The myth of the tough men’s burden: reproducing a hegemonic masculinity at the Turkish National Police

Abstract

ABSTRACTDespite the common acceptance of masculinity as a foundation of policing, little research has explored the relation between masculinities and the police. Based on the fieldwork, including 35 in-depth interviews with police officers, this paper analyzes the construction of masculinities within the Turkish National Police (TNP). It aims to unpack how practices and discourses of hegemonic masculinity are embedded and (re)produced at a state institution, the TNP. Drawing from critical masculinity studies literature, this paper asks how does the police as a state institution reproduce an ideology of hegemonic masculinity and how do male and female officers’ concrete practices and discourses construct an order of gender relations within the institution? The findings suggest the centrality of heterosexuality and masculinities in reproducing the institutions of Turkish Republic in the context of modern police force. I also found that what I call the ‘institution of vocational brotherhood’ (mesleki abilik), and the associated ‘respectable sisterhood’ as distinctly Turkish phenomena carry significant implications for TNP members and contributes to hegemonic police masculinity in Turkey by bringing police work closer to the structure of family and making policing more paternalistic for all its members.