Introduction: Gendered Governance under Authoritarianism
Authoritarian regimes do not affect men and women in the same way. Rather than governing solely through coercion, they frequently exploit existing patriarchal structures to transform women’s social roles, motherhood, professional identities, and citizenship into mechanisms of political control. Using the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, in Türkiye as a case study, this article argues that the post-2016 purge should be understood not merely as a political crackdown but as the consolidation of a system of gendered governance. It demonstrates how authoritarian rule extended beyond imprisonment and prosecution to produce social death, weaponized motherhood, and authoritarian citizenship, reshaping women’s participation in public life, family relationships, and political belonging.
The aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 2016 has significantly intensified pre-existing patterns of gendered violence, discrimination, and oppression in Türkiye.
First, even before the coup attempt, the government had already begun reframing women’s rights within the framework of family policy. Independent women’s organizations were increasingly sidelined, while conservative narratives promoted women primarily as mothers and wives.
Second, the coup attempt itself became a gendered turning point. Emergency decrees led to the closure of women’s shelters, advocacy centers, and civil society organizations. Women who challenged traditional gender norms were increasingly portrayed as threats to social order. Thousands were dismissed from public employment, imprisoned, including pregnant women and mothers with infants, and subjected to strip searches, sexual violence, and degrading treatment.
Third, gendered political discourse and hate speech further legitimized repression. Feminism was increasingly portrayed as a “Western” and “anti-family” ideology, while LGBTQ+ identities were openly demonized. In some cases, government officials and religious clerics referred to women associated with the Gülen Movement (a faith-based civil society movement inspired by the late Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen that developed into a global educational and interfaith dialogue network beginning in the early 1990s) as “spoils of war,” reinforcing an atmosphere of misogyny and gender-based violence.
Fourth, repression forced thousands of women into exile, many risking their lives while crossing rivers and seas in search of safety. The cases of Birgül Kocal, imprisoned together with her young son before fleeing, only to discover that he had leukemia, and Esma Uludağ, who died after escaping Türkiye with her three children, illustrate the compounded trauma of persecution, displacement, and forced migration.
Finally, Türkiye’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 marked a significant rollback of protections against gender-based violence. Today, legal loopholes continue to facilitate child marriage, perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence have benefited from early-release measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and women continue to face systemic impunity amid rising rates of femicide.
On that account, the post-2016 purge should be understood not only as a political crackdown but also as a gendered process of authoritarian governance and a broader social phenomenon of inclusion and exclusion. The experiences of women affected by emergency decrees reveal how authoritarian systems rely upon existing patriarchal structures to deepen punishment, extend state control into private life, and produce long-term forms of social marginalization.
Constructing Gendered Authoritarianism in Türkiye
Authoritarian regimes govern through more than arrests and imprisonment. They combine legal, economic, social, and symbolic forms of punishment that intersect with existing gender inequalities, making women particularly vulnerable to political repression. Rather than being targeted solely as political actors, women frequently experience repression through their roles as mothers, caregivers, wives, and professionals. Consequently, authoritarian governance extends beyond individuals into families and communities, where employment loss, social stigmatization, mobility restrictions, and caregiving responsibilities become interconnected mechanisms of patriarchal control and political exclusion.
The gendered repression that intensified after the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, did not emerge in isolation. Rather, it reflected a broader authoritarian transformation that had been unfolding since 2011 through increasingly restrictive policies and political discourses that reinforced patriarchal norms while narrowing the space for women’s rights and civic participation.
One of the earliest institutional manifestations of this shift was the replacement of the Ministry of Women and Family with the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, symbolizing a transition from a rights-based understanding of women toward a family-centered approach. At the same time, feminist and Kurdish women’s organizations were progressively marginalized, while conservative narratives increasingly defined women primarily as mothers and wives. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement that “You cannot put women and men on equal footing; it is against nature” became emblematic of this ideological orientation.
This transformation reflected a broader pattern of anti-gender politics, through which gender equality, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights were increasingly portrayed as threats to national identity, religious values, and the traditional family. Women’s rights organizations were delegitimized, while independent civic space gradually contracted. Rather than rejecting women’s rights outright, the state redefined them through the language of family protection, morality, and social order.
Following the failed coup attempt, these ideological developments became institutionalized through emergency rule. Women increasingly came to be portrayed not only as mothers and caregivers but also as potential threats to national security when they challenged officially sanctioned gender roles or were associated with political opposition. Ethnographic evidence illustrates this transformation:
“Women have duties assigned to them. If they do something other than these assigned roles, the state says, ‘Let her do what she wants, but limit it within the familial sphere.’ … He knows that if something changes in the country, it is women who change it. He is terrified of women’s solidarity.”
Political rhetoric further normalizes gender-based hostility. Women associated with the Gülen movement were publicly described as “spoils of war,” while pro-government religious figures openly endorsed violence against perceived opponents. Simultaneously, emergency decrees restricted accountability for torture and abuse, creating conditions in which gender-based violence and impunity could flourish.
The Turkish experience therefore, demonstrates that the post-2016 purge should not be understood simply as a security response to an attempted coup. Rather, it represented the institutional consolidation of a broader authoritarian project in which anti-gender ideology, patriarchal governance, and emergency legislation became mutually reinforcing mechanisms of political control.
Governing Through Exclusion: Gendered State Violence After July 15
The state of emergency declared after July 15, 2016, transformed emergency rule into a durable system of authoritarian governance. Through emergency decrees, the government implemented mass dismissals, institutional closures, criminal prosecutions, and sweeping restrictions on civil society. Although these measures affected broad segments of Turkish society, their consequences were distinctly gendered.
Women experienced political repression not only as individuals accused of political offenses but also through their roles as mothers, caregivers, professionals, and family members. Independent women’s organizations were closed, freedom of movement was restricted through passport cancellations and travel bans, and women frequently became targets of collective punishment because of their husbands’ or relatives’ alleged political affiliations. Official statistics illustrate the scale of this transformation: more than 633,000 women were investigated, nearly 150,000 were imprisoned, and approximately 40,500 were dismissed from public employment through emergency decrees.
For many women, dismissal marked the beginning rather than the end of political persecution. Professional careers disappeared overnight, economic independence eroded, and social stigmatization extended beyond formal legal proceedings. Women who had spent years overcoming educational and social barriers to establish professional identities frequently found themselves excluded not only from public employment but also from broader social and economic life.
The post-2016 purge also marked a decisive turning point in the gendered nature of state violence. Women increasingly experienced arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, and economic marginalization, while existing patriarchal norms were incorporated into authoritarian governance. Even in the absence of individualized criminal accusations, women became targets because of their identities as wives, mothers, daughters, or relatives of politically persecuted individuals.
Social Death: Beyond Legal Punishment
Perhaps the most significant consequence of the post-2016 purge has been social death, a condition in which individuals remain physically alive while being systematically excluded from meaningful participation in professional, social, and civic life. Beyond legal sanctions, women experienced the erasure of professional identities, restrictions on mobility and financial autonomy, and persistent stigmatization that fundamentally reshaped their sense of belonging.
For many women, dismissal represented far more than the loss of employment. It meant the loss of economic independence, professional recognition, and social identity. The case of nurse Sevgi Balcı, dismissed while eight months pregnant, illustrates these cumulative effects. Following her dismissal, she experienced prolonged unemployment, social isolation, and severe psychological distress before taking her own life, demonstrating that authoritarian repression often extends far beyond formal legal punishment.
Social death also affected families. Political exclusion frequently became intergenerational as children grew up in households marked by imprisonment, unemployment, surveillance, and social stigma. Hundreds continue to live in prison with their mothers, while many others have experienced prolonged separation from one or both parents. The consequences of authoritarian governance, therefore, cannot be measured solely through arrests or convictions but also through their long-term effects on family life, childhood development, and social cohesion.
Motherhood itself became a mechanism of political punishment. Pregnant women and mothers with young children were imprisoned despite international legal protections, some immediately after childbirth or while caring for infants. One mother remained incarcerated while her five-year-old child underwent cancer treatment outside prison, illustrating how authoritarian punishment extended beyond individuals to entire families. Rather than protecting maternal roles, the state transformed motherhood into a source of political vulnerability.
The Turkish experience demonstrates that social death is not merely an individual consequence of authoritarian rule but one of its governing strategies. By dismantling professional identities, weakening social relationships, and extending punishment to families, authoritarian governance reproduces exclusion long after legal proceedings have ended.
The Istanbul Convention and the Politics of Gender
Türkiye’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 represented one of the most significant symbolic and institutional setbacks for women’s rights during the post-coup period. Although the Convention had originally been ratified by the AKP government in 2011 under President Erdoğan’s leadership, it was later portrayed by government officials and pro-government organizations as a threat to family values and national identity.
This political reframing fundamentally distorted the Convention’s actual purpose. Rather than undermining the family, the Istanbul Convention seeks to prevent violence against women and domestic violence while promoting equality, non-discrimination, victim protection, and education against gender stereotypes. Nevertheless, populist political discourse increasingly portrayed the Convention as promoting “deviant” family structures and LGBTQ+ identities, reflecting broader anti-gender movements observed in several contemporary authoritarian regimes.
The withdrawal therefore, represented far more than the abandonment of an international treaty. It became a symbolic rejection of gender equality itself.
Although implementation of the Convention had long remained inadequate, women’s organizations regarded it as an essential legal framework that could still be strengthened through political commitment and institutional reform. Instead, its withdrawal further weakened already fragile protections.
Institutionalizing Conservative Gender Ideology
President Erdoğan repeatedly reinforced this perspective, stating:
“You cannot put women and men on equal footing. It is against nature. Our religion regards motherhood very highly. Feminists do not understand that; they reject motherhood.”
Simultaneously, institutions increasingly promoted conservative understandings of gender. Organizations such as KADEM, co-founded by President Erdoğan’s daughter, initially supported the Istanbul Convention before later endorsing its withdrawal, illustrating the institutionalization of pro-government gender ideology.
Although universities were not subjected to direct prohibitions on gender studies, increasing governmental control over higher education and civil society significantly reduced space for critical scholarship on gender equality.
Continuing Consequences
The consequences of these policies continue to shape women’s everyday lives. Legal loopholes continue to facilitate child marriage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals convicted of domestic violence, sexual assault, and femicide benefited from early-release legislation, while many political prisoners, including mothers with young children, remained incarcerated.
Judges reportedly received guidance encouraging limitations on restraining orders issued against perpetrators of domestic violence. Domestic violence increased while institutional protection weakened. These developments occurred alongside rising femicide.
Recent data indicate:
– 294 confirmed killings of women in 2025
– continuing increases in suspicious female deaths
– persistent failures of accountability
Gendered Violence Beyond the Purge
The experiences documented after 2016 reveal that women encountered multiple and overlapping forms of violence.
These included:
– arbitrary detention
– imprisonment during pregnancy and the postpartum period
– strip searches
– giving birth under surveillance
– separation from newborn children
– sexual assault
– rape
– psychological torture
The case of Garibe Gezer, an imprisoned Kurdish woman who died after reporting rape and torture in prison, illustrates the intersection of political repression, gender-based violence, and ethnic discrimination.
Similarly, transgender women experienced intensified police violence, house raids, and social exclusion, demonstrating that authoritarian repression targeted multiple marginalized identities simultaneously.
Women dismissed under emergency decrees, regardless of ethnic, religious, or political background, frequently experienced multiple layers of marginalization from both state institutions and broader society.
Many described living under constant fear of arrest and violence, a condition some characterized as a form of collective social insanity. Additional practices, including forced virginity testing, restrictions on reproductive rights, and increasing state intervention in women’s bodily autonomy, demonstrate how legal institutions themselves became instruments of gendered violence.
Authoritarian Citizenship, Displacement, and Justice
The post-2016 purge fundamentally reshaped citizenship by making rights increasingly conditional upon political loyalty. Women affected by emergency decrees frequently experienced a transformation from full citizens into politically suspect individuals. Teachers, academics, healthcare professionals, judges, lawyers, and civil servants who had once served public institutions became socially stigmatized and excluded from meaningful participation in public life. Authoritarian governance thus redefined not only who could participate in the political community but also who was considered worthy of belonging.
The erosion of judicial independence reinforced this transformation. According to reports by Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the U.S. Department of State, Advocates of Silenced Turkey, and my own ethnographic research, many women underwent a judicial process in which punishment often preceded the opportunity to establish their innocence. Family members also became targets of collective punishment. One journalist’s wife, for example, lost her employment solely because of her husband’s professional activities, illustrating how political responsibility increasingly extended beyond the individual.
Ethnographic evidence further reveals how authoritarianism reshaped everyday language itself. During one trial, a mother concluded her defense by stating, “We are innocent.” She immediately corrected herself: “We, that is, my daughters and I, are innocent“, fearing that the pronoun we might be interpreted as evidence of organizational affiliation. This seemingly minor correction illustrates the extent to which authoritarian governance produces self-censorship, reaching even the grammar of everyday speech.
For many women, displacement ultimately became a strategy of survival rather than migration by choice. Thousands fled political persecution through dangerous crossings of the Evros River and the Aegean Sea, placing Türkiye within the broader phenomenon of transnational repression, whereby the consequences of authoritarian rule extend beyond national borders. The experiences of women such as Birgül Kocal and Esma Uludağ demonstrate that exile rarely ends persecution; rather, trauma, family separation, and psychological harm frequently accompany displacement long after individuals have escaped authoritarian institutions.
Nearly a decade later, the consequences of the purge remain visible. Many women continue to face barriers to employment, mobility, and social participation, while recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights have raised significant concerns regarding convictions imposed for conduct that did not constitute criminal activity under international legal standards. For many women, justice therefore means more than legal rehabilitation—it represents the possibility of restoring dignity, rebuilding lives, and reclaiming citizenship after years of exclusion.
Conclusion
The experience of women following the July 15 purge demonstrates that authoritarian repression is fundamentally gendered. Its consequences extend far beyond courtrooms and prisons into workplaces, families, communities, educational institutions, and private life. Women often bear the heaviest burdens of authoritarian governance, not only as direct targets of political repression but also as caregivers, providers, educators, professionals, and protectors of family stability.
The Turkish case illustrates a broader lesson regarding women under authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian governments frequently exploit existing gender inequalities in order to deepen political control, reinforce social exclusion, and institutionalize obedience. Economic marginalization, social stigmatization, family disruption, forced displacement, and intergenerational trauma become integral components of authoritarian governance rather than unintended consequences.
Furthermore, the Turkish experience demonstrates that gendered violence intersects with ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, and sexual identity. Kurdish women, women associated with the Gülen movement, Alevis, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other marginalized communities have experienced overlapping forms of discrimination and repression. The state thus emerges not merely as a passive failure to protect rights but, in many cases, as an active producer of gendered violence. Women increasingly find themselves labeled as “terrorists,” “traitors,” or even “spoils of war,” resulting in exclusion from both political and social life. Consequently, migration itself becomes transformed. Women no longer migrate primarily in search of opportunity. They migrate in search of safety.
Ultimately, the stories presented throughout this article are not only stories of suffering. They are also stories of resilience, survival, resistance, and an enduring demand for justice. They remind us that the true cost of authoritarianism cannot be measured solely through arrests, convictions, or prison sentences. It must also be measured through the lives interrupted, the families fragmented, the children traumatized, and the futures denied.
Hafza Girdap is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Criminology and Anthropology at Hofstra University and the Spokesperson for Advocates of Silenced Turkey (AST). She holds a Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Stony Brook University, New York. Her research focuses on gender, race, immigration, racialization and identity, human and women’s rights in Muslim-majority contexts, and the integration and adaptation of Muslim immigrant women, with particular attention to the redefinition of their cultural identities
