tr/siddet2008/rapor/2008-
TDVAW_Main_Report.pdf.
128 Kadın ve Demokrasi Derneği [Women and Democracy Association] (2016, July). Türkiye’nin
CEDAW Komitesi’ne Sunduğu Yedinci Periyodik Rapor İçin STK Gölge Raporu. Accessed January 2,
2021, http://www.ceidizleme.org/ekutuphaneresim/dosya/74_1.pdf.
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by women who have been subjected to domestic violence, 80.3% of women living in
urban areas and 92.7% of women living in rural areas did not even have their statements
taken by the police. This is a factor which prevents women subjected to violence from
officially reporting their problems.
Law No. 6284, enacted in 2012 and the Istanbul Convention, signed in 2011, are
two important legislations to combat and prevent violence against women, and to improve
gender equality in Turkey. Both legislations were the fruits of women’s rights
organizations’ consistent and remarkable efforts, and their negotiations with the
governments.129 Conservatives and Islamists have attacked Law No. 6284 and the
Istanbul Convention ever since they were introduced. Today, these legislations are
represented as a “homewrecker”130, “disgraceful threat”131 or “project of destruction”132
by media outlets known as pro-government, conservative, and Islamist. According to
right-wing Islamist camp, Law No. 6284 is inappropriate for the traditional family
structure in Turkey, and the Istanbul Convention is imposed by the European Union so as
to destroy religion, culture, morals, tradition, and national values under the name of
equality.133 But how can these legislations be the reason of male violence while they
intend to combat male violence? How can they be “homewreckers” while they seek for
gender equality in family and society?
Anti-alimony campaigners claim that there are three main reasons for their
“victimization” due to Law No. 6284. The first one is related to the temporary alimony
which may be adjudged if the perpetrator’s suspension through restraining order under
Law No. 6284 would create poverty for the victim.134 Secondly, they claim that men who
129 For GREVIO’s comprehensive evaluation report on legislative and other measures giving effect
to the provisions of Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284, published in 2018, see. GREVIO Baseline
Evaluation Report Turkey (October 15, 2018). Accessed April 4, 2021, https://rm.coe.int/eng-grevioreport-
turquie/16808e5283. The report
130 Arslan, F. (2017, September 11). 6284 Yuva Yıkıyor. Yeni Akit. Accessed July 15, 2019),
https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/6284-yuva-yikiyor-393091.html
131 Tanrım, Ş. (2019, May 7). Rezil Tehlike: İstanbul Sözleşmesi. Milli Gazete. Accessed July 15,
2019, https://www.milligazete.com.tr/makale/2492739/sakir-tarim/rezil-tehlike-istanbul-sozlesmesi
132 Tarım, Ş. (2019, July 2). Yıkım Projesi: İstanbul Sözleşmesi. Milli Gazete. Accessed July 15,
2019, https://www.milligazete.com.tr/makale/2809262/sakir-tarim/yikim-projesi-istanbul-sozlesmesi
133 Saygılı, S. (2019, June 8). İstanbul Sözleşmesi zehirli meyvedir! Yeni Akit. Accessed July 15,
2019, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/yazarlar/sefa-saygili/istanbul-sozlesmesi-zehirli-meyvedir-28725.html
134 GREVIO’s Baseline Evaluation Report states that “There are various forms of economic aid available
for victims. Apart from the allowances for victims and children staying in shelters, these comprise
temporary financial aid awarded under Law No. 6284 and financial assistance which can be granted under
the Social Assistance and Solidarity Law No. 3294. Data provided by the authorities indicate that only a
small proportion of victims benefit from the latter, while the former is hardly ever distributed. Such a
situation raises serious concern. GREVIO notes that outside the framework of Law No. 6284, victims of
violence are not given any priority access to mechanisms of financial aid. GREVIO was furthermore
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are suspended from home with a restraining order have trouble in finding a place to live
and experience emotional and psychological problems. Therefore, they demand shelters
for men who are suspended thusly, as discussed in Chapter 2. Thirdly, according to the
Turkish Civil Code, if the alimony claimant lives an immoral life (cohabitation with
another man without being legally married) or works informally, alimony will be
terminated if these claims are proven. However, according to the interviewees’ accounts,
the law gives the responsibility for proving these violations to alimony debtor. Antialimony
campaigners claim that, since the restraining order forbids any encounters
between husband and wife, they cannot prove that the woman works informally by going
to her workplace, or they cannot prove that she leads an immoral life, because it is
considered as a violation of private life. The first problem in anti-alimony discourse is
that interviewees did not problematize violent actions or threats causing the restraining
order in the first place. The second problem is that the only condition to prove whether
the woman actually lives with a man or works informally is not to secretly photograph
the woman’s life; this could be done with producing a witness.
The majority of interviewees associated men’s violent actions to women’s
provocation and to their inability to control their anger. Selim received a restraining order
for 6 months three times. He violated the order by attacking the house where his ex-wife
lived.
Selim: She (his ex-wife) and her lawyer provoked me and said that I would
have to share my property because of the legal regulation. What did I do? As
a 50-year-old person, I went back home and crashed two televisions. I said,
‘This is my property!’ It is impossible for anyone to resist this kind of
provocation. Upon that, I was sentenced for 5-month in prison. (…) They
made complaints to the police station constantly with excuses such as “He
texted me”, “he called me”, “he threatened my boss”. (…) I was so depressed.
Q: Have you ever consider receiving psychological support?
Davut: I saw a doctor, he gave me medicine, but I used it for a week.
Selim: I also saw a doctor.
Fuat: I receive psychological support, but not a psychiatric one. A woman
gave me a Turkish translation of Quran. I believe in God. Whenever I feel
suffocated, I read Quran. May God bless Atatürk, he asked Elmalılı Hamdi
apprised of difficulties which victims commonly face in covering the expenses for rearing their children
owing to insufficient alimony payments” (p. 58).
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Yazır to translate it. To be honest, after what happened, I thought about
suicide. I thought about killing my ex-wife. Quran answered the questions in
my mind.
Selim: Those who cannot overcome this process commit murder. They go off
their heads.
Davut: My daughter helped me a lot. She read me religious books. She
comforts me psychologically.
Even though they claimed that they suffered from psychological problems
due to legal regulations, most interviewees did not consider receiving psychological
support or, as seen in Fuat’s account, they found different ways to heal themselves.
Fuat also received a restraining order. According to his account, when he insisted
on seeing his child after divorce with a legal order from enforcement and
bankruptcy office, his ex-wife and family-in-law applied for a restraining order.
Davut also received a restraining order, as can be seen in the first section.
Another interviewee who was sentenced to prison due to violence was Hasan.
Hasan: We had an argument with my ex-wife. It was a case of domestic
violence. In fact, I just pushed the door on purpose, and she banged into a
door.135 I was imprisoned for 16 months and 7 days. Since it was my first
prison sentence, I did not do my time. But I did it because of she insulted me.
She said unmentionable words. I don’t approve it, but in my hometown,
people commit murder because of that kind of language. I could not explain
why that incident happened at the courthouse, it’s because I am a man. Can
you imagine that you are in front of a male judge? The prosecutor, who reads
the accusation, is a man. The bailiff is a man. How could I say these words
aloud? I need to be a dishonorable person to say these aloud. If I had said
those words, I would have been acquitted.
Q: Did your ex-wife apply for Law No. 6284?
Hasan: Yes, she did. I don’t want the annulment of Law No. 6284. I only want
the annulment of that principle, “the woman’s testimony is fundamental”.
135 I heard the excuse that “She banged into a door” twice in the interviews. As will be seen in Chapter 4,
Yaprak, a divorced woman, was subjected to violence by her ex-husband’s natal family, and her nose was
broken. When she went to see a doctor, her family-in-law told the doctor that she banged into door. It seems
that to make domestic violence against women look like an accident is common. According to the research
of Şefkat-Der based in Konya, Turkey with women who are violence victims living in a Women’s Shelter
shows that “banging into a door” is a common excuse asserted by men in domestic violence cases. For more
information, Cumhuriyet (2011, December 9). Kadın döven erkeklerin bahaneleri hazır! Accessed January
27, 2021, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/kadin-doven-erkeklerin-bahaneleri-hazir-304268. A PhD
research on violence victims in Women’s Shelters also shows similar results. For more information,
Cumhuriyet (2011, August 17). Şiddeti Uygulayan Değil, Gören Utanıyor. Accessed January 27, 2021,
https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siddeti-uygulayan-degil-goren-utaniyor-275052.
118
Women should prove their accusations with evidence. Because the principle
based on the woman’s statements means… For instance, we are now sitting
here, and you misunderstand something I say. If you called the police and told
them Hasan insulted me, my life would be over because of this violence
against woman.
Article 4(1) of Law No. 6284 rules that “In the event that a person is subjected
to violence or is in danger of being subjected to violence, everyone can report the
situation to the relevant authorities as a written or verbal statement.”136 The law
does not specify the gender of the complainant. Even though this principle has
circulated as “the woman’s testimony is fundamental”, it should be understood as
“The testimony of the survivor of a sexual assault is fundamental”.137 Taking the
testimony as fundamental does not lead to any judgment based on that declaration;
it only leads to an investigation. In other words, if I called the police and told them
Hasan insulted me without any proof, his life would not be over, he would not be
judged, or he would not be expected to prove my testimony otherwise. Furthermore,
in case of proof of false statement, legal sanction is applied for those who make the
false statement. This misinformation was quite common among interviewees, and
they gave hypothetical examples over me.138
During our interview with five members of SNM, Hamit and Mehmet gave
similar examples. Mehmet told me that,
Mehmet: I was so worried about coming here when I found out that you were
a woman. That is why I did not come alone. I came with other victims.
Because if you made a complaint about me saying that I harassed you,
because of Law No. 6284, I would have to grapple with legal difficulties.
When I said that the law did not work in that way, Hamit interrupted.
Hamit: I am afraid of getting on elevator with a woman. For instance, so many
women sent me private messages on Facebook. I do not answer them.
Because feminist could show them as an evidence.
136 6284 Sayılı Ailenin Korunması ve Kadına Karşı Şiddetin Önlenmesine Dair Kanuna İlişkin
Uygulama Yönetmeliği.
https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/File/GeneratePdf?mevzuatNo=17030&mevzuatTur=KurumVeKurulusYonet
meligi&mevzuatTertip=5.
137 For a detailed explanation on the meaning of “The woman’s testimony is fundamental”: Öztürk,
F. (2019, February 5). “Kadının beyanı esastır” ilkesi nedir, ne değildir? BBC. Accessed February 20,
2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20190308222845/https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-
47129398.
138 I briefly discussed how they set examples through me in relation to their fear of Law No. 6284 in
Chapter 1. (p. 19)
119
When I asked whether he had too many messages, Mehmet laughed and stroked
Hamit in his back, saying, “He’s a handsome man! Women saw him on TV, liked him,
and sent messages to him!” This is a whole another topic, but I would like to remark that
other interviewees also mentioned that there were people who join SNM’s and BİAP’s
Facebook page with intent of meeting divorced people as they are.
During our interview with Davut, Fuat, and Selim on Law No. 6284, I underlined
that the law does not specify gender, and a man may also make a complaint. Upon that,
they shared a BİAP member’s story.
Fuat: We have a friend in our group. He’s an engineer. His ex-wife used
violence against him, she drew out a knife. He left home. He said, “If I wanted
to use violence against her, I would do it for sure, but people like us would
not beat women.” He went to the police station, complained that he was
exposed to violence. The police made fun of him, they said “Don’t go home
then.”
Selim: The police officers make fun of men exposed to violence by saying
“How could you be beaten up by your wife?” Men cannot even make a
complaint because of this reason.
Davut: A man can make a complaint of domestic violence through Law No.
6284, but they do not prefer to do it. They do it rarely. Manhood
psychology…
It seems that the fear of being ridiculed, especially by other men, prevents men
from making a complaint in case of being subjected to violence. Moreover, what is
perceived as causes of act of violence used by men against women and what prevents
men from making a complaint about the act of violence used by women against then have
a common point: masculine pride.
Serpil’s account revealing how she showed empathy towards violent man, instead
of the woman as a victim of violence was interesting. It indicates how she has normalized
violence against women.
Serpil: This law [6284] does not protect women. Even though it provides a
restraining order, women are not protected. If a man is to be a maniac, he
would hate his wife more. There’s no police force protecting home at night.
In any case, he would catch the woman on the street or somewhere else if he
were a maniac. (…) Unless this problem of alimony is resolved, femicides
and suicides will increase. Osman is in a very bad situation. The other day, he
told me that he would go to the court and either kill his ex-wife or himself to
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make them an example to Turkish society. If that woman has enjoyed herself
or has been cohabitating with another man with Islamic nikkah, God damn
that woman, I don’t care what will happen to her. She cannot be an individual,
she did not get on her feet, she exploits men as if she receives salary. No
offense, but I don’t care whatever happens to her.
A couple of days after the interview with Serpil, I talked to Osman on the phone.
What he said was different than what Serpil told.
Osman: I saw a newspaper report the other day. A father shot his two children
first, then committed suicide. He did it because he was sentenced to prison.
due to non-payment of alimony. Why do you kill yourself? I would tell him
‘Kill the woman!’”139
In both Serpil’s and Osman’s accounts, there is a victim-blaming, an idea that
“some women deserve violence”. Particularly alimony has started to emerge as a
simulated reason for violence against women and femicides on media outlets too.
Headlines such as “Alimony Murder!”140, “Another Alimony Murder!”141, “Insanity
Caused by Alimony”142 have become more and more visible. However, the actual body
of these reports usually shows that women were being subjected to violence before
divorce and alimony. The economic, emotional, or psychological problems resulting
directly from paying alimony has nothing to do with femicides.
Sancar (2013) explains that, according to popular feminist approaches to the
relationship between manhood and violence, the use of violence is a male privilege which
lies behind the modern male dominant society. Even though men do not use violence
individually, every man benefit from male violence. Through male violence, women are
suppressed, subordinated, excluded, discriminated against, and thus, “all” women’s
139 The incident that Osman referred here took place on January 6, 2018 in Istanbul. According to this
newspaper report, Ali Yardım who killed his children and himself received 3-month restraining order
because he threatened his wife, Dilek, with murder. Four days after the notification of a restraining order,
he put a knife on Dilek’s throat, and was then sentenced with imprisonment for violation of the restraining
order. He violated the second order because he did not receive the notification. The whole incident had
nothing to do with any conflicts about alimony payment. The circulation of misinformation as such is
common among anti-alimony campaigner. For further information about the incident: Milliyet (2018,
January 6). Maltepe’de 2 çocuğunu öldüren baba hakkında yeni gelişme. Accessed July 15, 2019,
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/gundem/maltepe-de-2-cocugunu-olduren-baba-hakkinda-yeni-gelisme-
2586207.
140 Haber Türk (2011, March 4). Nafaka cinayeti! Accessed July 15, 2019,
https://www.haberturk.com/yasam/haber/607306-nafaka-cinayeti
141 Yeni Akit (2018, May 11). Bir “nafaka” cinayeti daha! 2 ölü. Accessed July 15, 2019,
https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/haber/bir-nafaka-cinayeti-daha-2-olu-463206.html
142 Takvim (2018, May 12). Nafaka cinayeti! Accessed July 15, 2019,
https://www.takvim.com.tr/guncel/2018/05/12/nafaka-cinneti.
121
obedience is made possible. The “patriarchal pie” (Connell, 2005) that any man can
benefit due to male violence includes virginity, heterosexual marriage, and the
opportunity to confiscate women’s domestic and care labor for free (Sancar, 2013: 218).
Hearn (1999) suggests that men’s violence against women should be considered in
the context of specific social patterns of gendered power relations. He reminds that men
in government agencies are men as well, therefore, “their definitions, understandings,
excuses, and justifications for violence may mirror or sometimes contradict those of men
who have been violent; they may of course themselves be violent. These connections
make up a part of what may be called ‘patriarchy’” (Hearn, 1999: 17).
In this historical period in Turkey, normalization of violence in political discourse
and practice is undeniable. Kandiyoti (2016) defines normalization of violence as one key
pillar of the politics of masculinist restoration. She points to the huge gap between
legislations aiming to safeguard women’s rights and to prevent violence against women
and their implementation in practice, which is also clear in the Shadow Report of
KADEM.
In most of the accounts, interviewees do not talk about violence from a critical
perspective. The accounts of violence reveal that the relationship between men and
violence is considered as “normal” without questioning. Even though most of the
interviewees claimed that they were not the perpetrator of any act of violence, they
emphasized that they did not do it not because they were unable to do it, but because they
were decent men. Most of them emphasized that Law No. 6284 could not protect women
from men’s violence because if a man was determined to commit a crime, nobody could
stop him. So, should women’s fate be left to men’s will in a society where femicides and
violence against women is endemic? Apparently, interviewees believed so.
3.4 The “Differentiation” of Women and “True” Women’s Rights in the Anti-
Alimony Discourse
“The man gets remarried and has children. He thinks “Why do I have to
provide for that woman; we don’t have a child together. If women don’t get
remarried, and they can receive alimony for 5, 10, 15 years.” He thinks that
this is not fair. He gives his children’s livelihood to that woman. He gives
his subsequent wife’s, his family’s livelihood to that woman. What about
this woman’s rights?” (Serpil)
“Let’s say I got remarried. That woman is protected, why is this woman not
protected? What about the child’s right to livelihood (rızık)? I will keep
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paying alimony to my ex-wife. There must be a time limit, we are making a
case for time limit.” (Davut)
The distinction between “this woman” and “that woman” was frequently
mentioned in the interviews in relation to women’s rights, therefore, I will briefly discuss
it. To develop a better understanding of divorced men’s approach to “that woman”, I
searched their profiles on social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, since
I believed that being in their present as a woman researcher might have influenced how
interviewees expressed themselves. Indeed, they expressed their thoughts more openly on
social media. Images and statements that they used on social media under the hashtags
such as #SüresizNafaka #SüresizNafakayaAdilDüzenleme (#IndefiniteAlimony
#FairAmendmentToIndefiniteAlimony) differ from what they chose to narrate during
interviews. For instance, while they stated that they were not against the protection of
women and that they were not misogynists, what they shared on social media told another
story. They shared posts portraying divorced women who received alimony as greedy,
self-seeker, immoral or lazy. Visual posts portrayed women screaming at their desperate
husbands or stealing money from their husbands’ pockets.143 Through demonizing visual
representations and accusations of immorality without any proof, alimony opponents
develop a systematic anger and hatred towards their ex-wives. Moreover, as also
discussed in this chapter, women’s rights activists are portrayed as self-seeker, immoral
and greedy as well. According to alimony opponents, women’s rights activists have
another agenda aiming to destroy family institution, to receive EU funds, and even to
serve to cause chaos and establish Kurdish state. In other words, according to alimony
opponents, women’s rights activists are threats not only to family institution, but also to
nation.
In the interviews, many of them talked about mothers and sisters who were also
members of their groups and who helped men financially so as to they could pay alimony.
But divorced men’s fathers were mostly invisible in their accounts. Their portrait of “this
woman” on social media refers to women who refuse to receive alimony, who care for
their sick husbands, who sacrifice themselves to protect their families, who work to
contribute to home economics, or who support alimony opponents and they are all praised
by the campaigners. “This woman” is a victim, because “that woman” entrenches upon
143 For some examples of mostly misognyst visual representations of “that woman” on BİAP’s
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/biaplatformu/media; for examples on SNM’s
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1239969499490532/media.
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her rights. “This woman” is always honorable, moral, and valuable whereas “that woman”
is dishonorable, immoral, and worthless. Osman made a sharp distinction between two
types of women that I frequently encountered in the anti-alimony discourse:
Osman: My divorce case was still in progress. It lasted 10 years. My current
wife accepted to marry me. We had an Islamic nikkah and, only 40 days
after my divorce case was over, my first child was born. Can you imagine
that? My wife is so honorable, such a perfect woman that she accepted to
marry me before my divorce case was over. But that other woman, all she
thinks about is to rob my family’s livelihood.
This distinction was mentioned by other interviewees repeating Osman’s story as
well. Anti-alimony campaigners mostly target women accusing them of being immoral
based on their claim that women cohabitate with other men without being legally married
to receive alimony. However, it seems that if the woman in question is “this woman” (a
member of the man’s family), this accusation turns into an acclamation.
The differentiation of women is put forward as another reason behind “male
victimization” in the anti-alimony discourse. “That woman”, in fact, implies the
“discarded wife” and every woman who develops arguments against alimony opponents’
claims and “male victimization”. “This woman” implies men’s subsequent wives, future
wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and women who support anti-alimony campaign.
Alimony opponents make a distinction between women and pit “this woman” against
“that woman”. They marginalize a group of women to create an “acceptable” woman.
This distinction is mainly made between women who recognize, nurture, and support the
man’s power and hegemony and those who oppose and shake it. In this sense, antialimony
discourse adopt same perception with the government in terms of “woman’s
rightful place”. The government also create an “acceptable” woman emphasizing the
woman’s role as wife, mother, daughter, or caregiver whereas women as independent
individuals who are divorced, single, childfree by choice are marginalized and frequently
condemned. Therefore, the line between being acceptable and unacceptable woman is
drawn between positions that cooperate and do not cooperate with ultimate male
domination in family and society, the primary goal of bottom-up and top-down
masculinist restoration politics.
Another distinct claim of campaigners is that the current implementation of
alimony and other legislations to which women resort in divorce are against women’s
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rights. Because of these legislations, “that woman” damages legal and economic rights of
“this woman”.
During our interview, I asked Hale “What do you think about alimony opponents’
claim that alimony is against gender equality and women’s rights for the women in their
families?”, she gave an illuminating and comprehensive answer about the prevalent
perception of the concept of civil rights in alimony debates.
Hale: How these people perceive the concept of “right” must be analyzed
first. They [implying both the government and alimony opponents] hate the
concept of right. This hatred includes workers’ rights and children’s rights.
The concept of right is reproduced by the Western society, which is based
on class conflicts. In our culture, we only have our rightful due (kul hakkı).
Being against equality or replacing the concept of equality with justice is a
solid indicator of this perception. There is no right or equality, instead, there
is only justice, rightful due. Both justice and rightful due consist of
hierarchy. It implies the mercy which the one who is on the upper level of
the hierarchy shows for those who are on lower levels. In return, they expect
praise, recognition, and unconditional obedience. The alimony opponents’
main idea is that relations between two people in social life should not
include the concept of right. If you take a glance at antifeminist arguments,
you will see that they claim that feminists mislead women by defending
rights. Today, there are two main discussion topics in Turkey. First, who
gets to make a claim on women’s bodies? Who gets to make a claim on labor
that women’s bodies produce and reproduce? Alimony is about women’s
unpaid labor and bodies. I get mentions on Twitter every day. One in tenth
asked “What will she give me in return?” It is obvious what they imply.
Hale’s distinction between the right and the rightful due answers the question of
how legal rights treating all women equally can violate some women’s rights. Rightful
due is an Islamic term. According to explanation in the Turkish Religious Foundation’s
Encyclopedia of Islam, rightful due includes the rights of subjects (of Allah) in matters
such as their lives, bodies, chastity, honor, religious beliefs as well as their rights
regarding their properties and family members.144 However, when a woman exercises her
legal right to divorce, to sue for alimony extension, or to ask for compensation, she does
not withhold other women’s legal rights: other women’s rights remain untouched.
Moreover, even though anti-alimony discourse refers to rightful due as “right”, what
harms a woman’s or child’s rightful due is not the legislations aiming gender equality,
prevention of violence against women, and women’s empowerment. On the contrary,
144 Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. “kul hakkı”. Accessed February 25, 2020.
https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kul-hakki.
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both ex-wives and subsequent wives are economically dependent on male members of
their families (fathers or husbands) because of gender inequality, underlying the need for
these legislations; therefore, they are directly affected by any shift in men’s financial
power.
3.5 Concluding Remarks
This chapter unpacked dynamics of the anti-alimony campaign in the context of
bottom-up politics of masculinist restoration. Based on the accounts of 9 divorced men
and 3 women who are members of BİAP and SNM, it discussed the relation between male
self-victimization and masculine ideals dominant in this historical period in Turkey.
The first section analyzed anti-alimony campaign’s discourse, mobilization,
demands, and political stance. It explored that, even though anti-alimony campaigners
adopt liberal legal frames that have become dominant in the civil rights struggles, their
discourse is antifeminist and anti-women’s rights. The anti-alimony discourse tend to
circulate “male victimization” in relation to their claim on “men’s oppression” by laws
discriminating against them simply because they are men. However, based on the clear
distinction between “oppression” and “costs of being on top” in a male-dominated society
as Turkey, this is self-victimization rather than victimization because the anti-alimony
discourse lacks a discussion on gendered arrangements in professional and domestic life.
Anti-alimony campaigners’ demands showed this gender-blindness and an absence of
recognition of gender inequality as the main reason behind why women are mostly
awarded alimony (in other words, why women are mostly the party who fall into poverty)
more clearly. The story of BİAP’s mobilization and strategies to be visible on public
agenda showed the mutual influence between the discourse and demands of anti-alimony
groups’ and the government’s political discourse and policies. The political polarization
and antifeminism which create “national us” and “anti-national them” in the anti-alimony
campaign support this argument of mutual influence, representing similarities between
the populist discourse of the AKP government and anti-alimony campaigners’ discourses
towards certain political parties and feminism, both targeted by the government.
The second section presented the anti-alimony campaigners’ accounts on their
experiences in marriage and divorce, as well as their perception of gendered marital roles,
sharing domestic responsibilities, and the difference between being married and being
divorced. This section discussed how the loss of socially privileged status as the head of
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a family, which is an inseparable part of hegemonic masculine ideals, is closely related
to this backlash to legislations aiming gender equality in marriage and divorce as well as
combatting violence against women. Any discussion on gender inequality in familial,
economic, and social relations was absent in the interviews. The accounts clearly
indicated divorced men’s expectations from their subsequent or future wives to fulfil their
domestic responsibilities. The accounts justifying men’s strategies to dodge with least
economic damage in after divorce through hiding assets or informal working revealed the
double standards towards men and women for alimony opponents, because one main
argument in the anti-alimony discourse is that women do these things to continue
receiving alimony and that this makes these women immoral and opportunistic.
According to the answers to my question on whether they had experienced any economic
difficulties in relation to alimony payments, interviewees’ problems were mostly
emotional and psychological since they did not want to send money to a woman who
became a stranger for them. The accounts on difference between being married and being
divorced showed that divorce came along with loss of the prestigious status as the head
of a family in society.
The third section analyzed the interviewees’ experiences and perceptions on
violence against women and femicides. It discussed how anti-alimony discourse
normalizes and even encourages violence against women and femicides through male
self-victimization as a justification tool. The common claim among interviewees was that
their ex-wives and the legislations provoked them to resort to violence, and they were the
true victims of Law No. 6284 designed to combat violence against women. This section
also revealed that there was a prevalent misinformation on Law No. 6284 circulated
among interviewees. They depicted the Law No. 6284 as having an implementation which
would put the man in prison upon any woman’s (false) testimony against him.
The fourth chapter focused on how anti-alimony campaigners positioned the
fragmentation between “this woman” and “that woman” in the formation of their selfvictimization.
As “this woman” referred to the women in these men’s families and the
women who supported them, “that woman” referred to the “discarded wife” and women
who refused to accept men’s oppression and defend men’s rights. The anti-alimony
discourse on “true” women’s rights was also briefly discussed in the fourth section.
Women’s rights apply to every woman. When one woman uses her legal rights, this does
not infringe on another woman’s rights. Therefore, anti-alimony campaigners’ claims on
women’s rights excluding or harming some women actually indicate that legal rights are
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confused with rightful due (kul hakkı). Besides, what harms one’s “rightful due” is still
not women’s legal rights, but gender inequality that made women economically
dependent on men in the first place.
Chapter 4:
WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, AND POSTDIVORCE
PROCESS
The lack of divorced women’s voices is a significant characteristic of the alimony
debates. Thanks to the efforts of organizations and media outlets supporting women’s
rights, we have heard some women’s stories, but not in detail. While this research mainly
focuses on the debates, it would fall short without women’s experiences in marriage and
divorce. Therefore, this chapter focuses on ten women’s accounts on their experiences in
marriage, divorce, and postdivorce process. Female interviewees were divorced women
from different social classes –lower and middle class– however, the similar patterns in
their accounts were striking. The interviews have common themes gathering around the
exploitation of women’s domestic labor, various forms of violence–physical,
psychological, sexual, and economic–in the marriage, being cheated on, and subjection
to threats–particularly death and child custody–during and after divorce. Women’s
concern for their children’s welfare, as well as psychological and physical health, was
common beyond their socioeconomic class.
Even though my main focus points are divorce processes and bargaining on
alimony, child support, and marital property, as Carbone (2015) notes: “for women,
assessing the impact of divorce starts with an examination of the gendered division of
responsibility within the family” (p. 184). Therefore, I designed my questions to address
the decision to marry; time spent in marriage, with a focus on domestic violence,
including physical, psychological, economic, and sexual forms; unpaid work; economic
self-sufficiency; opportunity to work while married (whether they were suppressed); the
process that led them to take or accept the decision to divorce; experiences during the
divorce process; amounts of alimony and/or child support, if adjudged, as well as
regularity in alimony and/or child support payments; and experiences as divorced women
in society. One common claim in alimony debates is that women avoid remarrying to
continue receiving alimony or tend to live an “immoral life” with other men without a
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civil marriage. Therefore, I asked questions about their private lives after divorce, such
as if they ever thought about remarrying or if they had an intimate relationship after
divorce.
I benefit from previous the TBNA Report 2014, unfolded in Chapter 2, with a
focus on women’s declared reasons for divorce, statistical data on gendered division of
domestic responsibilities, and feminist criticism on marriage and divorce to analyze
women’s accounts in a broader context. This chapter aims to show women’s experiences
intertwined with difficulties from deciding to marry to building a new life after divorce
in the male-dominated Turkish society. As women’s accounts support previous research
on these certain topics, putting bargains in alimony, child support, marital property, and
child custody in the center of discussion reveals how power relations work within and
through family and divorce in women’s everyday lives; what kind of an approach the
judiciary and law enforcement have adopted during the cases of interviewees; and how
women’s experienced difficulties regarding divorce are actually only one of the results
that male-dominated structure of the state and society have produced and reproduced in
terms of women’s poverty, lack of access to education, employment, and knowledge of
legal rights. Moreover, it is evident that the concept of honor (namus) have played a
crucial role in life stories of most of the interviewees.
I divided this chapter into five sections aiming to disclose certain themes in
women’s accounts. The first section elaborates on women’s decision-making processes
for marriage. Understanding this process is important since it reveals determinant
conditions, motivations, and familial or external factors leading women to make the
decision to marry. Moving from that, it discloses marital conditions in terms of
exploitation of women’s unpaid care work, financial inequalities, and how marriage itself
paves the long way to divorce. I present a full section on domestic violence, including
physical, psychological, sexual, emotional, and economic violence. Women’s accounts
reveal how widespread various forms of violence in marriage is, as well as how law
enforcement stays ineffective and insensitive to violence against women. Women’s
experiences emphasize the importance of preventive and transformative legislations,
namely Law No. 6284 and the Istanbul Convention. The third section gets to the bottom
of this research: divorce process and bargains in alimony, compensation, child support,
child custody, and marital property distribution. The fourth section’s focus is women’s
lives after divorce. Not only social and economic pressure on divorced women, but also
continuity of conflicts between ex-spouses about alimony, child support, and child
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custody will be discussed. Moreover, women’s struggles against the concrete
consequences of divorce–housing, employment, childcare, and security, and emotional
consequences will constitute the core of this section. The last section will be about
women’s knowledge on alimony debates, and their comments on male self-victimization.
4.1 Entering into Matrimony (or Slavery?): Reconciliation of Paid and Unpaid
Work
As women illustrated their path to the decision of marriage, their accounts started
with their relationships with their natal families, including fathers, mothers, and siblings.
This difference in ways of narrating their decision to marry between women and men
engaged my attention. While women included their natal families into their accounts as a
starting point, men started with their “established” families. As men have their own
families, women become a part of his (father’s or husband’s) family (Delaney, 1991:
113). Through the chapter, women’s accounts will show how male members of their natal
families have a direct or indirect effect on their lives from time to time. The form of this
effect varies from preventing violence to keeping women silent against violence.
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute’s (Turkstat’s) Family Structure
Research carried out in 2016, across Turkey, 47.8% of first marriages were arranged
marriages based on individuals’ consents. 12.1% of marriages were arranged by natal
families without asking future spouses’ opinion. The rate of those who chose their spouses
on their own with their families’ consent was 30.2%, and the rate of those who got married
against their decision was 2.5%. The rate of those who got married by eloping or after
they were abducted was 7%. The level of education seems to play a significant role when
selecting one’s spouse. It was observed that as the educational status increased, the
proportion of those who got married with their own choice also increased and the rate of
arrange marriages decreased. The rate of those who did not graduate from any school who
chose their spouse on their own and with their families’ consent was 10.6%, whereas this
rate was 67.1% for those with college, university, master, or PhD degrees.145
Interviewees followed different paths and had different reasons for making the
decision to marry as seen in Table 4.1, I also remarked women’s level of education to
145 Turkish Statistical Institution (TurkStat) (2017, January 18). Aile Yapısı Araştırması, 2016. [Research
on Family Structure]. Press Release numbered 21869. Accessed December 20, 2020,
https://tuikweb.tuik.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=21869.
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show to what extent that the data in my research was compatible with TurkStat’s data. I
used terms such as “love marriage”, “elopement/love marriage”, “marriage of
convenience”, and “marriage due to need” on the basis of women’s own definition of
their sort of marriage.
Table 4.1 Level of education, type of marital union, and age of first marriage for
interviewee group consisting of divorced women
From a feminist perspective, marriage has been criticized in terms of
subordination of women, gender inequality, and the exploitation of women’s domestic
labor and sexual properties. For Carole Pateman (1988), marriage is not a proper contract,
because women are not “brought into civil life on exactly the same footing as their
husbands”, therefore, as long as few women can earn as much as men, only a few middleclass
and professional women can have the chance to “be in a position to negotiate an
intimate contract” (p. 155). A proper contract is an agreement between two equal parties
who negotiate until they agree on terms for their mutual advantage. Women and men are
not equal parties as a result of social and economic inequalities between them. However,
women who earn as much as men and who belong to a higher class in society have the
chance to set the terms of marriage contract. Otherwise, marriage gives one party, the
husband, the “power of a slave-owner” (Pateman, 1988: 154) in terms of use of his
partner’s sexual properties, unpaid caring/domestic labor, and body through laws.
Since marriage is not a proper contract between two equal parties, inequality
within marriage, particularly in terms of gendered division of labor even when the woman
is employed, inevitably leads to inequal consequences for women and men when this
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contract is broken with a divorce. How men, female allies of the anti-alimony campaign,
and the state consider the unpaid work of unemployed women, “housewives”, as a natural
vocation has been discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Women’s, particularly housewives’,
unpaid care and domestic labor is a significant part of the alimony debates. While their
domestic labor is considered as invisible and worthless, it is an important reason dragging
women to poverty after divorce since they were not able to gain any experience in the job
market. However, employed women cannot escape from domestic responsibilities. As a
result of the gendered division of domestic labor and other interruptions such as maternal
leave, “women experience more labor market interruptions than men do” (Carbone, 2015:
185). This creates difficulties for women who want to advance in their careers and, as a
result, condemns them to lower pay rates than men.
Because understanding the gendered division of domestic labor is inseparable
from understanding the underlying reasons of alimony and the prevalent gender
inequality within family, I included questions on how domestic responsibilities were
shared during the marriage.146 Most of the time, I did not need to even utter these
questions to get an answer, because women’s marital experiences were intertwined with
their overwhelming domestic responsibilities.
As quoted from Pateman above, traditional marriage contract gives husband the
power of a slave-owner. During the interviews, two women defined their situation within
marriage as “akin to a slave”. Sevgi and Kader shared similar experiences. In both
accounts, women were taunted because they did not have a child for the first years of their
marriage, and they both described themselves as a slave while they were married.
Sevgi was a primary school graduate 49-year-old and worked as a janitor for 10
years. She had been living in City D for more than 20 years. She had two grown-up
children and divorced 8 years ago. I went to her workplace to meet her. After we spent
some time with other women (some were interviewees as well) working there, we went
to an empty room to be alone, and talked. Our interview lasted almost 2 hours. Sevgi had
eloped with her now ex-husband when she was 16. He was a relative of hers, who was 3
or 4 years older. Her family was dead set against this marriage, and she mentioned how
some of her relatives opened gunfire after her when she was fleeing. Sevgi did not want
146 As also mentioned in Chapter 3, according to TurkStat data from 2017, the research with women
and men aged between 15 and 64, women spend 3 hours and 21 minutes a day on unpaid work, whereas
men spend only 46 minutes. The OECD data shows that women spend 5 hours and 8 minutes a day on
unpaid work, whereas men spend only 68 minutes. Unpaid work includes housework, shopping, child and
adult care, volunteering, and other kinds of unpaid work.
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to elope at first. After her older brother heard some gossip that Sevgi was about to elope,
he beat and taunted her. However, the last straw for her was that her father’s changing
attitude towards her. When she could not bear the humiliation and beatings at her family
home, she decided to elope. Yıldırım (2017) aptly notes that, in a society expecting
protection of their virginity until marriage from women, love marriages may point to an
intimate relationship before marriage and families may not approve it because they find
this sort of marriage damaging the family honor. In this sense, family plays a significant
role in reproduction of the concept of honor. It seems that Sevgi’s attempt to have a
relationship with a man meant for her natal family that she had dishonored her family.
While the female members of her family did not play a determining role in leading Sevgi
to elope, the male members, from her father to her cousins, punished her for her so-called
culpability. The path that led Sevgi to get married sheds light on the powerful effect the
male members of the woman’s family on her life. After eloping, Sevgi lived with her
family-in-law:
Sevgi: I lived with 15 people in that house. I was just a child. You know
Slave Isaura? I was just like her. They ruined my life. I did not have any
children for the first three or four years. They taunted me all the time. Then,
after I finally had a child, my husband left me and went abroad, emigrated
when the baby was just four months old. (…) He turned his phone off for a
year, sometimes for two years. He did not call; he did not ask if we needed
anything. I went to work in the fields for instance, I worked at hospitals, I
worked at factories. I earned my livelihood in that way.
Q: Could you describe this “slavery” for me please? What were you doing
mostly?
Sevgi: I was serving them like a slave. There was no washing machine, I
washed their jeans and clothes with my hands, lots of clothes. There were
many children at home, I raised them all. (…) I expected from his mother,
my own relative, to say, “I will look after your children, you go and work,
make your living”. My children were so young. I worked at a factory when
I was living with them. I worked until morning, my son was so little, I went
to work without sleeping. I came home, her [mother-in-law’s] own daughter
was sleeping, and I cleaned the whole house. She handed my son over to me
and went out. (…) I was working when we lived in separate homes too. My
children was playing in the street when I was at work.
Sevgi’s ex-husband got married with a woman, who was a citizen of the country
to where he had emigrated to be a legal worker and had one child from that marriage. As
it is evident, Sevgi and his then husband’s marriage was not a civil marriage at the
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beginning. Sevgi started to work to escape poverty; however, she was still expected to
handle domestic responsibilities. As discussed in Chapter 2, one significant reason which
keeps women away from paid work is the absence of free childcare services. Through this
section, the absence of childcare services will reveal to be a prevailing factor in women’s
lives. However, women have come up with various solutions to continue working. After
six years of living with her family-in-law, Sevgi could not bear it anymore and moved.
When she mentioned that her children were playing in the street, I asked:
Q: Did you leave your children home alone when you went to work while
you were living somewhere else?
Sevgi: I left them home alone.
Q: How old were they then?
Sevgi: My daughter had grown up a bit, and she was able to look after her
brother when she was 12-13. She was deaf but she could take care of him
very well and, in any case, I was working.
Kader also described her experiences in the first years of her marriage as “being
like a slave”. Kader was 38 years old and had two children from her former marriage. She
is a primary school graduate, but now attends middle school through the adult education
program and intends to continue her education. I found out that she was related to Sevgi
during the interviews. Kader also got married when she was 16 and also eloped with her
now ex-husband who was three years older. She experienced two divorces–the first one
was 8, the second one was 5 years ago. However, she referred to her first husband as her
ex-husband and mainly talked about her marriage with him. She eloped out of fear that
her family would not let her marry man whom she loved. Moreover, as a common point
in the accounts of Sevgi and Kader, both women did not go to school even though they
were 16. To put it simply, elopement refers to the loss of virginity; therefore, it is
understood from Kader’s account that she chose this way to make her natal family accept
her decision of marriage. When she eloped, Kader lived with her family-in-laws for five
years:
Q: Did you go to his family house after you eloped?
Kader: Yes, we went to his family house. We lived with them for 5 years. I
could not have a child for the first 4 years. He did not have a stable job.
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Hardship all the time. (…) I had very hard times of course. Because, how do
you say, there was no humanity there. I was like a slave in that house. I
served them all the time. After 5 years, we had a quarrel with my in-laws
and left that home.
Even though other women did not describe what they have experienced as “being
a slave”, their accounts show how domestic labor is taken for granted within marriage on
different levels. Accounts of Robin, a 45-year-old woman holding a master’s degree in
psychology, for instance. We met her in a café in City A and our interview lasted 1.5
hours. During our interview, the divorce process had not yet finalized. Her marriage with
her ex-husband who was 2 years older than her was a “love marriage”, in her own words.
After a year of flirtation, they decided to get married. She had a child from that marriage
and lives together with him now. When I asked her, “Did your ex-husband share the
domestic responsibilities? Or did you get any help?” she explained that,
Robin: We had a babysitter. She worked for us for 8 years. She helped me a
lot. (…) However, after she quit, I could not get help on a regular basis. We
enrolled our child in a private school. Only then he helped with the ironing,
that’s all. On one hand, I worked hard to pay the tuition fee, on the other
hand, I cleaned the house, I cooked – I did almost everything. Even while I
was pregnant, like, there were only 20 days to delivery, I still did all the
grocery shopping and cooking.
İdil, a 41-year-old woman, had a bachelor’s degree and grew up in a middle-class
family. I went to her workplace to meet her in City A. We had the interview during her
break, which lasted 45 minutes. She was married for 8 years and divorced 8 years ago.
She had one child and lives alone with her son now. Her family, particularly her mother,
however, still helps her take care of her child. When I asked, “Was there a division of
domestic responsibilities at home?”, she answered,
İdil: Although he was an educated man, I guess this is male mindset (erkek
kafası), like, he had that usual mindset, “As a woman, you are responsible
for cooking”. Despite the fact that I also worked and contributed to home
economics. He did not want to engage in cooking as a man, he rarely even
prepared a salad. We hired a domestic worker for cleaning. I don’t know if
it was typical male mindset, like, you know, “I already work outside”.
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Middle-class women may have the chance to get help for domestic labor,
however, as accounts of İdil and Robin show, responsibilities of childcare, cooking, and
small-scale cleaning are still on them.
Yaprak was a 27-year-old high school dropout who had divorced not too long ago.
She had two children but did not have their custody and has been trying to it back. I met
her at the headquarters of the trade union in City D. She had asked for financial help from
the union before and I had a personal contact who had connections with those working
there; that’s how we heard of each other and came together for an interview. Yaprak had
also eloped with now her ex-husband to get married when she was 18, since both of their
families did not let them marry, saying that they were too young. At first, they lived in a
separate house from her husband’s family. However, Yaprak, pregnant with her first
child, moved into her in-law’s house in the fourth month of their marriage, after her
husband went into the service. Yaprak’s account shows that when a woman does not fulfill
the domestic duties expected of her, she may be severely criticized.
Yaprak: I was pregnant with my first child then. Oh, the insults.... You must
go to work, you have to send money to your husband –they did not send
money to him. (…) When your husband is not around, you are scorned. (…)
They found a fault in everything I did. They said things like “You are not a
woman”.
Q: What did they mean by saying “You are not a woman?”
Yaprak: You are not a woman in their eyes. Like, you cannot take care of
your children, your home. If your son [her husband] brought money, I would
stay at home, I would cook. I went home every evening, I looked after my
child, I cooked. Their son made mistakes, but they always found me as the
one with fault. If debts were not paid, they put it on my shoulders. I did
everything on my child’s birthday, on special occasions, I found a better
school for my child. If I were a bad mother, why would I do that? I worked
for my children. If I could not buy anything for my children because of that
man [her ex-husband], was this my fault?
During interviews, I realized that women resented their ex-husbands if they did
not work or bring home money the “head of the family”. As explained in Chapter 3,
sustaining a family is an acceptable way for men to obtain authority and a prestigious
status in society and, accordingly, an acceptable way to construct masculinity. However,
because masculinity is a status which must be constantly earned (Kandiyoti, 1987), the
privilege coming from being the head of a family can be quite fragile (Yıldırım, 2017). A
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husband who refuses to work or who cannot support his family can be perceived as a man
who does not fulfill his one and only responsibility.
For Suna, absent parents had a role in her decision-making process to marry. Suna
was a 39-year-old high school graduate. She worked as a security employee in City D. I
visited to her workplace to meet her. She got married when she was 19, had a child from
that marriage, and divorced 12 years ago. Suna’s parents got a divorce when she was
little, and she was practically raised by her older siblings. When she was 17, she took both
the university entrance exam and the civil service exam and passed both. However, she
could not afford her education expenses. She waited for an assignment as a civil servant,
but it did not happen. As a last resort, she got married. It was an arranged marriage.
Suna’s husband objected to her working outside home; therefore, she was the one
who took care of the domestic responsibilities. He, however, quit his job while their
daughter was only 6 months. After that, he could not hold down a regular job throughout
their 7-year marriage and did not share the domestic responsibilities either. During the
first six months of his unemployment, they lived on the money they got in exchange of
the jewelries from their wedding, which Suna was planning to use to buy an apartment
for her daughter. After the savings run out, their financial situation went worse.
Throughout our interview, Suna mentioned many financial problems she had to face
during their marriage. They had to move many times because of their rental debts. Suna’s
older brother and her ex-husband’s family helped them with supplies. What she
complained most about was that her ex-husband shirked his duties as a provider. She
described her marriage simply as “constant poverty.” Moreover, even though she wanted
to work to “look after her daughter above all”, her ex-husband did not allow her. In Suna’s
words, the possible explanation of his objection might be “his jealousy.” When Suna
argued with him about his choice to stay unemployed, her ex-husband said, “What can
you do? You don’t have a mother or father, you have a child, where could you go?”. That
moment, in Suna’s words, was “like a milestone for me. I can’t say that I decided to
divorce at that moment, no, but marriage was over for me.” This confidence of men in
not being the one to be abandoned was mentioned in other women’s accounts as well.
Throughout their marriage, Sevgi’s ex-husband was abroad. However, he refused
to divorce Sevgi for a long time while he did not even call her or his children nor did he
support them economically. During his rare visits, he forced Sevgi to quit her job. This
came up when Sevgi mentioned that she could not even go out of the house for fear of
landlord because of her debts:
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Q: Didn’t you work? Wasn’t the money you earned sufficient to make a
living?
Sevgi: When he came here, he told me, “You won’t work”. I was working
at a hospital then, he made me quit my job. Okay, I won’t work, but I don’t
have any income. You don’t take care of me. What else can I do other than
work? I worked at many different jobs. I earned 60-65 TL a week, just so
that my children did not go hungry.
While Suna’s and Sevgi’s ex-husbands did not allow them to work, three women–
Pınar, Robin, and Zehra–were forced to work harder to pay off loans and debts.
Pınar described her marriage as “a result of manipulation efforts and daddy
issues”. Her ex-husband was 20 years older than her, and she was only 21. Pınar was a
34-year-old academic, residing in City E, a relatively small city. I knew her from feminist
circles, and we had the interview on Zoom for 1.5 hours. She had a 9-year-old child from
her marriage. She got divorced 8 years ago.
Q: Did he share the domestic responsibilities?
Pınar: He only cooked twice a week. Because he forced me to give night
lectures. He said, “We have to pay the mortgage, you will go to night
lectures.” My daughter was a 6-month-old at that time. I went to school
both day and night.
Zehra was 48 years old and worked as a janitor in City D. She had a grown-up son
from her marriage. We met at her workplace and our interview lasted 45 minutes. The
reason why Zehra chose to get married with her now ex-husband was because she liked
his family, who were her neighbors. Even though she had second thoughts about marrying
her fiancé, she could not break up with him because, in her words, “There was no such
thing as breaking up at that time. Even breaking up with your fiancée was considered
shameful.” Being forced to work harder had become one of reasons for Zehra to make the
decision to get divorced. Even though she worked before and during her marriage, the
responsibility of domestic works was also on her.
Zehra: After we had a child, of course, responsibilities were on me,
childcare, domestic work, at the same time I was working. Her mother came
to help for childcare, she lived with us. I did not have any problem with her.
(…) My only inner struggle was that I worked but didn’t have economic
freedom. I couldn’t spend what I earned freely, you see? I know some
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women may swallow this, but I fought for it. If I’m working, I should have
the freedom to spend my money however I want.
Q: Were you saving money?
Zehra: He invested in real estate. I did not approve it that much. He talked
to me in a disrespectful way. After a while, I started to pull away from him.
“You will work, you have to work, I won’t allow you to live with me if you
don’t work,” he said that kind of things. (…) We had our first big fight
because he threatened me with sending me back to my father’s home
because I did not work 2 hours of overtime.
Robin quit her job for a while because she wanted to get a master’s in her field of
study after a traumatic experience she had.
Robin: I decided to get a Master’s and had to quit my job to do it. But my
severance pay was high enough. I translated a book. I kept seeing clients,
working for the school where I used to be employed. I mean, I brought home
lots of money. But Sinan [her ex-husband] told me, “I don’t have to take
care of you, go find a job.” (…) In fact, we kept paying debts throughout
our marriage. Debt for his passion for cars. He changed his car every two
years. (…) I could not fulfill my own wishes for a long time. While I was
doing my Master’s, I lied to go to trainings. I said, “The university says it’s
mandatory.” Because he did not take care of the child. I did not have anyone
around me to whom I could leave my son. He used Mert [her son] against
me in this sense. I mean, how does a person not want to spend time with his
own child? It was not because he’s unable to do it, he did not want to do it.
He did not want to bother himself. He wanted me to be at home when he
came home, he wanted to see his meal was ready.
Women’s accounts reveal that they had difficulties to reconciliate between paid
and unpaid work. Even though they worked during marriage, they were also expected to
fulfill domestic responsibilities. The lack of free childcare services led women to develop
different strategies to find a way to continue working. For most of the interviewees,
working was not an option which they happened to choose, but an obligation to survive.
In the case of voluntary interruptions in paid work, as in the case of Robin, the woman
may be judged because of the fact that she does not work anymore. However, their exhusbands’
were never judged when they did not share domestic responsibilities. In case
of divorce, not having a regular job with a social security is an important factor in the
decision of awarding alimony. As discussed later in this chapter, only two interviewees
were awarded alimony even though most of them did not have a regular job. With child
custody, the responsibility of childcare could cause problems in terms of their careers if
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they could not get any help from family members or any of the essential public services
for childcare.
4.2 Domestic Violence: In Different Forms but Prevalent147
I included questions regarding domestic violence in marriage not just to
understand how often it occurs but also to see whether women know the legislations on
prevention of violence against women and what kind of experiences they had when they
contacted the police or sought legal remedies. However, in most cases, before I even
asked the question, women told me about their experiences by themselves. This goes to
show how women’s marital lives are intertwined with violence. In some cases, upon my
question on violence, with an emphasis on its various forms including economic, sexual,
physical, psychological, and physical, interviewees recalled experiences which they did
not consider as violence in the marriage. Saying “violence” may be misleading because
it usually evokes physical violence.
Nevin had been cheated on many times throughout her marriage. After they
married, Nevin’s now ex-husband found a job in a small business; however, what he
earned was not enough to live on. Nevin inherited some money from his father after his
death in the sixth month of her marriage. When her husband decided to start a business,
Nevin offered that money to him, thinking that it would guarantee her son’s future. So,
they set up a café. When I asked her if the café’s ownership belonged to her ex-husband,
she nodded. She first realized that she first found out about her husband’s infidelity at that
café during her regular visits. Upon her reaction, she was subjected to physical violence.
This became almost like a pattern: cheating and physical violence gradually increased
and psychological violence followed.
Nevin: He did the same thing to me twice. The first time, I left him for a
month or so, and he forced me to go back home, hitting my back, I cannot
forget that. I was pregnant. You know, verbal bullying at first, then he hit
me because I did not want to go. I was fooled you know, I told you, he was
like, “I love you, I cannot do without you, will our child grow up with
separated parents?” (…) That second time, I stayed with my mom for 8
months, then we made up.
Q: Did you go back because you were scared?
147 For the statistical data on violence against women and ineffectiveness of law enforcement forces
in detail, please see Chapter 3, the section titled “Male Self-Victimization as a Tool for Justification of
Violence”.
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Nevin: I had a brother; he was still young and ignorant. I did not want this
dispute to get bigger. I was also emotional, I still loved him, he could trick
me. My brother was so young, I did not want them to have a fight.
Q: Where did he find that rifle?
Nevin: It was my father’s. We kept it at home. (…) After I found out that he
was cheating on me, I got more and more jealous and uneasy. We had
arguments. But at some point, he started to beat me. I was beaten at the
workplace, in public. I ended up in the police station, at the hospital. But I
had nothing.
Q: What happened when you went to the police station?
Nevin: I went to the hospital to get a medical report for being beaten. There,
police asked me why, then they took us to the station. I filed a complaint. I
don’t know if it’s true, but they said that he was in custody for one night.
Q: Did he get out because you withdrew your complaint?
Nevin: No, I did not withdraw my complaint that time. I guess the police
found a middle way in their own way. He knew the police; the station was
near our workplace.
Q: Did you get a restraining order?
Nevin: No. He beat me because I didn’t want to make up. (…) Consecutive
cheatings, troubles, beatings… He blocked my way, he fought with me,
followed me and shoved me in his car to beat me. I was beaten in the
workplace constantly. (…) If I told my family one incident, I couldn’t tell
nine of them. I was scared.
Q: Why were you scared?
Nevin: I was scared that my family would do something to him. I was living
with my family, but I didn’t want to harm their dignity. Because I was
wrong, I did not want them to tell me that I did this to myself. I was so fed
up.
What Nevin’s ex-husband actually expected from her was the unquestioned
obedience, because he did not even consider cease all the beating, cheating, and grief.
Nevin left him because of his actions, but her ex-husband resorted to violence against her
because she did not want to make up and accept his domination as it is. As mentioned
before, male members of women’s natal families had various effects on women’s
decision-making process. In the case of Nevin, keeping her brother from out of trouble
was one reason for her to keep her silence. Another reason was that her feeling of shame
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because she eloped, she was the one who choose her ex-husband as opposed to her family.
Nevin’s story also provides an insight into the attitude of the police about violence against
women.
The same pattern in which the police remain insensitive and ineffective about
violence against women also appears in Yaprak’s experiences:
Yaprak: He didn’t want to divorce. He started quarrels during hearings. I
kept escaping from backdoor of courthouse, I always escaped from him.
Q: Did he threaten you or attack you?
Yaprak: He did it all. He did it in front of the police. He came to kill me
when the police were next to me. He said to them “I will kill her”. The police
witnessed that. Earlier that day, he broke my arm, I was in the police station,
I went out to go back home, and he came to kill me.
Q: Was there a restraining order?
Yaprak: Yes, in spite of that, he came to kill me. Everything is in our [case]
files.
This was not the first time that Yaprak was beaten in front of the police. At that
time, she was still living with her family-in-law. When she decided to stay with her family
because of the unbearable maltreatment in that house, her family-in-law members beat
her, and took her child away to prevent her from leaving. She called the police, tried to
tell them about the problem.
Yaprak: You know what, the police actually take their side. Because they
were a big, powerful family, the police know them and beware of them.
They said that they did not do anything wrong. They told me that I was
insane. Nothing happened. (…) He beat me a lot. He broke my arm, my
nose. I lost my ability to hear on my right ear. When I went to the doctor, he
asked me how I broke my nose. They said to the doctor, “She banged into a
door”.148
148 I heard the excuse “She banged into a door” twice in the interviews. As seen in Chapter 3, Hasan who
was imprisoned for 16 months and 7 days because of domestic violence, explained that his ex-wife “banged
into a door”. It seems that making domestic violence against women look like an accident is common.
According to the research of Şefkat-Der based in Konya, Turkey with women who are violence victims
living in a Women’s Shelter shows that “banging into a door” is a common excuse claimed by men in
domestic violence cases. For more information, Cumhuriyet (2011, December 9). Kadın döven erkeklerin
bahaneleri hazır! Accessed January 27, 2021, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/kadin-dovenerkeklerin-
bahaneleri-hazir-304268. A PhD research on violence victims in Women’s Shelters also shows
the similar results. For more information, Cumhuriyet (2011, August 17). Şiddeti Uygulayan Değil, Gören
Utanıyor. Accessed January 27, 2021, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siddeti-uygulayan-degilgoren-
utaniyor-275052.
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Women who were exposed to physical violence and made a complaint to the police
had a shared disappointment and belief that the police actually takes the man’s side. Their
witnessing the ineffectiveness of the mechanisms that should provide protection for
women seems to keep them away from pursuing their legal rights, because, according to
their accounts, neither Nevin nor Yaprak did not try to make any complaint to the police
again.
Another form of violence that manifested itself in women’s accounts was
psychological violence. After repeated physical violence, cheating, and being unable to
convince anyone, Nevin was on the brick of suicide:
Nevin: My husband was a shameless person. He slept with another person,
then he came to me to sleep with me. Sometimes he told me what he did
with other women. Everything was so terrible. We had my father’s rifle at
home. One day, we argued again, he beat me. I ran to the bedroom, locked
the door, I put the rifle right here (beneath her chin). But I couldn’t, I
couldn’t manage to fire it. If I could have, I would have killed myself. My
mental health was that bad at that time.
Gaslighting is defined as a form of emotional abuse and psychological manipulation
causing the targeted individual question their sanity and judgment. It is considered as a
form of psychological violence. Sweet (2019) argues that gaslighting is a sociological
rather than psychological phenomenon. It should be considered as embedded in social
inequalities, including gender, and it is performed in power-laden intimate relationships.
According to Nevin’s account, her ex-husband’s answer to her questions about infidelity
was “I did not do it”, but then, he told what he did with other women to her. Besides,
Nevin could not make her ex-mother-in-law about his infidelities. At some point, Nevin
started to suspect her own sanity, she started to wonder if she was delusional. Pınar had
described her decision to marry as a result of manipulation before. She was exposed to
gaslighting as well.
Q: I include all kinds of violence, such as physical, psychological, sexual,
and economic. Were you ever subjected to any kind of violence in marriage?
Pınar: I was subjected to almost all of them. It started with psychological
violence and it reached abnormal levels. Sometimes, he would not talk to
me for days, he didn’t even look at my face while at home. (…) I was also
subjected to sexual violence. He didn’t dare to do the other one, physical
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one. He tried once or twice but he couldn’t beat me because I am somewhat
burly. Besides, physical violence leaves marks on your body, and I was in
an academic environment. So, he resorted to all kinds of violence that he
knows that I could not prove. In every sense.
According to her account, Pınar found excuses for her ex-husband’s behaviors.
Pınar and her ex-husband was both educated people with their own incomes. However,
Pınar was still subjected to violence in her marriage. As mentioned before, Pateman
(1988) argues that women who earn as much as men and who belong to a higher class
can have the change to set the terms of marriage contact, that gives the husband the
“power of slave-owner”. But Pınar’s account requires reconsidering Pateman’s argument.
She earned more than her ex-husband and she was an academic while her ex-husband
was a teacher (that is, professionally, she was in a higher position than her ex-husband),
yet she was subjected to violence in various forms that are invisible to others.
While she related how she decided to divorce, she said, “But I had been subjected to
every kind of violence until that day. However, I didn’t know that it was called violence
then, I was so ignorant.”
Q: How did you consider that at that time, do you remember?
Pınar: I didn’t experience mutual love was when I was growing up. So, I
always thought that I had to work hard to win someone’s affection.
Therefore, I thought, “Yes, he loves me, but I must have done something
wrong”. (…) He was a clever man; he saw my deficiency in this regard, and
he manipulated me. On time, I had set the table, a perfect table–and I
worked, I had a child at the same time. He looked over and said, “There is
no saltshaker on this table”. I felt terribly sorry, and I went to bring salt. I
felt an overwhelming fear and pressure, so I thought that this kind of things
was perfectly normal, and I blamed myself, saying “How could you forget
to bring salt?”.
Pınar’s account reveals how she blamed herself on a daily basis in her marriage
even for the smallest things such as not bringing saltshaker. She then did not realize that
this was a way of manipulation imposed on her by her ex-husband, according to her, it
was because she did not grow up in a family in which mutual love was available and she
did not know how to recognize difference between love and manipulation. The
normalization of “fear and pressure” in romantic, familial, or social relationships
accompanied with self-blaming and guilt feeling can be seen in other women’s accounts
as well.
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The accounts on how women dealt with various forms of violence in their marriages
or in divorce and postdivorce process reveals the lack of awareness on the relevant legal
regulation which prevents domestic violence, namely Law No. 6284. For Robin, her exhusband
did not perpetrate violence against her, but against the child. It occurred in the
form of physical, psychological, and verbal violence.
Q: Had you heard of Law No. 6284 and thought about issuing a restraining
order?
Robin: No. Maybe it was because of my psychological state, I couldn’t pull
away my son from that violence. Taking any legal step didn’t occur to me.
In fact, that kind of abuse is quite subtle. I knew that I would leave that home
one day, I would take my child and leave. But I didn’t think of taking legal
steps. Even during the divorce process, I tried to do it in a peaceful way.
Because my son needs a father. (…) At some point, I was so desperate that
I added antidepressants to his meals. Then, of course, I felt guilty and
thought that it was unethical, professionally, so I stopped doing that. I
confessed to it later. But he left me without a way out, and I couldn’t think
of anything else. I thought maybe he would become more mild-mannered
toward our child.
Robin’s account shows that she did not take any legal steps to protect herself and her
child from her ex-husband. The only reason of this is not that she did not aware of the
existing legal rights, but she did not even think about taking any legal steps because the
marriage process consumed her psychologically as well as she because she felt that doing
so could damage the relationship between her ex-husband and her son in the process.
Moreover, even during the divorce process, Robin primarily concerned about keeping
things in a peaceful way.
According to the definition by European Institute for Gender Equality, economic
violence is “any act or behavior which causes economic harm to an individual. Economic
violence can take the form of, for example, property damage, restricting access to
financial resources, education or the labor market, or not complying with economic
responsibilities, such as alimony”.149 Until now, economic violence emerged many times
in women’s accounts under different questions. What Suna experienced when her
husband refused to work but did not allow her either was economic violence, for instance.
When Zehra could not spend her hard-earned money as she desired, since her husband
149 European Institute for Gender Equality. “economic violence”. Accessed December 25, 2020,
https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1096
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invested in real estate, she was actually exposed to economic violence. As discussed later,
not paying alimony is another form of economic violence and, at this point, it must be
emphasized that what the state does by bringing limitation of alimony into public agenda,
without any regulation improving women’s status in society in terms of access to
education, employment, and free care services, is also economic violence against women.
Interviews revealed that even in cases where the men were not the only money
holders, economic violence still emerged. The similarity in Pınar’s and İdil’s accounts is
notable. Both women are well-educated. Pınar earned more than her ex-husband, and even
though İdil did not know how much her ex-husband earned because he did not share this
information, she assumed that she earned as much as he did. However, in both cases, their
ex-husbands took their debit cards and gave them pocket money.
Q: Had he put pressure on you economically?
Pınar: He took my debit card. His excuse was, “I bought a house that we can
live in together, I pay loans”. (…) He said, “You cannot make payments,
but I can, I will give you some pocket money.” I had like 50 or 100 TL in
my pocket.
Q: So, you did not determine the amount of “pocket money” that you
needed?
Pınar: Of course not, he determined it. Besides, I always earned more than
he did. For instance, I wanted to buy something for myself every 2-3 months,
but I could have never bought anything for myself.
İdil narrated her marriage and divorce process very briefly. She described the way
leading to divorce for her was “the end of mutual love.” However, when I asked her if
she was subjected to economic violence, she suddenly remembered her experiences, and
she changed her mind, saying that what she experienced was a significant factor in her
decision to divorce:
İdil: Throughout marriage, we had problems when it came to sharing
financial income. He took my debit card and he used it himself. (…) He paid
bills, other things with that money. He did not let me take care of anything
financial. I accepted this throughout our marriage, but I now understand that
it was a mistake. (…) He gave me pocket money.
Q: Did you determine the amount of “pocket money” that you needed?
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İdil: Of course not. He just gave the amount he wished. (…) I always said,
“Please, at least give my card back. Leave 300-500 TL in the account or
leave some money inside a book on the bookcase for states of emergency”.
Besides, I earned that money. I didn’t see what I earned for years. I saw it
on the payroll, that’s how I knew how much I earned that month. (…) It
seems to me that he thought, “You don’t understand finances, you go work
and give your money to me, I will pay rent, bills, other things with that.”
When it comes to him, everything is permitted, but when I wanted to buy
something, we were always in debt.
Both examples of Pınar and İdil reflect not only economic violence that they were
subjected to, but also how male power and hegemony is produced and maintained in
marriage. While their ex-husbands controlled how women spent money which they
earned, they refused to be controlled by women, to even share amounts of their incomes.
Kader and her now ex-husband moved to their own place after 5 years living together
with his family. She related that they had a happy marriage without violence for 10 years,
until she caught her husband cheating on her.
Kader: He regretted it lot, he made an effort to redeem himself. I forgave
him, I had to. (…) 3 or 4 years later, he cheated on me again. He was
drinking. He drank more and more over years, he started to drink every day.
I didn’t want him to drink. We had arguments when he came home drunk.
He finally resorted to violence, beat me. In the last years, he committed
violence more frequently, because he became an alcoholic. I couldn’t
recognize him when he was drunk.
Q: Did he ever resort to violence towards your children?
Kader: No, he didn’t raise his hand to children, not even once. But my
daughter witnessed our fights, the violence to which he subjected me.
Adultery is defined as a binding reason to resolve conjugal union in Civil Code.
Nevin, Kader, and Sevgi were cheated on by their ex-husbands while they were married.
One common point in their accounts was interesting: The man’s natal family tries to cast
a veil over his adultery. In Nevin’s case, her mother-in-law insistently refused to accept
her son’s successive infidelities and being discredited almost led Nevin to lose her
reasoning. In Sevgi’s case, her ex-husband started a new life in another country, and had
a child, but his natal family stayed silent and took his side against Sevgi. In Kader’s case,
her ex-husband had a long-term girlfriend, and his family accommodated them in their
own home. None of these women’s divorce cases included adultery as a reason for
divorce, but only irreconcilable differences were presented as the reason. The family
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tolerated man’s adultery, implying the flexibility of “morality” when it comes to men.
The same family threatened the woman if she decided to remarry, as in the cases of Kader
and Sevgi claiming that what those women did was immoral. Considering this “privilege”
of the man in adultery in particular with the concept of “honor” (that manifests itself as
control over female sexuality, “linking female sexual purity to male honor” (Kandiyoti,
1987: 334)), this double standard of sexuality of women and men reveals the support
mechanism nurturing men’s hegemony and power in familial and social relations. While
“men flaunt their masculine prowess, men are intensely preoccupied with possible loss of
sexual identity” (Kandiyoti, 1987: 327), female sexuality is firmly controlled by family,
society, and even women themselves. When Sevgi and Kader were not married to these
men anymore, they were still expected to be “sexually pure” and not to marry another
man so as to “protect” honor of their former in-laws and ex-husbands. The fact that
women did not include their ex-husbands’ adultery into their divorce cases may indicate
that women also may normalize and swallow men’s infidelities as “masculine prowess”
just as men’s natal families and society.
Among the interviewees, only Yaprak and Nevin reported domestic violence to
the police, and they could not get any sufficient results. In fact, Yaprak was subjected to
violence in front of the police. As seen in the accounts of women, even though it seems
that violence changed form according to the socioeconomic class, it was always present
in the marriage. As middle-class women were subjected to psychological, economic, or
sexual forms of violence, physical violence is more common in lower class women’s
lives. Maybe the underlying reason is that “physical violence leaves marks on your body”,
as Pınar said, and the social circles of these couples do not tolerate “visible violence”.
Still, a generalization does not seem possible at this point, because physical violence is
also true for middle- or upper-class women. This prevalence of various forms of violence
demonstrates the importance of legislations on preventing violence against women, such
as the Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284. Moreover, naming economic, sexual, and
psychological violence as violence still seems foreign for women, and this must be
evaluated together with cultural and social doctrines on marital roles, gender equality,
and toleration of male violence.
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4.3 Divorce: The Last Straw, Threats, Bargains, and “Tricks”
According to the data in the TBNA Report 2014, women are the party who mostly
demand divorce. The top five reasons for women to divorce are violence, bad habits,
adultery, emotional relationship, and economic problems. As discussed in Chapter 2, the
report states that men tend to avoid paying alimony, hide their marital property, or register
the property under somebody else’s name before divorce. Violence is also noted as a
factor that “creates ground for divorce and that can appear upon making the decision” (p.
107). What I learned from our interviews with women was coherent with the data in
TBNA 2014. All women I interviewed were the party who decided to divorce. It was not
a sudden decision for none of them. Women waited patiently for their own reasons,
particularly for their children. Their first concerns could have been maintaining their
family in spite of everything they suffered, but when everything became unbearable, they
made this hard decision.
Until now, this chapter showed how women’s choices in life regarding marriage
is commonly affected by the patriarchal structure of society, providing very limited,
unequal opportunities for women in terms of their own bodies, choices, and lives.
Moreover, how women are still perceived and perceive themselves as the primary
caregivers has been quite clear. Now, this chapter turns to the heart of alimony debates:
decision to divorce, common conflicts in divorce process, financial consequences, and
women’s new lives after divorce.
4.3.2 The Last Straw: Decision of Divorce
The interview question seemed easy: “How did you decide to divorce?” But answers
were long and complicated. One common point in their accounts is that when they let
their now ex-husbands know that they wanted to divorce, the first reaction they received
from men was shock and denial. Each woman clearly remembered the final straw and the
path leading them to that point. This difference is also visible in this research. During the
interviews with men, their focus tended to be on the divorce and its aftermath.
The shock and denial of men were prevalently followed by threats. Most of the
interviewees heard threats at least once from their husbands during the litigation process.
Only four interviewees, all middle-class women, did not receive death threats. Only two
women remarried, and they received death threats when it was heard that they were going
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to marry. Threats came not only from their ex-husbands but also from their families-inlaw.
When I met with Sevgi first, we were having coffee with several divorced women
in the yard of their workplace. We were talking about my research topic. Sevgi smiled
and said, “You know what, I remember the day in the courthouse very clearly. I was
waiting for my turn, there was a list of names on something like a signboard, you know.
I realized how many divorce cases are waiting to be tried. I felt a huge relief. I said to
myself, ‘I am not the only one”. I asked her to elaborate and, even though she did not say
it directly, I understood that the fear of “being the only one” was about “being a failure”.
Arıkan (1992) emphasizes that divorced women are perceived as being unable to keep
hold of their husbands by the society. This may be another reason why women cannot
make the decision to divorce easily.
Sevgi decided to divorce twice. She kept waiting her ex-husband to change
because whenever he visited her in Turkey, he promised her that he would. Sevgi said
that her husband claimed getting ill or going to jail whenever she found a chance to
question him about why he treated her and their children in that way. In other words, he
used illness as a source of victimization to be forgiven. When she decided to divorce first,
their relatives and friends intervened, and Sevgi stepped back. At her first attempt, her
ex-husband promised her that he would change and asked for another chance:
Sevgi: I told everyone what he did to me, he said, “whatever she says, she’s
right.” He told me, “I promise that I will change, give me another chance.”
I told him, “Come back to Turkey, we will let bygones be bygones, as if you
had never gone abroad. Let’s take care of our children and work here
together.” He said, “No. I stay abroad for a year, then I will come back. I
will send you money every month.” He went and… The same old, same old.
Kader followed his ex-husband when he was away for work. She felt that he was
cheating on her again, and she turned out to be right. Upon that, she refused to see him
for three months, but then, she decided to forgive him for the sake of their children.
Kader: I forgave him for my children, they were too young. My younger
child was only 4 years old. I was unable to work. I wasn’t shrewd. I did not
have the self-confidence, honestly, I was just a housewife, I had never
worked before. After I forgave him, he did not change a bit. He started to
see that woman again. (…) I was so alone. My kids could not see their
fathers on Father’s Day. They couldn’t share their joy with their father when
they got their report cards. I moved house by myself; I did everything alone.
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I was sick of that life; I couldn’t bare it anymore. I told him that I would
divorce. He couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen him for a whole month, and he
sent me 1,000 TL. I took that money and went to the courthouse to file a
divorce case. He could not believe that I filed the case. (…) I had started
working at that time. My family supported me; we started a small business
with a partner. I had gained confidence, felt much better when I started
working. I said, “I won’t back down”.
As seen in Kader’s and Sevgi’s accounts, “offering money” seems to be a way to
delay the divorce or even save the marriage. I have heard from some interviewees that
after they declared their decision to divorce, particularly because of financial problems,
men’s most common first reaction was to offer money. Some male interviewees also
mentioned that they had gave money when they heard that their ex-husbands wanted to
divorce in Chapter 3. Of course, this is not an offering which openly says, “Take this
money and stay with me”. This may imply that men’s commonly accepted role as
providers may create a self-perception closely related to financial resources. Hence, in
case of conflicts such as divorce, they may rely upon their financial power instead of
thinking their problems over and attempting to develop affiliation and mutual
understanding in order to solve them as fast as possible.
Suna’s main problem in her marriage was poverty. After 6 years, Suna decided to
look for a job. When Suna’s sister-in-law let her know about a training program to become
a security employee, Suna decided to apply in order to find a job with social security. At
that time, her husband had gone abroad to work. At a recess during the training, a young
girl who worked as a tea-maker there told her and her classmates, “Is there anyone you
know who want to work here as a tea-maker? I have to quit my job because my husband
doesn’t let me work.” Ironically, one woman who quit her job on her husband’s request
paved the way for another woman to find a job. Suna immediately offered herself as a
candidate. She insisted to get the job and started to work after her training was completed.
Suna: I worked there for one and a half year. My neighbor took care of my
daughter. It was the end of my first week, when he [her ex-husband] learned
about it, quit his job, and returned home. He said, “You won’t work”. I said,
“I will”. I had run out of my patience. I said, “I want to buy milk for my
child, I don’t want to expect anyone else to provide it.” He said, “Okay, I
will work”, but he didn’t. Even when he tried, he didn’t stay employed even
for a month and thus couldn’t get his money. In the morning, I woke up, got
myself and my daughter ready, and head to the door. He stood in front of
the door, saying, “You cannot go.” We had a little argument. I said okay,
then I took my child and went to the bedroom. The apartment was on the
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ground floor. I opened the window and jumped down with the child. I
escaped to go to work. He ran after me. Before I managed to reach the bus
stop, he caught me and pulled me by my arm, and I fell. The neighbor
looking after my daughter when I was at work saw what happened and called
my older brother. They knew my brother; he frequently visited us, brought
supplies for us. Thank God, my brother was in another city at that time. They
called the police. Police asked what’s wrong, and I told them, I said “I want
to work.” I was crying. “I want to work, I want to buy milk for my daughter.
Go to that house, go and see it with your own eyes. Go in and see how we
live.” Police said, “Let the woman work, what do you want from her?” So,
I went to work, and we separated on that day. Sure, there were some conflicts
to stop us divorcing. But it was the last straw. My family came and picked
my stuff up from home. Then elders of the families tried to mediate to get
us together again, but it didn’t work.
After the decision to divorce, Suna’s husband couldn’t accept it for a while and,
until divorce case ended, he tried different ways to reach her:
Suna: My husband once appeared at my workplace, out of the blue, furious.
I was working, and he believed that I wanted to break up with him because
of that. (…) I didn’t see it in person, I was busy. As my colleagues told, he
shouted, “Give my wife back!”. Like they forced me to work. He attacked
one colleague and he got beaten. My older brother talked to his [her exhusband]
father and said, “If he goes too far, we will too.” (…) He
constantly called me on the phone after I filed a divorce case. He knew that
I was keen on my daughter, he said things like “I will kidnap that child, I
will give her to another family, neither you nor I will see her”. I heard stuff
like this a lot. I heard a lot, I was exhausted. He was calling my workplace,
and harassing people working there. I didn’t answer his calls and I changed
my number many times, but he managed to find that new number every
time. Once, he called me to say, “I met someone from your workplace.
You have a relationship with your director. You are very close they say.”
Suna’s husband looked for reasons leading Suna to decide to divorce outside their
marriage. This seems a common assumption among men, as also discussed in Chapter 3.
Additionally, as shown in the TBNA Report 2014, “inner circle” is placed on the top
among main reasons for divorce for men, which suggests that external effects on women
in their decision to divorce are a prevalent assumption among men.
Nevin’s last straw was related to her husband’s never-ending affairs and violence.
She did not immediately file for divorce but waited for 4 or 5 years and stayed with her
mother in the meantime. She explained, “I could not file a divorce case, I couldn’t pull
myself together, I was not psychologically ready.” One day, she and her family went to
the school for his son’s reading festival. She said, “My mother never left me alone. She
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was scared that he would come and beat me.” They met eyes at the school gates and her
husband wanted to talk to her. On families’ request, Nevin accepted it, and together they
went to a nearby park.
Nevin: He told me, “We have to make up; we cannot break up.” I said, “I
don’t want it anymore.” When I left home, my son was 2 years old. At that
time when we made had that conversation, he was 6 or 7. When I said that
I did not want to go back to him, he told me, “If you break up with me, I
will kill you”. I was in such a bad mental state. I said, “Will you kill me?
Don’t bother, I will kill myself”. All of a sudden, I dashed to the main
street from the park. I wanted a car to hit me. I wanted to die. Then I had a
nervous breakdown, they took me to the hospital. My younger brother was
a grown-up man then. He said to my mother-in-law, “If I see your son
around my sister again, if I see that he tries to harm her, I will get even
with him, one of us would be dead.” Upon that, my mother-in-law was
scared, and tried to restrain her son. After that incident in the park, I
decided to file a case. But it lasted 2 or 3 years because he did not want to
divorce.
There is a common thread in the accounts of Suna and Nevin: the intervention in
the form of a threat from a male member of their natal families. The powerful effects of
male members of the woman’s natal family may sometimes provide protection for them.
This was one prevalent pattern I encountered during the interviews. However, this
protection may also bring strict restrictions, as discussed later.
Pınar’s last straw made her laugh when we talked about the starting point of her
divorce process. While her ex-husband begged her not to leave him as his first reaction
to her decision of divorce, this attitude changed in divorce and postdivorce process. Pınar
experienced an easy divorce, but her ex-husband started to make her life harder after
divorce. During the marriage, Pınar’s ex-husband resorted to psychological, sexual, and
economic violence against her. After divorce, his violent actions continued in the forms
of psychological and digital violence.
Q: What happened after you decided to divorce? What was your exhusband’s
reaction?
Pınar: I divorced because of an ashtray. I was so fed up. One day, he said,
“So you didn’t clear the ashtray? Again?” I then threw the ashtray on the
floor and said, “You will clean it yourself from now on”. I had been
subjected to all kinds of violence to that day, I was at the end of my rope.
Ashtray was only the trigger. (…) After I roared at him, saying that I was
going to get divorced, he was the best person in the world–for about 2 weeks.
He said things like, “I will never upset you; I want you to stay home”. I
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wanted to leave that house, because I knew that if I stayed, he would never
leave me alone. He said, “You stay here, you can have everything I have,
please don’t leave me. If you want to get divorced, we will get a consensual
divorce.” I was shocked that everything was going to be so easy. It’s like a
joke but we managed to make the divorce consensual. However, I later
realized that he only accepted it so that he could hide away the marital
property. (…) But you know, you unconsciously say, “enough is enough”.
If he divorced this way, he could keep the house, the car, everything. I left
home and moved to live with my mother. The only thing I took was my
clothes and my child’s clothes. Consensual divorce is so easy, it’s over in
15 minutes. But everything started a week later than divorce, and it had not
stopped for 4 years.
Q: Did he threaten or harass you?
Pınar: Every kind of thing you can imagine. He posted my photo on
Facebook and wrote “slut” on it. And there were my students following him
there. If it was only his relatives, I wouldn’t care. I am ashamed explaining
this, but I didn’t do anything to provoke him, like having a relationship with
another man. (…) We went boating with my friends, and I shared a photo
with them, that’s all. He wrote “slut” on that photo. Then, the threats started
to come. He threatened me for 4 years with everything, everyone in my life.
He told me once, “I will get to a point where you will come back to me”. I
lost the car, I had nothing left in the financial sense. I left home only with
some clothes. Then, one day, my father had a heart attack. He called me and
said, “We need to meet”, I said okay. I thought he would say something
about the child. And he told me that “Are you ready for your father’s second
heart attack?” I was going to lose my mind. A part of his family is like a
clan (aşiret). If they want to get something done, they will. I know that. He
then started to threaten me with my mother. My mother was alone at home
when I was at work. He told me, “If you don’t give me custody in one
month, I will abduct that child at all costs, you will not be able to find her”.
That was my biggest stupidity. I accepted what he wanted upon his threats,
and I gave up custody. I asked, “Do you promise that nothing will change in
her life, that she’ll stay with me?”
Pınar’s ex-husband attacked her respectability in society first. Even after he got
the child custody, he continued harassing her and Pınar finally applied to get a restraining
order through Law No. 6284. However, she had to withdraw her complaint because her
ex-husband threatened her with her daughter this time:
Q: Have you ever tried to issue a restraining order?
Pınar: Not in the marriage. He was obsessive, but he received psychological
treatment later. Besides, I didn’t know that I could apply, where to apply, I
didn’t know about legislation. I was so ignorant. I didn’t have that courage.
I was living alone at that time. I didn’t have anyone from my family here,
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not a sibling, not an older brother, it was only me. (…) I was oppressed, a
lot, for the sake of my daughter. One day… I cannot forget that pain I felt.
After he got child custody, he didn’t allow me to see my daughter for 2
months. Then my daughter called me and told me, “Mom, I miss you so
much, I want to see you.” I told her, “Dear, I want to see you too, of course,
but you have to talk to your dad.” She said, “Dad allows it.” How happy I
was. “Can you pick me up from school tomorrow?” she said. The next day,
I was so excited, like a young girl who was going on a date with her
boyfriend for the first time. All of a sudden, I got a call from him. He told
me, “Pınar, you sued me.” That was when the restraining order was issued.
He said, “Withdraw the order or you cannot see Sıla [her daughter] today.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My daughter called me while her
father was next to her, he told her that she would see her mother. He said,
“Don’t worry, I have a solution for that. I will pick her up from school today
and I will tell her, ‘Your mother and grandmother don’t love you anymore,
they don’t want to see you anymore.’” I called my lawyer, and she told me
that I could not do anything, it would be considered as kidnapping if I tried
to take her. I asked her if it was okay that I still went to my daughter’s school.
She said, “It’s okay, go and explain everything.” Until then, I had tried so
hard not to reflect all these things to Sıla. But that day, I explained
everything. She only said “Okay, mom.”. It was the moment when I felt the
most desperate.
Q: So, he did keep harassing you while there was a restraining order?
Pınar: If he couldn’t do anything, he would create a new fake account on
social media and threaten me from there. He then deactivated those
accounts. He was smart and evil, you know. He left some evidence behind,
I did not have any evidence in written. They were mostly verbal threats, how
could I prove them? Every night, I was done with my lectures and went
home in the dark. I didn’t have a car. He threatened me because I was
walking home alone in the dark. I kept calling my mother to ask her if she’s
okay. She did not know that he was threatening me with her. I was about to
go mad. I was worried all the time, worrying if there would be any news of
death, if my daughter was abducted from nursery.
Even though Pınar tried so hard to get back the custody of her daughter, she could
not do it because of her ex-husband’s “strong links”:
Pınar: He knew people in high places. His relatives are so powerful, they
have close relations with AKP. I couldn’t express myself in the court. The
case lasted for almost three years. I gave my all to that case. I moved to a
separate house from my mother, the lawyer told me that they would ask that.
Even a child psychologist presented a report saying that the daughter should
stay with her father. The lawyer told me that if we were in a big city, under
normal conditions, I would get the custody with one hearing. We had reports
on his drinking, his psychiatric treatment, but I couldn’t get the custody
back. There was nothing bad on me, I was clean. I have a good occupation,
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I have a house, I have good social circle. Sıla’s teachers made statements in
favor of me and against her father. I could not get custody back. At last, one
of my friends, a psychologist, told me, “Don’t get me wrong, but could you
just let it go? Just let it go. You have nothing left.” I then said to my exhusband,
“Okay, take the child and take care of her on your own.” I know it
is not about the child for him, it is about me.
MacKinnon (1989) criticizes so-called equality and gender-neutrality in terms of
child custody in family law. According to her, the law “which purports gender neutrality
while applying a standard of adequacy of parenting based on male-controlled resources
and male defined norms, sometimes taking children away from women but more
generally controlling women through the threat and fear of loss of their children” (p. 245).
As seen in the accounts of divorced women, this equal access to child custody and
alimony is actually a tool used by men to threaten and frighten women who want to
divorce. Moreover, Pınar’s experience shows how legal processes are open to be
manipulated through “knowing the right people in high places”. Just as the ineffectiveness
of the police in other women’s accounts, personal relationships with those who have
authority may leave legislations useless and create injustice. Using or harming the child
or the parents of the woman to hurt her seems a common pattern in women’s accounts.
Even though the ex-husband does not threaten woman with death, he tends to threaten
with the woman’s children.
Yaprak’s marriage was full of violence, perpetuated by her ex-husband and her
family-in-law; and the divorce process was not different. Yaprak’s ex-husband was a drug
addict and unemployed by choice. His bad habits caused them to get into debt many times
and Yaprak had to clear them each time. Her ex-husband’s violent attacks did not end
even after divorce.
Yaprak: He used drugs; he did not support the expenses. He was on
probation. He kept saying, “I will change, I love you.” (…) He didn’t
change, he went out every night, used drugs, gambled, and came back home.
He was deep in debt. Some men would come to our doorstep sometimes. If
I had had money to clear that debt, I would have been still married with him,
I don’t know. That was my last straw. I was sick of paying debts. (…) I
couldn’t go. For 8 years, he kept telling me, “Go to your father’s home.” He
threatened me with my father. He called my father and told him, “Come and
get your daughter.” I was mortified in front of my family because I had
eloped. I didn’t want to embarrass them again by divorcing. That’s why I
couldn’t leave him for 8 years. After I got my father’s consent, I took my
children and left, moved into my family home. My in-laws came and took
my children with a court decision. There was a one-hour distance between
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where I lived and where I worked. Because I couldn’t make it home in time,
they took away my children.
In keeping with the accounts of women and men (see. Chapter 3), it seems that
men were not aware of the internal problems leading to divorce as much as women were
during marriage. There is an expression in Turkey: “If I can’t have you, then only the
earth will” (Ya benimsin ya kara toprağın). As I listened to women describe how they
received death threats, this expression kept echoing in my mind, because it also involves
a death threat. What men feel which can be seen as a feeling of rejection can also be
considered as “a matter of honor”. The woman has the responsibility to protect her
family’s honor by properly following patriarchal social rules. When she gets married, she
becomes the keeper of her husband’s honor, and any disobedience may dishonor her
husband. As quoted from Pateman before, the law and society give the man the power of
slave-owner, in this sense, a divorce demand coming from the woman is like a “slave
rebellion”.
4.3.3 Bargains and “Tricks” at Divorce
While four divorce cases were consensual, the other six were contested. Most men
tended to prolong litigation process by not showing up in the court or declaring that they
did not want to divorce. Alimony, compensation, marital property, and child support were
important matters of negotiation. The accounts of women show that alimony and child
support led to bargains between spouses. Men were not willing to determine the alimony
amount on paper and tended to solve the “money problem” on an interpersonal level.
Moreover, because their husbands caused difficulties by not showing up for trials or by
declaring that they did not want to divorce, it seemed that women wanted to give up
alimony or other marital rights, just to finalize the divorce case as soon as possible.
Table 4.2 shows the financial results of women’s divorce cases. Because Zehra
could not remember how much the court determined the child support to be, the relevant
data is not available. Marital property is quite a controversial topic, therefore, instead of
including it in the table, I will relay women’s accounts.
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Table 4.2 The amounts of alimony and child support with status of custody
Suna: I couldn’t hire a lawyer. I didn’t have the money. I went to the lawyer
who was also employed where I worked as a tea-maker. I asked him how to
do it. He showed me how to write a petition for divorce. He said, “The state
will determine child support for your child anyway, you don’t want alimony
and compensation. You can make the application on your own, you don’t
have to pay for a lawyer to do it.” I didn’t ask for alimony or compensation,
because I heard that when you received alimony or compensation, your exhusband
didn’t want to leave you and said that he didn’t want to divorce,
and that extends the divorce process. That’s why I did not ask for it. (…) He
didn’t accept to divorce at first. He didn’t attend the hearings. I said, “I don’t
want alimony or compensation, please let’s just get divorced”. When he
heard that I did not ask for alimony or compensation, he said okay. “If you
don’t want me, I don’t want you either,” he said. He consented after he heard
that I wouldn’t ask for money. The judge asked me if I demanded alimony,
I said no. I mean, it seemed that I had the right to receive it. But judge ruled
200 TL per month for my daughter. It was 2007 or 2008.
As seen in Suna’s account, not asking for alimony may have a significant role in
accelerating the divorce process. Financial consequences of divorce for men may lead
them to avoid divorcing or to compel the other spouse to find other solutions. When she
was divorced, Suna was working as a tea-maker and she didn’t even make the minimum
wage. She lived with her family and had the custody of her child. Her husband was
unemployed during that time. Because they did not have any marital property with her
ex-husband, there was no division of property in their divorce case.
After Kader’s husband left home, convinced that he did not have a place at home
anymore, the divorce process started. However, the process was extended because he did
not show up to the hearings. Kader finally convinced him to have a consensual divorce.
Her ex-husband refused to include alimony or child support in the agreement:
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Kader: He did not show up to two hearings. I was going to receive orphan’s
pension if I divorced. I said that “I need money, let’s divorce already.” He
did not send me a penny that year.
Q: Did he not show up to the hearings to extend the divorce period?
Kader: Yes. He didn’t accept to divorce. One day, I called him, “Let’s go to
the lawyer together, make an agreement.”. The bar assigned me a lawyer.
Before going, I called him again. I still didn’t want my family to break up,
you know, my kids were too young. I told him, “If you wish to come home,
we may have breakfast as a family for the last time. Then, we’ll go to the
court.” He didn’t accept it. If he would have come, I might have forgiven
him. That day, we got divorced.
Q: Was there any agreement between you two in terms of alimony or child
support?
Kader: He didn’t want to put child support or alimony in the agreement. He
said, “You won’t ask for alimony or child support.”
Q: Did he say why?
Kader: He said, “I will give it anyway, but I don’t want to determine it on
paper, don’t add alimony or child support to the agreement.” He knows the
consequences. If he doesn’t pay, he will have to deal with the execution
office, he will go to jail. That’s why he didn’t want to determine any amount
in the agreement. He said, “Don’t ask for it, I will fulfill my duties.” I
accepted it and didn’t ask for anything. Anyway, one month later we got
divorced, I filed another case for child support. Because the lawyer told me
that “Even if you don’t ask for it now, you are entitled to file a case later.
Divorce now, then ask for child support.”
Q: How old were your children?
Kader: My youngest was 5. Do you know how much the judge assigned as
child support? 150 TL per child. 8 years ago.
Q: Do you know how much your ex-husband earned?
Kader: He worked informally, he didn’t have a regular salary, he was paid
an hourly wage. I was going to object to the amount of child support, but the
judge told me that if I had an objection, I had to go and file another case.
That means money, filing a new case would mean money. What is 150 TL
enough for? How could 150 TL be enough for a child? I was going to say to
the judge, “Is 150 TL enough for your child?” Is this justice?”. They were
little kids. They were going to school. One stationary purchase cost more
than 150 TL.
Q: Did he pay child support regularly?
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Kader: No. If he worked, he gave money children by hand. If he didn’t work,
he didn’t give anything.
Q: What was that amount he gave, in general?
Kader: Not much. 200 or 300 TL.
Pınar’s was a consensual divorce with no alimony or child support. Pınar had the
child custody for almost two years but didn’t receive child support during that time.
Moreover, they had a joint marital property, as seen in Pınar’s accounts before, and she
was forced to work harder to pay the mortgage of that property in the marriage. However,
she could not claim half of it just because she wanted to divorce as soon as possible; she
was in a situation where she would accept anything if it would accelerate the process:
Q: What happened with marital property then?
Pınar: Three lawyers reviewed it, none of them managed to understand how
he managed to hide it. He deeded the house to one of his relatives. We
couldn’t find that person. Then, that person sold the house. We didn’t
understand how all of this happened in just two weeks. The only thing I
could do was to appeal to this transaction, but I was so ignorant.
Q: Did he pay any child support during the time you had the custody?
Pınar: Sometimes he gave 300 TL, sometimes 100 TL, then he didn’t give
anything for 3 months.
Q: Did you have it written down on the agreement?
Pınar: No.
Q: Did you or he not want to write it down?
Pınar: He didn’t want it either. I wanted to end it [the divorce] right away,
that’s why I didn’t ask for anything.
Aysu was the party who decided to divorce because of her ex-husband’s adultery.
However, she did not want to be the one who filed the case, because she did not want to
be the one to explain how her parents got divorced to her daughter. Upon her request, her
husband filed the case. She had the custody, but she did not ask for alimony or child
support. Her ex-husband attempted to “do tricks” on marital property but Aysu had the
financial power to consult lawyers.
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Q: Did you receive alimony or child support?
Aysu: Never. He wasn’t working when we divorced, there wasn’t anything
to get [from him]. He was unemployed. He had in so much debt. If we tried
to do something like that, he would probably receive alimony from me. (…)
But his family supported me a lot, they deeded two real estates to him. They
asked him to give those to my daughter. (…) In that process, I was granted
usufruct over those. My daughter had the deeds. On the agreement, I
accepted that I wouldn’t file any lawsuit to ask for child support for my
daughter.
Q: Did you have any problems regarding the deeds?
Aysu: He [ex-husband] said, “I will hand these real estates over to you but
on condition that you won’t get married. If you get remarried, I will reclaim
them.” I didn’t understand at the beginning. Then I received consultation.
(…) At last, we got divorced on my own conditions, confirming that I would
keep the real estates without any condition.”
Q: Does he support your daughter? Do they have a good relationship?
Aysu: He comes to see my daughter very rarely, once or twice a month. I
cover all her expenses. My in-laws are like, “We gave you real estates, it’s
all you can get.” Her education, tuition fees, I cover them all. He never asks
if she needs anything, he doesn’t care what’s happening in her life.
İdil had a consensual divorce and got child support. When we talked about sharing
marital property, she mentioned her suspicions.
Q: Did you receive alimony or child support? Did you share your marital
property?
İdil: I received child support and we shared the property. I believe that there
was a ruse in there, but I didn’t scrutinize it.
Q: What kind of a ruse?
İdil: We had joint property. There was still mortgage on it left to be paid. I
asked for the property as a whole, I was going to clear the loan. In fact, I
wanted it to be a guarantee for my son’s future. But he thought about it and
said, “I have debts. I have rights.” Fathers can be selfish about these kinds
of things. He said, “I will put the house on the market.” After he cleared the
loan, we divided the rest of the money between us. According to him, we
shared it fifty-fifty.
Q: Did not you see the price of the house on the market?
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İdil: I believe that those papers were fake. (…) I believe that he still has the
house, it’s possible. I guess he had a rental income, he had a very laid-back
lifestyle.
Q: How did you determine the amount of child support?
İdil: I wanted to determine the amount as 1,200 TL. I told him “I will cover
his other expenses, just give me the amount that I need for paid daycare.” I
paid 1,200 TL to the babysitter at that time, my son was 15 months old. No
matter that my mother or a babysitter looked after my son, I needed that
amount for childcare. Now we raised that amount a little bit. (…) We agreed
upon the amount, we raised it by mutual consent. I still want it to be higher
but, because of his circumstances, it’s not possible to demand more for now.
Robin has also experienced consensual divorce after a 13-year marriage, ending
in 2019. When she decided to divorce, she left home and found a new place with the
support of her family. She said that all she could take from her house were her son, two
cats and porcelain plates inherited from her grandmother. Their divorce agreement
conditions were as follows:
Q: Will you receive alimony, child support, or compensation?
Robin: He bought the cat food and litter for our cats. (…) We said that he
would undertake the needs of my son, his education expenses particularly. I
cover his other needs, such as his therapy, groceries, and outfits. I worked 3
different jobs at the same time. Yet, it’s still so difficult, barely sufficient. I
worked 6 days a week. Then I came home and worked on translations to
make more money. I don’t have any time to rest. On the agreement, we
decided that he would cover education expenses of my son, and I didn’t ask
for anything more.
Q: Did you not have joint property?
Robin: No. I couldn’t save up. We couldn’t buy anything. Only the car for
me–I kept it. If he asked the car back, I would give it to him.
As seen in the accounts, in some cases, ex-couples came up with personal
solutions in consensual divorces. This, in turn, brings suspicions of “tricks”. The
contested divorces are more complicated. First of all, both parties must accept to divorce,
otherwise the courts tend to extend the cases with a hope of reconciliation. For women I
interviewed, this common approach of the courts only made it harder for them to divorce,
because their ex-husbands refused to divorce.
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When Zehra got divorced in 2000, the new Civil Code bringing gender equality
in the marriage had not yet passed. However, she received child support and took the half
of title deed of marital property.
Q: What was the amount of child support?
Zehra: I don’t remember very well. It’s been 20 years. But it was as much
as it was required at that time. At first, he didn’t want to pay it. He thought
he could just skip it. I said, “Okay, suit yourself, I will go to the execution
office”. He didn’t pay it once; he took his chance. After my application to
the execution office, he started to pay without protest. I once asked for an
increase. Because my son was 4.5 years old when we got divorced, and now
7. When my son started primary school, he wanted to go to the school where
his uncle [from his father side] worked as a teacher. My son wanted to stay
at his father’s house. At the beginning, I didn’t want to accept this, but I
eventually did, upon my son’s request. He stayed in his father on weekdays
and with me on weekends. At that point, he wanted to have the custody. I
asked why, but I knew why: not to pay child support. I told him and his
family, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay child support anymore” and I
never received child support after that.
One demand of alimony opponents, as discussed in Chapter 3, is to remove
preventive detention, which occurs when alimony or child support is not paid, to be
removed. According to them, this implementation aggrieves men. However, sometimes
preventive detention seems to be the only solution for women to receive child support
and/or alimony. As Zehra expressed, the possibility of having to deal with the execution
office made her ex-husband pay child support regularly. This was not the only example
emerged during the interviews.
Nevin is the only interviewee who received alimony for a while. The court also
awarded child support and compensation. Theirs was a contested divorce, and it lasted 2
years because her husband didn’t verbally accept to divorce during hearings.
Nevin: The judge ruled 250 TL for me as alimony and 150 TL for my son
as child support. I was not working at the time.
Q: What about the workplace for which you gave money to buy?
Nevin: He kept that. We didn’t share it. Because they knew about the
workplace in the court, they claimed pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages,
15 thousand TL in total. I was unemployed. I accepted it and we divorced.
He sent me that 400 TL as 100 TL per week, and he didn’t pay it to the bank.
He then stopped paying for a while, then hardly even gave that 100 TL. (…)
My family-in-law always saw me as the ungrateful money-grubber, whereas
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I only asked for the money that I was entitled to. I needed that money to
support myself. Okay, I didn’t pay rent, and my mother took care of the
groceries. But I had my own needs, and I gave the money to set up that
workplace. He didn’t pay compensation either. He gave alimony and child
support one week, but the other week he didn’t. One day, he left and went
abroad, he didn’t give any money. I was so angry, I took it to the execution
office. After receiving a warning from the court, he started to pay again.
Suna told a similar story. She could not receive child support judged by the court
for a long time, and she did not ask for it until she was in need. At last, she had to take it
to the execution office and her ex-husband received preventive detention:
Suna: I started working at a factory as a dishwasher. I had a herniated disc
when I was pregnant. It happened while I was carrying furniture because my
husband wasn’t around. After this dishwashing job, since I was naturally
working with water a lot, and my disc got worse. Sometimes I had to lift
heavy things. I went to the doctor and they told me that I needed to have an
operation immediately. So, I quit my job. He had never paid alimony until
that time. I called him and said that I was going to have an operation in 3
months. “At least send my daughter’s pocket money,” I said. She was in
second grade at that time. I had the operation, and it took around 1.5 months
for me to recover. I couldn’t work. I don’t care if I work as tea-maker,
dishwasher, I can clean toilets, it doesn’t matter. What is important to me is
taking care of my daughter. But it was not like that anymore, because my
body wasn’t healthy enough.
Q: Did he send money?
Suna: Of course not. I talked to my brother-in-law. I was looking for a
lawyer and found out that my neighbor’s son was one. He [ex-husband]
started to work at somewhere, they found him from his social security
information. After 3 or 4 months, they found him and put him in jail because
he didn’t pay child support. The total debt was 10 thousand TL or so. My
brother-in-law came to me and said, “Suna, this is all we could find and
collect. All we have is 7 thousand TL. We are publicly disgraced. People
can divorce but they do not go in jail because they don’t pay child support.
We cannot leave our house out of shame”. I called the lawyer, and he told
me “Don’t accept it”. I felt guilty. His family was not bad, they were good
people, they supported me. I remember the times when my brother-in-law
gave me pocket money. I accepted it [his proposal] and took the money. His
family told me, “If he doesn’t send child support, let us know and we will
force him to pay”. After he got out of jail, he paid it regularly for a couple
of months, then he stopped paying it again.
Q: Was he still paying 200 TL per month?
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Suna: Yes, still 200. I didn’t want to go and beg for it. Why would I bother
for money that I wouldn’t receive? After he stopped paying for a couple of
months, I called his family as if to complain. They pressured him and he
paid for a month. Then nothing. I called his family again. (…) At some point,
my ex-husband told her family that “What kind of relationship do you have
with her? You support her and criticize me. Am I not your son, brother?”
My sister-in-law then called me and asked me not to call them anymore.
And I didn’t.
As accounts of Nevin, Suna, and Zehra show, warnings from the court and the
possibility of preventive detention are efficient tools to ensure alimony and child support
are paid. In case of Suna, the debtor’s family had an active role in ensuring that the child
support was paid. Besides, except for İdil’s case, the amount of child support had not
increased after divorce, because to file a new case to demand increase in the amount itself
would require money.
Nevin found the power in herself to work only a long time after she got divorced.
She could not find a well-paid job with social security at first. She changed many jobs,
worked as a janitor, a babysitter. According to her account, she spent all she earned for
her son’s education and other needs. She spent 400 TL she received as alimony and child
support in total for private lessons for her son, because he was not that successful at school
after his parents’ divorce.
Nevin: One day, a notice came from the court. He wanted to terminate the
alimony. I took that notice and went to school where I worked as a janitor
at that time. I was crying, I felt so offended. Yes, I was working, I made
money, but what he did offended my feelings. Not because he wouldn’t give
me money. I gave him years, I gave him a child, what would 400 TL mean
besides those things? (…) I asked for day off to go to the court. I needed to
write a petition against his request. At that time, you needed to give 100 TL
to make someone write the petition. I didn’t want to spend that 100 TL. He
wouldn’t give me 250 TL; but I would have to spend 100 TL. On that day,
I wrote that petition together with a teacher at the school. I cried a lot, I
prayed to God, “Please God, give me a good job, so that I won’t have to
receive money from that man”. Next day, I went to a job interview first, it
was a job just like in my prayers, then I went to the courthouse and gave my
petition, I refused his request. I thought that 400 TL was mine, he earned
that money from the café we set up with the money I inherited from my
father. I didn’t see it as alimony or child support, I saw that money as my
right. After I left the courthouse, they called me from the workplace where
I went into the job interviewer that morning. I was hired. I was so happy that
I cannot express my feelings with words. At the court. I said, “I don’t want
this man’s money”, because I that was my prayer, you know. “I don’t want
alimony, but he has to give child support,” I said.
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Q: What about the amount for child support? Have you ever raised it?
Nevin: No. He didn’t pay compensation either. The judge asked if he paid
it. I said he didn’t. 15 thousand TL… After I gave up my alimony, the judge
concluded that he would pay the compensation fully. He didn’t pay alimony
or child support for a year. The judge included those in his debt and prepared
an installment plan. Now I received 650-750 per month. 150 TL of this
amount is child support. The rest is his debts to me.
Q: For how long have you received it?
Nevin: For 2 years. The café is gone now. The amount is deducted from his
salary regularly, otherwise he wouldn’t pay. I know that 150 TL is not
enough for a young man–my son is a young man now. But my ex-husband
started a new life for himself, he remarried, has a child now. He needs money
too. So, I don’t ask anymore.
Financial consequences of the divorce process mostly concern the man, because
usually he has more financial power. The reasons why the man knows more about legal
regulations at divorce are related to his financial power to receive legal consultancy or to
hire a lawyer. In addition, in the case of alimony opponents, social media platforms
mobilizing against regulations in family law provided a large network of information
exchange to share know-how on different issues in divorce process. Except for Nevin,
none of the interviewees received alimony after divorce, even though they had no
financial resources. As emphasized in the TBNA Report 2014 and by women’s rights
organizations and lawyers I interviewed, women’s accounts also show that the main
problem with alimony and child support is that debtors do not make payments regularly
or not at all. Even though consensual divorce seems faster and easier, bargains, “tricks”,
and threats during the preparation of the agreement may lead women to lose the joint
marital property that they have financially contributed and to lose the right to receive
alimony or child support. Even the few middle-class and professional women, who earned
as much as men, may not have an equal position in negotiating a proper agreement at
divorce. As women’s accounts show, the woman’s desire for the divorce to be over as
soon as possible may lead her to easily accepting many things that work against her during
the preparation process of the divorce agreement in consensual divorce.
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4.4 A New Life after Divorce: Freedom Under Constant Surveillance, Survival
Under Unequal Conditions
Marriage is an unequal legal contract between a couple, though the accounts of
women and men have shown that their natal families’ prevalent involvement makes
marriage about more than two individuals. Divorce is a new invisible social contract
between women and society. Kohen, Brown, and Feldberg (1979) underlines that, for the
woman, divorce does not only mean the loss of most of the resources that the man
provides, but also the freedom from her dependence and obligations of service. After
divorce, the woman becomes the head of the family and has a direct connection with
society. However, a male-dominated society does not accept divorced woman’s right to
lead a family nor provides her with the necessary resources. The divorced mother’s direct
dependency on one man is replaced by a general dependency on the male-dominated
society. In her ethnographic research based on interviews with divorced women, Yıldırım
(2017) notes that this exchange of dependency corresponds to the shift of patriarchy from
private to public. While it is evident who oppresses the woman in marriage, the woman
is dominated by anonymous people when she steps out of the marriage. In this sense,
divorce is a new contract that the woman signs with the society as a whole, including their
relatives. (p. 17).
In the line with the discussion of patriarchal state policies and society in Chapter
2, these arguments correspond to Orloff’s theorizing of the modern welfare states: a
transition from “private” to “public”. They also correspond to Walby’s theorization of
patriarchy emerging in two forms: private and public. When the woman steps out of the
conjugal union, society becomes the observer of her performance of respectability,
motherhood, and womanhood. As seen through this chapter, this surveillance does not
start when she enters into the conjugal union. The woman’s agency on her body, her
decisions, her actions, and her respectability has been under surveillance from the very
beginning of her life. Divorce brings along multilayered consequences and difficulties for
women. Kohen, Brown, and Feldberg (1979), in their research on divorced mothers, state
that,
“Whether divorce brings relief or unhappiness, it is only the beginning of a
new situation that has both problems and rewards. The problems are
immediately obvious, for example, lack of money: the rewards may be
noticeable only after. This is tied to the nature of change introduced by
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divorce. The change is not merely a legal or a personal one. It involves a
shift from marriage to divorce, from a culturally supported life arrangement
to a resource-deprived limbo.” (Kohen, Brown, and Feldberg, 1979: 230)
Alimony, child support, and compensation is more about post-divorce. Divorce
brings emotional consequences, the feeling of freedom or devastation, but very concrete
problems come first: Housing, employment, childcare, and security were among common
problems that women I interviewed mentioned. None of the interviewees regretted getting
divorced. Various support mechanisms in terms of providing housing and childcare,
particularly from their natal families, makes a crucial difference in women’s living
conditions after divorce. This section shed lights on women’s struggles to meet these
concrete needs as well as “divorced women’s experiences” in society intertwined with
their concrete struggles through their accounts.
Among ten interviewees, 7 of them live alone; 3 of them live with their family;
and one of them has remarried, so she lives with her “established” family. After Robin
got divorced, she started to live with her son in a gated community. Her older sister bought
the apartment they lived:
Robin: I was so lucky. I had many people from my social circle, my family
to support me. My siblings provided me with economic support. But I
wanted to be alone spiritually. I did everything on my own. It was like a
mental preparation for me. The support that a woman gets from people
around her is so essential in her divorce process. Every woman cannot get
that support. (…) Because men have the money, they have economic power.
When they get divorced, they actually don’t lose anything.
As Robin expressed, the support that women get particularly from their families
has quite an effect on the whole divorce process and afterwards. Robin was already
working when she got divorced and she did not need help for childcare, because her son
was 13 years old. One main problem that keeps the woman away from employment is the
absence of free public childcare services. Many interviewees got help from their mothers
or other female members of their families for childcare to be able to continue working.
Only Aysu sent her child to paid day care. Except her, all interviewees got help
from their families or their children were not that young to need childcare. Aysu
introduced me to İdil. Just as we were about to end our interview, İdil came and Aysu
said “She’s the lucky one. She got help from her mother with childcare”. İdil told me, “I
could not have gone this far without my mother. She helped me a lot.”
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Having economic power helps women who did not work during marriage gain
confidence. As discussed in Chapter 2, the state and society tend to consider women’s
“natural vocations” as being mothers, good housewives, or primary caregivers. Therefore,
employment seems sort of “secondary choice” for women in even social security system.
This male-dominated structure in social, familial, and economic relations reproduces
women’s economic dependency on male members of their families (husbands or fathers).
For the interviewees who started to work for the first time in their lives only after divorce,
the common theme was gaining self-confidence even though some had guilt feelings
because they thought that they could not spend enough time with their children as
mothers. Many of them started to work to survive, but some of them started to work to go
out of the house. For instance, Nevin did not work for a long time after she got divorced.
She has been living with her mother since then. She decided to start working later but not
mainly for economic reasons.
Q: When did you decide to work?
Nevin: I did not work at the beginning. For years. I did not need money that
much because lived with my mother. But I needed to get out of that home, I
needed that psychologically. I needed go out and meet new people. I could
not go out, go anywhere. Because my brother didn’t let me. “You can’t go
there. You won’t do that.” He was afraid of my ex-husband, as well as other
people around. “You are a divorced lady now, if you talk to someone, they
gossip about you.” You know our people in Turkey. That’s why I didn’t go
out.
It was Nevin’s brother who threatened her ex-husband’s family to stop them from
disturbing Nevin, in other words, he provided protection for Nevin. During her marriage,
Nevin was afraid that her brother would attempt to attack her ex-husband; therefore, she
covered up the violence to which she was exposed. Here, after her divorce, her brother
opposed to Nevin working or even going out. Nevin did not complain about any of this.
These seemed to be ordinary things in the ordinary course of life. So, according to her,
her brother was not inhibiting her right to work or to go out, but he was only trying to
protect her from other people and society. Once she started to work, Nevin’s opinion
dramatically changed.
Q: How do you feel now that you are a working woman?
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Nevin: I have already started to provide a better life to my son. (…) Once I
started working, the way I thought about things changed, and my family’s
perception of me changed too. For instance, my mother didn’t do anything
without me anymore. I am so strong, so powerful now. Financially and
mentally. At the beginning, I was not taken seriously. I was silent, I was
guilty, I was lowly. But once I started working, I also started to see things
in a whole different way. (…) I first bought a car and sold it. Then I took
out loan and bought a country house. I try to buy as many tangible things as
I can. I want to invest in my son’s future.
When I asked Zehra about the feeling that working invokes, she mentioned selfconfidence
as well:
Q: What kind of power being a working woman gives you?
Zehra: I have self-confidence. Because I don’t need anyone. If I want to
have something, I don’t think if I should have it or not. That decision to have
it or not is yours. For instance, when you ask your husband, your father,
your mother if you might have it and they don’t let you have it, that
frustration you have… Nobody should experience that feeling, I believe.
After divorce, Suna changed many jobs. Except for the 1.5 years when she could
not work because of her health problems, she continued working.
Suna: I worked as a tea-maker at that company after I got divorced for
almost 2 years. If they were short of personnel, I made presentations for
students. Sometimes I answered phones like a secretary. But after what my
ex-husband told me, I was afraid of being a secretary.
Q: You mean what he told about your so-called relationship with the
manager?
Suna: Yes. Just because that fear, I didn’t become a secretary. (…) I had my
identity as a security employee, but nobody gave me a job. I worked there
because I dreaded unemployment. During that period, my sister bought a
country house, and they took my daughter too when they were going there
that summer. My daughter’s health got better and better. I couldn’t take good
care of her when I was married, and she was always sick. Because I couldn’t
feed my child very well, I told you, we didn’t have money to buy even milk.
(…) My sister took care of her nutrition, she started to have regular meals,
then her health got better. (…) My purpose was to earn money and take care
of my daughter. I could fulfill my purpose. (…) After the 1.5-year
interruption because of my health problems, I attended public education
courses and learned accounting. I worked as accountant for a year without
social security. (…) I managed to take care of myself and my daughter. I
have never lived in a separate house [from my family] together with my
daughter. (…) I had many illnesses, because I worked too hard. And you
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know what, I feel guilty when it comes to my daughter. I was so tired all the
time, because I was working tooth and nail, because I knew that I had to
work to survive. How should I put it… Whenever I think about whether I
left her all alone or whether I take care of her well enough, my conscience
pricks me. When I asked her, “Do you ever feel alone,” she said yes. That
hurt me so much. I remember that sometimes I was so tired out that I
couldn’t even talk to her. But we now have begun to talk. I had no choice.
It had to be that way. It was the best of my options. Now, we talk, and she
even revolts against me, she’s a teenager after all. I want her to have selfconfidence.
I didn’t have that. I want her to defend herself. I want to raise
quite a cultured daughter.
I heard about this feeling of guilt from different interviewees. On the one hand,
they have to work to survive and to take care of themselves and of their children and, at
the same time, they feel empowered through paid work and economic independence. On
the other hand, they bear the conscientious burden of not being able to spend enough time
with their children. This is closely related to the cultural meaning attributed to
motherhood. The inability to fully meet their children’s emotional needs while meeting
their financial needs seems to create a feeling of not being able to fulfill their performance
of motherhood in full. This was an approach that I did not encounter in male interviewees.
Moreover, it seems that their former marriage continues to affect women’s choices in
employment or in housing, just as Suna avoids working as a secretary after her husband
accused her with a so-called relationship she had with her manager. Similarly, in Yaprak’s
case, her ex-husband’s violent interventions disrupted her work life and housing.
Yaprak: After we finally got divorced, he attacked my home. He attacked
my workplace, I got fired because of him. He came and announced that I
was a whore. I was kicked out of my apartment. My landlord said, “This is
not the first or second time, it’s enough.” He smashed the windows of the
apartment.
Q: Was there a restraining order at that time?
Yaprak: Yes, the restraining order is useless. The last time he came, the
restraining order’s duration had ended. It’s for 2 months. They told me that
this was his last chance. After that, he would be put in jail. Nothing happened
when I went to the police station, ever. I thought that after the last incident
he would finally end up in prison. I hope he goes to jail, and I will be freed
of him. At the beginning, I withdrew the order a couple of times. Because
my mother-in-law called and said, “He cannot work, and he cannot take care
of the children if he doesn’t work.” I told them to give my children back to
me, but they did not.
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Yaprak’s case clearly shows the inefficiency of the police force once again. This
inefficiency does not result from a lack of power to stop violence against women, it is
rooted in sexist working ways of the institutions. The news shows many femicide cases
in which the man had a restraining order.150 Besides, society is not look helpful either.
Yaprak was fired from her workplace and kicked out of her apartment not because of her
own doings, but of her ex-husband’s violent actions.
Only two women whom I interviewed got remarried after divorce and their
reasons seemed as attempts to solve concrete problems. In some cases, the woman may
prefer to narrow the area that patriarchy dominates over her in public and private by
getting married or by pretending to be married. Because the feelings of freedom and
surveillance as well as their strategies to make themselves seen respectable in society are
intertwined with one another in women’s accounts, I will share their accounts in this
context.
While we were having a casual conversation with women in the yard of their
workplace during lunchtime, one of them pointed to Sevgi and said, “She’s the lucky one
among us. She got remarried.” During our interview, Sevgi did not talk about her
remarrying as being lucky.
Q: How did you decide to get remarried?
Sevgi: I knew him, we lived in the same neighborhood. He was my landlord.
He was stopping by, we were talking. He was a good person. I cannot say
he’s a bad person. We (she and her children) had bad times, he supported
us. Before I found a job, we had nothing to eat. I cannot forget his favors.
(…) He protected us, took care of us. A drowning person will clutch at any
straw. I clutched at him like he’s the straw. He was single, not married
before, a couple of years younger than me. (…) My ex-husband started to
call everyone in my extended family after he heard of my remarriage. Before
150 For example, in 2020, Mehmet P. murdered Emine P. while he had a restraining order: Cumhuriyet
(2020, November 12). Malatya’da kadın cinayeti: Hakkında uzaklaştırma kararı bulunan eşi tarafından
öldürüldü. Accessed January 27, 2021, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/malatyada-kadin-cinayetihakkinda-
uzaklastirma-karari-bulunan-esi-tarafindan-olduruldu-1790391. Again, in 2020, a woman living
in Kaş was murdered by her husband who had a restraining order: a3haber (2020, September 12). Kadın
cinayeti: Uzaklaştırma kararı aldırdığı eşi tarafından öldürüldü. Accessed January 27, 2021,
https://www.a3haber.com/2020/12/09/kadin-cinayeti-uzaklastirma-karari-aldirdigi-esi-tarafindanolduruldu/;
a brief search on Google with the keywords “Kadın Cinayeti, Uzaklaştırma Kararı”, brings
countless results. The monthly reports by We Will Stop Femicide Platform share the status of restraining
order with femicides as well. For the last report published in November 2020: Kadın Cinayetlerini
Durduracağız Platformu [We Will Stop Femicides Platform] (2020, December 1). Kadın Cinayetlerini
Durduracağız Platformu Kasım Raporu. Accessed in January 3, 2021,
http://kadincinayetlerinidurduracagiz.net/veriler/2943/kadin-cinayetlerini-durduracagiz-platformu-kasim-
2020-raporu.
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that, nobody would even hear from him for sometimes 2 years. He wanted
to see my children again.
Sevgi got remarried just after divorce. She has been married for 7 years now. Her
statements about the decision to remarriage imply gratefulness to her subsequent husband.
Because her husband had not married before and Sevgi was divorced, his family did not
accept their marriage decision at first, but her husband insisted. It seems that there is a
common tendency among interviewees not to have a relationship with a man who has
never gotten married before. They usually preferred divorced man because they are also
divorced, as will be elaborated later in the next section. Sevgi’s ex-husband and his family
threatened her and her new husband with death when they heard of the marriage. Sevgi
accepted to get remarried after her older brother gave his consent. Her ex-husband began
to call their children and relatives, so, he tried to remind his existence as Sevgi’s exhusband
to everyone.
When she decided to get remarried, Kader also experienced similar things. Her
motivation in remarriage was not romantic love. One year after her divorce, she got
remarried. After a 2-year marriage, she divorced again.
Kader: He was a friend of my older brother. Four months after I got
divorced, he proposed to me. He was also divorced. (…) You feel so alone;
you are in such a difficult situation that you look for a safe harbor. I found
this marriage to be rational. It was not a love marriage but a convenience
marriage. I thought that his financial situation was good, he could take good
care of my children.
Q: Did your ex-husband bother you after you got divorced?
Kader: Not at the beginning. When he heard that I was going to remarry, he
called to threaten me. His sisters threatened me a lot too.
Q: What did they say?
Kader: “We will kill you, you got remarried just after you divorced.” I am
divorced now, what I do is none of your business. They cursed at me. They
said that I was a whore, that I broke up with my husband because I found
someone else. Nobody saw what he did, his faults. (…) Anyway, I
remarried. When we returned from our honeymoon, my husband lost his job.
He could not find a job as he wished after that. My ex-husband started to
send money for the children then. He bought children’s school supplies, he
sent money from time to time. He did not pay child support regularly, but I
did not care. Because I was married, I did not need money. He told children,
“You won’t ask anything from that man, I will meet your needs.” (…) After
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2 years, we decided that we couldn’t get along anymore, and we got
divorced. It was a very easy divorce, he just left, did not ask for anything.
Actually, I felt so strong at that time. I told myself that “I am able to stand
on my feet now, I don’t need anyone.” I had that self-confidence. (…) My
family opposed my second divorce. They refused to see me for 6 months.
They were concerned about what people would say. I told them, “Who cares
what people say? This is my life, my children’s life. (…) Whether you
accept it or not, I don’t want him, I want to divorce.” Since then, I have been
all alone. I worked as cleaner for two years, I earned very well. I did not
need anyone. My first husband started to send more money for the children,
he started to call me every day, crying, when he heard that I divorced. He
wanted to make up. I said no. (…) Did I live through all this to go back to
the same shit? My children didn’t want me to make up with their father
either. (…) After he lost all hope, he stopped sending money to children. He
hasn’t sent a penny for 2 years now.
Her transformation from the first divorce to the second is remarkable. She decided
to remarry to provide a more comfortable life for herself and for her children and wanted
to get rid of the feelings of loneliness and despair. The divorce decision for the second
time was easier. Starting working after her first divorce enhanced her self-confidence.
However, I have since learned that Kader has been unemployed for a while because of
the pandemic and that she could not go to houses to work as a domestic worker. She lives
on orphan’s pension and receives social aid. She was the only woman who received social
aid among the interviewees. The ex-husband’s involvement in her new life through
meeting the children’s financial needs and his withdrawal upon Kader’s second divorce
is interesting. It seems that he also wanted to let Kader’s subsequent husband know about
his existence, just as Sevgi’s ex-husband did. Again, threats she received from her first
husband and his natal family are also similar with what Sevgi experienced. Kader’s
family-in-law saw her remarriage as the reason for her divorce decision. It seems that they
did not see the difficulties she had in her marriage with her ex-husband as main reason in
her decision. Men’s families’ tolerance to their violent acts, mistakes, or cheatings in
marriage work against women as seen in the accounts of many women. This reveals the
support system nurturing men’s hegemony and power in familial and social relations
while women are blamed for even for their ex-husbands wrongdoings.
4.4.1 Everyday Life as a Divorced Woman: “The Society is Watching You”
When I asked women how they felt just after they got divorced, the word “freedom”
became prominent. However, it was not a “happy freedom”, it brought many stressful
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factors derived from the society and the job market. Being a divorced woman in society
may be perceived as “being an open door”. Some interviewees used this expression when
referring to men’s perception of the divorced woman. Being an open door simply means
“not being virgin”, “not having hymen” anymore. As the marriage contract entitles the
woman’s sexual properties to the husband, the woman’s sexual properties may be seen as
“open to the public” after they divorce.
Kandiyoti (1987) argues that the large number of individuals “who see themselves
as responsible for ensuring women’s appropriate sexual conduct” strikingly shows how
the corporate control over female sexuality works in society (Kandiyoti, 1987: 325).
Parents, siblings, relatives, and even neighbors feel themselves responsible for monitoring
women’s behaviors particularly starting from pubescence. Divorced women’s accounts
on their experiences in natal families before marriage and after divorce, especially their
conflicts with their fathers, brothers, and/or male relatives proves this argument.
Kandiyoti (1987) further argues that femininity becomes an essential, permanent status
for women as a result of rigorous and continuous control over female sexuality. On the
contrary to masculinity as an achieved status rather than ascribed, femininity “is an
ascribed status rather than something to strive for” (Kandiyoti, 1987: 327). In other words,
women exist with their sexuality in public sphere. In this context, Tuncer (2018) notes
that,
“…transgressions of accepted social behaviours and values by women were
thought of in terms of sexuality, and thus were judged as immoral, and this
has resulted in overwhelming efforts to control the presence of women in
public, particularly through codes of dress, bodily presentation and conduct,
as well as contact with the opposite sex.” (Tuncer, 2018: 29).
Divorced women’s accounts in this research correspond to these arguments. Many
interviewees described how disturbed they felt after the divorce when they attempted to
socialize again. They also shared their strategies to prevent or avoid the daily disturbances
coming from mostly men, but from women as well. Their accounts on how they “watch
their behaviors” also evokes Kandiyoti’s (1988) concept of patriarchal bargain which
includes how the woman feels the need to resort to other ways to make them appear
modest in society.
Both Yaprak and Kader emphasized how they watch their behaviors to protect
themselves from gossips about them and men’s attention around them. As other
interviewees, they also uttered how people’s attitude and perception towards them
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changed after they divorced. They also shared their strategies in everyday life. Yaprak
used the phrase “open door” during the interview, and she explained how people’s
perception of her has changed with divorce as follows:
Yaprak: Hah, men! All man wants to do is to trick you and sleep with you.
Even your father’s friend looks at you inappropriately just because you are
divorced.
Q: Have you ever experienced something like that?
Yaprak: It is impossible not to experience something like that. My boss,
those men I thought as my friends, men you call brother… Your friends
don’t do anything wrong to you for 10 years, but once you divorce, even
those friends start to look at you in a wrong way. You have to keep your
distance. For instance, the man who is currently my landlord is a friend of
my father. He knows me since I was a child. He told me, “You don’t have
to pay the rent.” I asked why, he said they don’t need money for now. It
seemed was shady. He insists on visiting me to have a cup of tea. I found
excuses countless time, but he is obsessed. He keeps asking, “Don’t you
have any free time?” You feel his real intention, you know that he is hitting
on you. That kind of things happen all the time. I did not realize it while I
was married. Divorced woman is an open door, she would consort with
anyone, people think of you in that way.
During our interview, when we were talking about how she felt after her first
divorce, Kader showed me her wedding ring that she was still wearing. It was her strategy
to protect herself from any general negative approach towards divorced women in society.
Q: How did you feel after you got divorced?
Kader: I felt so bad. I cried for two days. (…) It was like somebody died,
and I was mourning. After two days, I went to the shop that I had just set up.
I cannot forget that day. I woke up in the morning, I took a shower, I got
dressed, and I went out. I looked at the sky, the sun was up. I said, “God, I
feel like a new person, like, reborn.” Because there was a new life ahead of
me. I would be a divorced woman, maybe people would gossip about me, I
didn’t know what kind of life was ahead of me. I prayed, “God, give me
what is good for me.” That day was so unusual, I cannot forget it. Even the
weather, the sky was different.
Q: Did your fears come true? Did you have any trouble because you are
divorced?
Kader: Thankfully no, because I watch how I act carefully. Even when I was
married, when my sibling would come to visit me, I would sit with them at
the balcony so that the neighbors could see who’s visiting. I won’t let people
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talk about me. I say that I am married in general, if asked. When I go to
work, for instance. I say that I am married.
Q: Why do you say that?
Kader: Because I am afraid. I am scared that men will look at me in the
wrong way. I am still wearing my wedding ring on my finger. I don’t want
people to gossip about me, about my children. One day, I will get remarried,
but not now. Because I have a daughter, I cannot let her live with a strange
man. (…) Because they get used to a home without men. They have a very
easy life. After my daughter gets married, I will think of getting remarried.
Q: So, home without man is comfortable?
Kader: Yes, a lot. You know what, everyone envies me. They tell me that
“Your life looks so easy.” All I need is a job. Except for financial problems,
everything is good… I see married couples around, and I still have fears.
There are people who want to marry me. When things get serious, fear gets
hold of me. I fear that, if I get remarried, I will have similar problems. I
cannot bear the burden of a man anymore. I have been alone for a long time.
I live as I wish now, I spend as much as I want, I don’t owe any explanation
to anybody. If I get tired of being alone, then, maybe I could think of it.
Continuously watching her own behavior did not seem enough for Kader, so she
found this solution to keep her wedding ring on her finger.
Suna have been living with her family since she got divorced because, according
to her, it’s safer for her and her daughter. She depicted the society’s surveillance on the
divorced woman that she have also experienced as follows:
Suna: I was working in shifts. Besides, people’s glances... You cannot laugh
at something while everybody else can. Or you cannot react to something as
easily as they can. How people perceive you changes immediately. This is
what I have observed for ten years. Not here at my workplace, however.
Maybe, at the beginning, they also had that kind of an opinion until they got
to know me well, but now they don’t hold such opinions, I know.
Q: Because you are divorced?
Suna: Yes, of course, because I am divorced. (…) When you laugh at
something as others do, when you go back to work, a man comes to you on
the way and tries to talk with you some more. (…) I didn’t see anything like
that from single people. I had trouble with generally married men and
women. Look, women do that too. Men already do that. Women harm one
another. Even though you don’t have that kind of attitude, that kind of
intention, I don’t know why women do that. If the woman did not do it,
maybe the man couldn’t dare to do it. The society encourages men, so they
behave loosely.
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Suna emphasized women’s role in her negative experiences in everyday life as a
divorced woman. As more clearly seen in the accounts of female anti-alimony
campaigners, women are not passive subjects in the production of male domination in
society. In this sense, what Suna pointed out is important to understand in which ways
women may be collaborators in the production and reproduction of patriarchy. Nevin’s
working life also intertwined with the invisible pressure she felt on herself as a divorced
woman. But the difference in the way how Suna and Nevin mentioned about the presence
and role of women is notable. Suna uttered other women’s contribution to her discomfort
in workplace. During our interview, Nevin also mentioned how other women made her
feel uncomfortable in her previous workplace. In both workplaces in which they worked,
men and women were working together. But their new workplace in which the staff is
predominantly women provided them a safe space.
Nevin: I really love my workplace. I feel myself more secure here. I changed
jobs a lot after divorce. But I feel psychologically much better here, because
I am with other women. Before I worked at factories, there were men there
too. I worked there with my head down.
Q: Why was that?
Nevin: Because you are divorced, men look at you, I was so uncomfortable.
(…) Maybe it was not just me, maybe they look at all women, you know
how men are. But I felt so bad, because I was divorced. You watch how you
sit, how you laugh. You don’t want people to misunderstand you. You watch
what you say, because you think that people may misunderstand and talk
behind you, they may look at you in an inappropriate way. (…) I lived that
way for 3 years while I was working at factories. When I wasn’t working, I
didn’t think of that kind of things. Your experiences teach you to watch your
behavior. For instance, I really like wearing make-up, but I did not do it
while working at the factory. You give up things you like to protect yourself.
(…) But here, I am surrounded with women. I don’t feel like I would suffer
harm. (…) Ever since I started working here, I feel more powerful.
The negative changes in the worldviews of divorced women seem to be a common
problem. Women feel that they have to constantly control how they act, talk, wear, and
so on. To watch how they laugh was the first thing that both women mentioned. That
reminds me of the speech that Bülent Arınç, vice prime minister and government
spokesman at the time, gave on modesty at the celebration ceremony held by the AKP
Bursa Provincial Directorate. He said, “Modest is not just a word, but enrichment for both
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men and women. The woman should be modest. She should know what is private and
not. She should not laugh in public; her behaviors should not be alluring.”151 Political
discourse mobilized around morality has produced many statements on women’s
behaviors, lifestyles, and bodies. The reason for the problems that women face in
everyday life based on their sex was attributed to women’s own behavior, instead of the
sexist social norms and gender inequality in society. It seems that interviewees internalize
this mentality. Even though they do not mind society’s perception of divorced woman,
society finds its way to remind them that they are divorced, and that this is something to
feel uncomfortable about. As in the case of Robin, people around a divorced woman could
cut off communication after divorce.
Q: How did you feel now, while your divorce case is about to end?
Robin: It’s so good. I mean, freedom is great. I have a hilarious story. At
first times after I left home, Mert stayed with his father on that night. I
cooked pastry filled with spinach for myself. How I was crying while I
prepared it. Because he [ex-husband] hates spinach and I could not buy
spinach, just because he does not like it. I cooked it crying, I ate it crying.
(…) Life is harder, it is exhausting, but worth it for freedom. (…) Women
experienced many losses. Not only economic, but also spiritual. The view
about that woman immediately changes. You may expect that that would
not happen in my sociocultural segment, but it happens. For instance, Mert
[her son] has good friends and we saw each other as families. Some families
cut off communication with me. Because they see you as a threat. This is so
interesting. What could you do, I mean? Would you seduce their husbands?
But the fact that you are a divorced woman ruins some friendships. They
actually say you that you cannot exist among us, they give you that anxiety.
Another incident, it was interesting as well. While I was moving to my
apartment, my neighbor asked me that “Did you break up with your
husband?” I said “It is none of your business. This is private.” The neighbor
told me “How is it private? Did you abandon your husband?” Such a stupid
conversation. You experienced many losses like that. On the one hand, you
feel so free. On the other hand, you partly lose your freedom. Because
society may take some privileges from you because you are a divorced
woman.
According to the results of research on “Social and Political Trends in Turkey
2018” (TSSEA), divorced women ranked 11th among the least preferred group as a
151 CNN Türk (2014, July 28). Bülent Arınç: “Kadın herkesin içinde kahkaha atmayacak”.
Accessed January 8, 2021, https://www.cnnturk.com/haber/turkiye/bulent-arinc-kadin-herkesinicinde-
kahkaha-atmayacak.
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neighbor with 20,5%.152 Negative perception of divorced women in society seems to have
influenced the interviewees in different ways and level, but always. Some developed their
own strategies, some found more secured workplaces for themselves. Being married is a
status in society that dignity of the woman is not questioned much, and existence of a
man in the woman’s life may keep some troubles coming from other men off. This may
be the one reason for women to make divorce decision very hard, because society forces
the woman to sign another agreement with the whole society, an agreement that does not
make the woman’s life any easier.
4.4.2 What About Romantic Relationships after Divorce?
One common claim in alimony debates is that women avoid remarriage to keep
receiving alimony. As in discusses in Chapter 2, parliamentary discussions in 1988,
tended to assume that alimony without time limitation would cause the woman to start a
new family. However, when I asked about romantic relationships and their thoughts about
remarriage, women put forward reasons unrelated to alimony or child support. Of course,
they were women who did not receive alimony mostly. Their concerns about remarriage
pointed to their fears they became familiar through their first marriages. Living away
from a man’s pressure and control was an important reason to avoid remarriage for
women. Also, expectation to fall in love seemed a significant reason to make this decision.
Zehra: I think that one should not get married just because to be married. If
I had fallen in love very much, I would have thought about it. But there is
no need for marriage. I have always taken up the challenges in life on my
own, maybe’s that’s why I don’t want remarriage. I have always become
self-sufficient. Maybe it’s because I work. I don’t make money too much,
but if you think that even with this amount, I can be self-sufficient, it’s
enough.
Being economically self-sufficient is an important factor in not thinking about
remarriage. It implies that marriage is constructed as an institution that provides economic
security to women. How the state and job market construct marriage in this way has been
discussed in Chapter 2. When I asked Nevin if she had thought about remarriage, her
152 Aydın, M. Çelikpala, M., Dizdaroğlu, C., Baybars Hawks, B., Güvenç, M., Karaoğuz, E., Kösen,
M. G., Akıncı, B. A. (2019, January 30). Türkiye Sosyal-Siyasal Eğilimler Araştırması-2018, İstanbul:
Kadir Has Üniversitesi Türkiye Araştırmaları Merkezi. https://www.khas.edu.tr/uploads/turkiye-sosyalsiyasal-
egilimler-arastirmasi-2018.pdf.
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account revealed various concerns and tendencies for avoid remarriage. For instance, the
tendency that other interviewees shared: Divorced women tended to prefer divorced men
as candidates for relationship or remarriage. Even if they do not have a specific
preference, as Sevgi’s account also shows, their partners’ natal family may object,
because they are divorced women.
Q: What about romantic relationships? Have you ever thought about them
or remarriage?
Nevin: I did not think about it for a long time after divorce. My only concern
was my son. (…) My son gave me permission to get remarried after his
father remarried. After his permission, I started to think. Because all I have
is my son. It’s different when you have a child. (…) You cannot dare to talk
to other men, you know. I couldn’t venture accepting someone new into my
life.
Q: What were your fears?
Nevin: I feared that they would not want my son. I set in my way; I did not
want them to break it. I feared of living similar problems with my former
marriage. If he would want my child, if he would misbehave my child, my
son was my priority. Then I was afraid if he would cheat on me, if he would
beat me. (…) I stayed away from places where I could meet someone. (…)
But now I have someone in my life. But we cannot marry because he has
never married before. His family does not want it. He’s such a perfect
person. I am not in love, but I love him. (…) A strong man. Maybe that’s
what give me confidence. I am not afraid of anything when I am with him.
(…) When he talked about us briefly to his mother, his mother firmly said
no.
Q: Because you are divorced?
Nevin: It’s because I am divorced for sure. But we did not break up. (…)
What will happen if I say I am breaking up? I won’t be with anyone else. I
have a relationship now, there’s someone in my life who holds my hand,
listens to my problems, and I will lose him. Why? Because I want to be
married. Nonsense. You know, I am not a person who is okay with
improperness. Like I am not okay with cohabitation or living a different life.
I don’t insist on marriage because I don’t want to lose him. When the time
comes, it will happen or not. I content myself with it.
Again, even though Nevin finally found someone who she loved and decided to
marry, the fact that she was divorced was turned into an obstacle to marrying someone
who had never married before. Moreover, her decision on her own life seems inseparable
from her child. Having children with them plays a significant role in women’s remarriage
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decision. In Nevin’s case, while her son’s father did not wait for a permission from his
child, Nevin waited for it. Moreover, Nevin emphasized her “properness” when she talked
about her new relationship.
Women’s romantic lives after divorce are generally not shaped solely by their
decision. Their decisions are inevitably related respectable motherhood and womanhood
performances in society. Their negative experiences in their former marriage affect their
decision to start a new family or romantic relationship. As mentioned in the beginning of
this chapter, women are perceived as part of a family, not “owner” of a family. The child
from former marriage is a symbol of sexuality the woman experienced with another man
(Yıldırım, 2017: 31). The predisposition to prefer to have relationship with a divorced
man can be considered in this context. In this way, the divorced woman would not be the
first woman who the man will sexually and legally “have”.
4.5 Women’s Thoughts on Alimony Debates
My last question to women was “Have you ever heard of alimony debates?” A
few women were aware of the debates whereas the most of them had never heard of it.
The media manipulation seems to affect some women’s opinions on the topic. Middleclass
women tended to evaluate their and other women’s experiences in relation to
patriarchal structure in Turkish society while lower-class women tended to ask questions
about the debates rather than to comment. Most women stated that they do not think that
alimony and/or child support may aggrieve men, because courts generally adjudge small
amounts and men do not even pay that amounts.
Pınar is a feminist, therefore, her opinion on the topic was short and clear:
Q: Have you heard of alimony debates?
Pınar: I followed it on social media. Mostly news about Istanbul
Convention. What I think is clear. Men always see themselves as victims. I
don’t think that any man is aggrieved because of alimony or child support.
There is no such thing as “I was married for a month; I have to pay alimony
for a lifetime.” They don’t want to pay even child support.
Aysu and Robin shared other examples that they witnessed in their social sphere. These
examples were also striking.
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Aysu: My observation is that alimony is a quite troubled process,
particularly in contested divorces. In social sphere I am involved in, I saw
that in some wealthy families, even the man is wealthy, he takes very
indecent steps just because he wants to make the woman’s life miserable.
Even though he is the one who cheats. From taking child custody to leaving
the woman penniless, to make her deprive of her child. In my opinion,
mostly the woman is aggrieved. I don’t think our legislations are on the
woman’s side. It’s always the woman who aggrieves in one way or another.
(…) The man does not pay alimony or child support in most of the cases
while he’s wealthy. Preventive detention is helpful in that case, it could be
disincentive. Still, there could be other threats in that case, like, I don’t
know, “If you want me to see the child, I won’t pay alimony or child
support” they may say to the woman. A man could use even that, can you
imagine? If you sue me, I won’t see the child, I won’t take care of the child.
The child becomes a tool. The woman and the child become victims once
again. I have not observed that the man aggrieves that much. When the man
says that he does not have money, alimony or child support could be
removed. But emotionally, the woman with her child is forced to pursue
these things.
Q: Do you see any common grounds behind what you talk about? Like make
the woman’s life miserable.
Aysu: It’s because of society in general. The woman’s place is always kept
in the background in terms of education, employment. So, even though that
woman is the mother of your child, it does not matter that much. I don’t
know if it’s different in other countries, but the woman is still considered in
the second place, there’s still a big fight for women’s rights. The reason
behind all these is society. Because society accepts the woman as the
oppressed.
When I asked Robin that if she knew about alimony debates, and that what she
thought about male victimizations, as a clinical psychologist she relayed her observations
and what she heard from her clients in addition to her opinions.
Robin: I know about alimony because I heard it a lot from my clients. But I
don’t have the full knowledge, maybe because I also did not demand for it.
The thing is that the woman’s domestic labor is always ignored. I was a little
bit stronger; I had the power to resist, I followed my dreams, I did not quit
my job. But I know many women who give up all these things. While the
man moves on in his career, the woman may stay in the background, she
may devote herself to her home. Even though she works, she keeps working
without promotion. For instance, one of my friends recently divorced. Her
husband forced her to quit her job in the marriage. She did not work for 9
years. Now she’s about 50 years old, she does not have any savings, she
lives with her family, and because of that 9-year job interruption, she cannot
go back to work. Her husband is wealthy, he had 15 real estates. When my
friend demanded for 2 of them, he refused to give them. She does not work;
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she needs something to live on. Therefore, I don’t believe in male
victimization. On the contrary, the woman invisibly aggrieves one way or
another. (…) When I look at my clients, for instance, when the man
remarries, when he starts a new family, he abandons his child from his
former marriage as well. In fact, the man does not divorce his wife, he also
divorces his child. I see that the man generally feels like he’s used when he
gives money. They do not want to give money to the woman, because they
think that she will spend that money with another man. Or they don’t want
the woman to remarry. Maybe the reason that the man does not think that
the woman does not deserve alimony is because the woman is the one who
demands for divorce. Even I felt that I was the one who wanted to divorce,
so I did not deserve receiving alimony. It’s like a punishment. When the
woman wants to divorce, she is somehow paid off. Therefore, I don’t think
male victimization is true.
Based on what she felt during her own divorce process, Robin mentioned “selfblame”
in relation not to ask alimony. Another point she mentioned is also interesting:
Men generally feel as if they were used when they give money to women and/or children
as alimony and/or child support. This feeling of “being used” was visible in the accounts
anti-alimony campaigners as well. Robin, Aysu, and Pınar clearly related experiences of
them and other women’s around them to gender inequality that negatively influences
women in marriage, divorce, and postdivorce process within male-dominated structure of
Turkish society. Based on their lived and shared experiences, they similarly stated that
“male victimization” cannot be true in the context of financial, social, and emotional
consequences of divorce.
Five women I interviewed works at the same working place. I visited them twice
and I spend the whole day with them and other women working there. On my second
visit, after the lunch, we were drinking coffee and chatting in the garden. A woman whom
I met for the first time on that day asked me, “So tell us, what’s the matter with men?”
Before that, I did not explain the debates in detail to avoid affecting the course of
interviews. When I was asked, I only mentioned the government’s plan to bring a time
limitation to alimony and simply said that “There is a group of people who demand
limitation for legislation because it causes victimizations.”
On that day, Zehra, whom I was going to interview later, led the way and answered
the question: “Lifelong alimony for one day marriage. I think it’s unjust. Besides, I am
okay with payments for children, they have to give money for children. But why do they
have to give money to the woman? A woman should not accept it. They can work, stand
on their own legs. That relationship is over. That man is a stranger to you after divorce.
Would you ask money from a stranger? Would you go to your neighbor to ask money?”
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I attempted to explain the debates in detail, however, another woman talked. “It’s not like
that. He does not let you work for years; he uses you like a slave, you serve him, his
family, relatives. He cheats. He does anything he wishes to you. But when you divorce,
he leaves you penniless.” Another woman said, “As if they paid child support. I have seen
no man who pays child support properly.” Then, I explained the myth “lifelong alimony
for one-day marriage” based on the lawyers’ statements. I explained that the law does not
work in that way, that we don’t know exactly what one-day marriage implies. I relayed
what Hale told me: One-day marriage may be related to virginity; it may refer to the
number of days the couple sleep with together. Then I explained the law in detail, how it
is gender-neutral, how articles regulate conditions for divorce, alimony, and child
support. I told them that if the man was in need after divorce, he would receive alimony,
however, the woman has more difficulties in terms of education, employment, and
childcare responsibility. I tried to clarify that alimony is not a favor, it is a legal right. “I
think the woman does it to herself,” said Zehra. “If a woman wants to find a job, she will
find it. She goes and cleans houses; she finds a job in factories.” The chitchat continued
in a way that a few women tried to convince Zehra otherwise. At that point, I preferred
not to get involved, I did not say anything for or against. When I was asked about men’s
claims, I briefly explained. I talked about manipulations on the media. The more women
learned, the more they asked. None of them seemed surprised at what they heard, in fact,
they looked extremely “knowing”. Those who are still married complained about how
they have to deal with childcare, domestic works, cooking, cleaning even though they
work during the day.
On the same day later, I went to Sevgi’s home to wish her grandson would get
well soon because she received some bad news about her grandson’s health. I, Zehra,
Sevgi, and Gülçin who works as a manager at working place where all women work at
were sitting in Sevgi’s balcony and having a cup of coffee. Our interview reawakened
Sevgi’s memories about her former marriage, therefore, she talked a little bit more about
her experiences. Then, the topic of alimony debates started again. Zehra repeated her
opinions that she shared earlier. Gülçin talked to her about inequalities, lack of education,
unemployment, and lack of childcare services. She said, “Don’t take yourself as an
example. You had opportunities but most women do not have them. Sometimes even their
families do not accept their divorce.” Maybe it was because professional hierarchy
between them, but Zehra seemed to change her mind.
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I observed that women are so busy with daily fuss of marriage, or daily concerns
related to be a woman living in a male-dominated society, they may not be able to spare
time to recent political or legal developments. Even though we talked about the proposed
legal amendment in Civil Code, I feel that it did not seem a possible threat to them, it was
only a part of daily talks. They all have their emotional, financial, and psychological
support mechanisms in their lives. This mechanism may include family, friends, coworkers,
or their children.
4.6 Concluding Remarks
This chapter presented the accounts of 10 divorced women in the context of their
experiences on marriage, divorce, and post-divorce in male-dominated Turkish society.
It aimed to fill the gap of financial, emotional, and social struggles that women face in
marriage and divorce in alimony debates. The first section focusing on women’s decisionmaking
process for marriage, unpaid domestic and care labor as well as financial
difficulties and inequalities revealed how patriarchal norms in family had a significant
impact on women’s lives from entrance into matrimony and exit of matrimony. Moving
from that, the second section discussed constant existence of various forms of violence –
physical, psychological, sexual, emotional, and economic violence– in women’s lives in
marriage, divorce, and post-divorce process. Women’s accounts revealed the law
enforcers’ ineffectiveness and insensitivity to violence against women. In the third
section, according to women’s accounts, in the case of announcement of divorce decision
to their husbands, threats came first, bargains and tricks on alimony, child support, or
marital property distribution came next. The amounts of alimony and/or child support
which was not paid regularly were not enough to raise a child, as TBNA Report in 2014
also shows. Fourthly, their accounts showed that women were not knowledgeable enough
about their legal rights in case of divorce or violence. Alimony and/or child support
seemed a secondary concern for them. The last section presented women’s reactions and
thoughts on alimony debates and it shows that women mostly are not aware of proposed
legal changes.
Even though anti-divorce official discourse claims that divorce affect children’s
lives in a bad way, women’s accounts showed the opposite. Moreover, although divorced
women mostly incur a serious financial loss compared to their former lives in Turkey,
some women whom I interviewed experienced the opposite as long as they work. Among
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the concrete problems women mostly face after divorce housing, unemployment, and
absence of public childcare services. Some women could solve these problems getting
help from their families in housing and childcare. Another point that caught my attention
during the interviews was that being a working woman was not conveyed as something
extraordinary in a social structure where women’s duties as wives and mothers were
glorified. Some women felt guilty for not being able to take care of their children because
they had to work, but they did not utter staying at home as an option for themselves,
because working gave them self-confidence. The continuing intervention of ex-husband
after divorce may have affected women’s lives in various ways resulting in being kicked
out of where they lived or got fired. Using or harming child to harm women also looked
common among women’s experiences.
Chapter 5:
CONCLUSION
This thesis has presented a critical and feminist analysis of alimony debates that have
gained momentum in Turkey since 2016. It has demonstrated the opposite sides of the
alimony debates and their arguments regarding the proposed amendment foreseeing the
introduction of time limitation to the existing alimony regulation. I aimed to comprehend
the political factors which have influenced alimony debates. I then analyzed the political
discourse on family, divorce, and gender equality which came along with institutional
changes in the context of neoliberal restructuring of welfare and neoconservative
familialism. Through the accounts of anti-alimony campaigners, mostly divorced men, I
have examined the dynamics of the anti-alimony campaign and the so-called “male
victimization” as well as their experiences in marriage, divorce, and postdivorce process.
Divorced women’s accounts have shed light on women’s experiences and struggles in
economic, social, and familial relations. Furthermore, the accounts of divorce lawyers on
their experiences and observations in divorce cases have provided information about
general concerns and tendencies of women and men regarding social and economic
consequences of divorce as well as spouses’ grounds for divorce. The accounts of feminist
lawyers with activist backgrounds and significant roles in law-making processes have
revealed their firsthand testimonies regarding legal, discursive, and institutional
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transformation towards family, gender equality, and divorce under the rule of AKP
governments. This research aimed to contribute to the literature of gender studies,
sociopolitical studies, and critical studies on men and masculinities, as well as providing
a feminist criticism of socio-legal and family studies.
Gender order is constructed by mainly gender-related interactions within certain
institutions such as family, state, education, or military, and reproduces male domination
and female subordination in a patriarchal structure. The large-scale transformations in
social conditions such as changes in work and family life due to urbanization,
modernization, industrialization, or the rise of organized feminist movements create
breaks in the gender order. In the Turkish context, while the state has withdrawn from
provisions of public goods, services, and welfare under neoliberal rationality, it has
appealed to neoconservative ideological means to support its legitimacy promoting
familialism, nationalism, religiosity, or patriotism. At the domestic level, the male
provider as “the head of the family”, constituting one of the fundamentals of male
privilege, is under pressure. Patriarchal apprehension of female subordination is not
hegemonic anymore. This conflict between women’s rising ambitions and determined
male backlash creates a strong crisis in the gender order. Therefore, a new politics of
masculinist restoration have emerged to maintain and reproduce patriarchy.
The coalition of top-down and bottom-up masculinist restoration politics manifests
itself clearly in the case of anti-alimony groups and the government’s support. On the one
hand, anti-alimony groups form their demands and objections based on the perception
that legislations assuring gender equality and prevention of violence against women are
threats to the family and also lead to “male victimization”. On the other hand, the
government’s political discourse and social policies inform the anti-alimony discourse,
and the government shapes its political discourse according to the demands of anti-gender
equality groups. In political discourses, traditional gender roles and marriage are praised
whereas gender equality and divorces are criticized, and even condemned, based on
religious and cultural values in particular. In the case of AKP, the traditional family has
been a useful tool for maintaining its rulership and the state includes men as part of its
patriarchal ruling by encouraging male privilege over controlling women. The cases of
femicides and violence against women receive lighter punishments (if any). Women’s
perceived disobedience and insubordination act as a primary trigger in all these incidents
(for instance, in most cases, men murdered women who wished to divorce or who were
their ex-wives). Restraining and protection orders through Law No. 6284 are not properly
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followed. The police have attacked women’s march on March 8 for the last three years
and, in political discourse, feminists and women who do not fulfill their “divinely
ordained nature (fıtrat)” as mothers or wives are frequently condemned.
On the one hand, women whose personal decisions and/or lifestyles differ from
patriarchal norms and values as the government dictates are considered as disobeying the
state. On the other hand, women who wish to divorce, exercise their legal rights regulated
with the Civil Code or in Law No.6284, are considered as disobeying their husbands.
Thus, women’s individualization and empowerment perceived as “disobedience” are one
of the common grounds binding these bottom-up and top-down counterparts of
masculinist restoration politics together. In this sense, the combination of impunity and/or
lighter sentences in cases of femicides and violence against women, political discourses
exalting the family institution in which male domination and female subordination is
justified and reproduced, and increasing attacks to gender equality and women’s rights at
official and street levels clearly show the attempts to “tame” women to “put them in their
rightful place.”
The analysis of anti-alimony discourse has clearly shown that it tends to circulate
“male victimization” in relation to anti-alimony campaigners’ claim on “oppression of
men” by the Civil Code and Law No. 6284, allegedly discriminating against them simply
because they are men. This claim goes against the nature of these legal regulations. The
Civil Code is gender-neutral, so it does not rule that only women can receive alimony.
Falling into poverty is the fundamental condition to receive alimony regardless of the
person’s gender. Law No. 6284 protects the “victim” of the violent act regardless of the
person’s gender. In case of accusations, the law gives the accused the chance to disprove
the testimony of the victim, and, in the event of disproof, the legal sanction is
implemented against those who make a false statement. Drawing from the critical studies
on men and masculinities literature, I discussed that the clear distinction between
“oppression” and “costs of being on top” might be helpful to understand why “male
victimization” should actually be conceptualized as “male self-victimization”.
To emphasize the deceptiveness of the term “victimization” and to put it as “selfvictimization”
in the context of alimony debates are important to understand the dynamics
of the debate in its relation to masculinist restoration politics since the term “male selfvictimization”
helps to unveil the fact that “victimhood” here stems from a subjective
feeling of “entitlement”. Anti-alimony groups construct “male victimization” through
laws that offer ways to eliminate possible wrongdoings. The data in this research and
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from previous researches and reports clearly show that the relevant laws regarding
preventing and combatting violence against women and gender inequality have not
effectively implemented by law enforcers. Moreover, in most cases, divorces evidently
have negative influences on women and children rather than men in financial and social
respects. However, the legislation that anti-alimony groups severely protest still provides
a legal basis for the elimination of gender inequality in familial, social, and financial
relations. Considering all of these, the main reason underlying the request for amendment
in or annulment of the relevant laws is not the elimination of the “victimhood” of men,
but the legal establishment of male privilege.
However, divorced men whom I interviewed in this research were not the prime
examples of what was represented on pro-government media outlets as “alimony victims”
in terms of economic difficulties. Only two interviewees remarried after divorce, and they
did not have problems in their new marriages derived from alimony payments. None of
the divorced women whom I interviewed were receiving alimony at the time of the
interview. In this sense, further ethnographic research focusing on the financial
consequences of divorce, particularly alimony, child support, and compensation, would
enrich the knowledge in this research area.
Women’s accounts revealed class-related differences in women’s experiences in
terms of accessing childcare and domestic labor services as well as financial
consequences of divorce. Besides, these accounts have shown that the real problem about
alimony and/or child support is the difficulty in collecting payments and low amounts
that are not sufficient for living on or childrearing. The previous research on divorce and
its financial consequences such as TBNA 2014 and Women’s Solidarity Foundation’s
research in 2019 support the data in this research. Moreover, gender inequality in familial,
social, and economic relations in everyday life in Turkey keeps influencing women’s lives
after divorce in the domains of housing, employment, childcare, and security. Male
violence against women and children in various forms such as sexual, psychological,
physical, and economic in marriage, divorce, and postdivorce process has been prevalent
in women’s accounts as well as men’s accounts. Women’s natal families’ support makes
a great difference in their life conditions after divorce and their security from aggressive
ex-husbands. This pattern in women’s accounts came along with their experiences in
which law enforcers stay ineffective and insensitive to violence against women when
women filed a complaint.
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Women’s accounts also show that they do not see themselves as subordinated
subjects and having financial independence plays an important role in women’s
empowerment and ability to make their own decisions about their lives and choices.
Divorce may have made women feel stigmatized in their everyday lives, but women’s
accounts commonly demonstrate that their quality of emotional and financial life has
enhanced after divorce. Even though inequalities in family, society, and labor market may
raise difficulties for women, remarriage does not seem an option for most of them for
economic, social, and security-related reasons, because they do not want to risk
experiencing economic, psychological, physical, and sexual violence.
The interviews with divorced women and divorced men on willingness to remarry
showed one important thing. Historically, the woman is perceived as being better suited
for the private sphere; the state’s gendered policies and discourse position the woman in
the private sphere as the primary caregiver, mother, and wife. These policies and
discourse also make family a “safe harbor”, a “need” for women. But according to the
accounts of women and men in this research, while divorced men’s interviews showed
that they readily thought of remarrying, divorced women remained mostly reluctant.
Some men said that their lives were over because they could not find anyone to marry
due to alimony payments. So, being married is equated to “living life itself”. Considering
how being the head of a family is an inseparable part of male privilege in society, having
a family is actually a “need” for men, and, as Kandiyoti (1987) remarks, it is related to
the fact that masculinity is a status that must be earned constantly. Moreover, the fact that
divorced women whom I interviewed did not perceive themselves only as mothers or
wives above all actually indicates a change in the gender order. As I emphasized in the
discussion of masculinist restoration politics, this shift in the gender order is one reason
underlying masculinist restoration politics.
In its explanation of alimony in relation to “the whole problem of patriarchy”, this
thesis mainly has argued that alimony should be understood as part of gendered family
relations. The fundamental condition to be an alimony claimant is to fall into poverty
upon divorce, and this family model is the main reason behind women’s poverty. Alimony
debates in this historical, social, and political context demonstrate the state’s contribution
to the woman’s poverty in marriage and divorce and to the increasing conservatism
towards the woman’s role as primary caregiver, wife, and mother through political
discourse and familialist social policies, as well as its effects on society in return.
Moreover, alimony is misrepresented to the public as “indefinite” and the state’s
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insistence on introducing amendment into alimony regulation without correcting
women’s disadvantaged position by providing care services for children, the disabled,
and the elderly, and with the claim that equal opportunities for women in work life and
education will only deepen the existing gender inequality in society. In alimony debates,
alimony is not the cause but the result of gender inequality. Therefore, the way to
eliminate the need for alimony is to develop policies that will ensure gender equality in
society, employment, and education, and to consider women outside of their caregiver
role by providing unpaid public care services for the child, the elderly, and the disabled.
As I have emphasized in different parts of my thesis, alimony debates have been
based on unfounded allegations and anecdotal stories. There is a significant lack of data
in the debates. Since alimony debates started in 2016, neither the Ministry of Justice nor
the Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Services has provided any data on the number
of people who pay alimony, the average amount of alimony, the number of requests for
alimony extension, the number of people subjected to preventive detention (tazyik hapsi)
due to alimony-related debt, or whether there was a disproportion between alimony
amount and the alimony creditor’s income. Even though anti-alimony groups claim that
there are two million “alimony victims” in Turkey, this number is far from reflecting the
real situation. Any amendment attempts to a legal regulation that would affect the entire
society need to be based upon factual numbers that are more than “mere guesswork”.
Alimony debates proceed without any solid data or any attempt to eliminate gender
inequality in education, employment, and care/domestic labor, all should be provided by
the state. “Male victimization” as the backbone of alimony debates is built upon anecdotal
stories of divorced men and female alimony opponents. These stories receive support
from the state and pro-government media outlets and are not based on data. In fact, the
data on financial consequences of divorces, domestic violence, and ineffective
implementation of legislation aiming to combat and prevent violence against women
commonly indicate the opposite of anti-alimony groups’ claims, while women’s accounts
are based on experience and supported by the data obtained from large-scale researches
in Turkey. However, while men’s accounts swiftly and visibly circulate, women’s
accounts’ circulation is limited and even ignored as seen in the example of the
Commission of Marital Breakdown. Different circulation dynamics of accounts of
women and men point out the existing structure of the patriarchal public sphere that
reproduce violence against women and/or ignore it. In other words, the deep-seated
patriarchal values in Turkish society promote “men’s struggle” against “male
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victimization” in the name of the so-called quest of “saving the family”. This “struggle”
is discursive, state-supported, ideological rather than factual, and built upon the erasure
of women’s lived, shared, and verifiable struggles derived from gender inequality in
familial, social, and economic relations. As divorced women’s accounts have shown in
this research, divorced women are already stigmatized in society and the attitudes of the
government and anti-alimony campaigners in alimony debates only serve to marginalize
divorced women even more. In this sense, the debates themselves have become
economic, social, and psychological violence against women who have already divorced
or who wish to divorce as well as an attempt to discourage women from ending their
marriages filled with various forms of oppression and violence.
However, the anti-alimony campaign is only a part of a broader backlash against
women’s rights and gender equality in Turkey. Law No. 6284 and the Istanbul
Convention have also been under attack particularly since 2016. As one solid result of
these attacks, by the time I finished writing my thesis, a Presidential Decree published in
the Official Gazzette at midnight on March 20, 2021 announced Turkey’s withdrawal
from the Istanbul Convention.153 The Istanbul Convention was accepted unanimously by
Turkish Grand Assembly. According to the Article 90 of Turkish Constitution154,
international treaties regarding fundamental rights and freedoms cannot be terminated by
a decision of the President. Therefore, bars and women’s rights organizations strongly
protested this announcement on the basis that the way that Turkey withdrew from the
Istanbul Convention was unconstitutional, and that the termination decision was null and
void.155 Pro-government media outlets and anti-women’s rights groups overjoyed at the
termination and they immediately pointed their fingers at Law No. 6284.156 Bringing the
Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284 into question actually means eliminating the
effective legal tools for combating violence against women, femicides, and gender
153 T. C. Resmi Gazete, 20 March 2021, No. 31429, accessed March 31, 2021
https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2021/03/20210320.pdf
154 The Article 90, Turkish Constitution. accessed March 31, 2021,
https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf?TSPD_101_R0=08ffcef486ab200055f01c943368121
7d237ee928691a5f3c9677897555d87fabacaa6b4b12d31ca08bff0e8b0143000ca121cb872dd48a821f1272
1d662524269a55aaa9568563070bdec581a5afe1ab30328722980327de9fe88157dbdbd36.
155 The Women’s Platform for Equality (March 21, 2021). The Presidential Decision on the Istanbul
Convention is Null and Void. The Convention Remains in Force! Accessed March 31, 2021,
https://esikplatform.net/the-convention-remains-in-force/
156 Karataş, İ. (29 March 2021). Yeni Akit. İstanbul Sözleşmesi kadınları koruyor mu? Accessed March
31, 2021, https://www.yeniakit.com.tr/yazarlar/ibrahim-karatas/istanbul-sozlesmesi-kadinlari-koruyormu-
35366.html.
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inequality. Accordingly, in following first 12 hours after announcement of termination,
men murdered six women.157 However, the announcement caused a nationwide public
unrest and countless women from all over Turkey went out to protest this unconstitutional
termination of the Istanbul Convention.158 The government announced that they have
been working on the Ankara Convention which would prioritize “national values”.159
Even though it seems that the Istanbul Convention was surprisingly terminated in
one night, even the data just in this research clearly show that this is an outcome of longterm
efforts of the AKP governments and its bottom-up counterparts as part of their
masculinist restoration politics. As it is emphasized in the statement of Turkey’s
Presidential Directorate of Communications, published on March 21, 2021, Turkey “is
not the only country who was serious concerns about the Istanbul Convention. Six
members of the European Union (Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechia, Latvia, Lithuania, and
Slovakia) did not ratify the Istanbul Convention. Poland has taken steps to withdraw from
the Convention, citing an attempt by the LGBT community to impose their ideas about
gender on the entire society.”160 In other words, these developments are not specific to
Turkey—they have a global context. In the literature, the global mobilization shaped
under far-right, populist, and authoritarian governments against gender equality which is
commonly considered as a threat to family and the civilization’s future (Şahin, 2020) is
called “anti-gender movement” (Kuhar & Patternotte, 2017; Köttig, Petö, & Bitzan,
2017). The Istanbul Convention has become a common ground of these governments for
their anti-gender equality attacks because the Convention is the first international treaty
that centralize the term “gender” and aims to prevent violence against movement through
achieving gender equality in society (Official Gazzette, 2012; cited in Şahin, 2020). One
main argument that these various governments put against the Istanbul Convention is that
157 Evrensel (31 March 2021). Güvencemiz sözleşme parolamız mücadele. Accessed March 31, 2021,
https://www.evrensel.net/haber/429398/guvencemiz-sozlesme-parolamiz-mucadele.
158 Evrensel (20 March 2021). İstanbul Sözleşmesi’nin feshedilme kararına karşı kadınlar her yerde
eylemde! Accessed March 31, 2021, https://www.evrensel.net/haber/428564/istanbul-sozlesmesininfeshedilme-
kararina-karsi-kadinlar-her-yerde-eylemde.
159 Diken (20 March 2021). ‘İstanbul Sözleşmesi’ gitti, ‘Ankara Sözleşmesi’ geliyor! Accessed March
31, 2021. http://www.diken.com.tr/istanbul-sozlesmesi-gitti-ankara-sozlesmesi-geliyor/
160 Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, Directorate of Communications (21 March 2021). Statement
by the Directorate of Communications on Türkiye’s Withdrawal from Istanbul Convention. Accessed
March 31, 2021, https://www.iletisim.gov.tr/english/duyurular/detay/statement-by-the-directorate-ofcommunications-
on-turkiyes-withdrawal-from-the-istanbul-convention
194
it is against their national, religious, and familial values.161 162 It is also notable that, as
the AKP government has created an anti-national “them” pointing Europe and European
family model, it shares common ground with other authoritarian and conservative regimes
in Europe in terms of the so-called quest of “saving the family”. This “quest” commonly
includes anti-gender equality, anti-women’s rights, and anti-abortion political discourses,
institutional changes, de facto implementations that confront legal regulations (i.e., the
right to abortion in Turkey), and attempts to make dramatic changes in laws. Further
research and analysis is needed to provide a broader and comparative account of how topdown
and bottom-up masculinist restoration politics in Turkey at political, legal,
discursive, social, and institutional levels are part of the global anti-gender movement
with its differences and common grounds with other countries.
In Turkey, the report of the Marital Breakdown Commission should be considered
as the first milestone in a series of official attempts that initiated the regression at
women’s existing vested rights and as the starting point of discussions on alimony and
Law No. 6284. The report recommended introducing time limitation to alimony as well
as requesting evidence and official documentation from those who demand restraining
order through Law No. 6284. The Commission was evidently biased because claims of
women, women’s rights organizations, and the opposition parties were not taken into
account effectively or adequately whereas recommendations were grounded on the
statements of “victim fathers” or “alimony victims”. An amendment in a given law
concerns and affects every individual in the society. The laws should address the
majority’s conditions and needs. Therefore, before making any amendment introducing
time limitation to alimony, a large-scale research should be carried out to gather concrete
data on whether such an amendment is needed.
But this biased approach of the AKP government that ignores the majority’s needs
and opinions can also be observed in the termination of the Istanbul Convention.
According to “Turkey’s Pulse” research conducted by Metropoll Strategic and Social
161 For instance, nationalist conservatists that have been in power in Poland argued that Istanbul
Convention is against Catholic family traditions. Deutsche Welle (30 July 2020). Polonya’da İstanbul
Sözleşmesi AYM’ye gidiyor. Accessed March 31, 2021, https://www.dw.com/tr/polonyada-istanbulsözleşmesi-
aymye-gidiyor/a-54386581.
162 In Hungary, Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungarian government announced that gender
studies programs in universities is forbidded by the government decree in 2018. Bianet (23 October
2018). Macaristan’da Toplumsal Cinsiyet Çalışmaları Yasaklandı. Accessed March 31, 2021.
https://m.bianet.org/bianet/toplumsal-cinsiyet/201954-macaristan-da-toplumsal-cinsiyet-calismalariyasaklandi.
195
Researches163 in July 2020, only 17% of participants approved Turkey’s withdrawal from
the Convention whereas 63.9% did not. Yet the AKP government announced the
withdrawal based on the misinformation that LGBT+ people misused the Convention “for
the sake of family institution”, just as allegations that women abused the existing legal
rights in alimony debates.
However, where there is oppression, there is also resistance. In Europe and Turkey,
women’s and LGBTI+ rights defenders strongly resist their governments’ interferences,
and women’s rights organizations in various parts of the world have been coming
together. Those whose rights are under attack support each other on social media and in
real life. For instance, in October 2020, The Women’s Platform for Equality consisting
of over 300 platforms, organizations, and groups assembled an online meeting with
women from Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Finland, Estonia, Slovakia, Georgia,
Germany, Austria, England, Spain, the United States, and Canada to discuss top-down
and bottom-up attacks to the Istanbul Convention.164 In other words, while top-down and
bottom-up pro-natalist, pro-family, and anti-gender equality movement has a global
characteristic, there is also a strong global resistance against these attempts.
163 Metropoll Stratejik ve Sosyal Araştırmalar (July 2020). Turkey’s Pulse – July 2020. Accessed March
31, 2021, http://www.metropoll.com.tr/research/turkey-pulse-17/1861.
164 Equality, Justice, Woman Platform (19 October 2020). EŞİK’ten Uluslararası Kadın Buluşması:
Birlikte Mücadele Edeceğiz. Accessed April 4, 2021, http://esitlikadaletkadin.org/esikten-uluslararasikadin-
bulusmasi-birlikte-mucadele-edecegiz/.
196
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