The Paradox of the AKP’s Gender Regime: Gender Identity of Religious Women in Türkiye

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Abstract This article investigates the changing gender regime in Türkiye over the past two decades, by focusing on the experiences of religious women under the gender regime of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The analysis is developed through an inductive and interpretative process of in-depth interviews with sixteen self-identified religious women and expert interviews with five publicly engaged, high-profile, self-identified religious female intellectuals, and also writings of Islamic female authors about religious women published after 2000. The analysis reveals a shift in the AKP’s gender regime from a public-progressive approach to a public-conservative one, characterized by a paternalistic leadership model. This article contributes to the discussion on gender regimes by providing an interpretation of how the gender regime has been experienced by religious women, and highlights the paradox within the AKP’s reframed gender regime, where gender justice is used as a substitute for gender equality.