Democratic Resilience in the Face of Anti-Gender Campaigns: Counterstrategies and Discourses of Feminist Activism

This study analyzes the strategies of activists who advocate gender equality as democratic actors to counter rising anti-gender campaigns and reactions in Türkiye. The Turkish case can be characterized by the existence of a strong feminist movement fighting for the defense of gender equality. However, the rising conservative political framework centered on women and family policies and the men's rights movement gaining momentum with the opposition to the Istanbul Convention is narrowing the democratic space of activists defending gender equality. This paper investigates the effects of the narrowing space of struggle for feminist activists on their activist experiences and questions the democratic resilience of their struggles through the strategies developed by feminist activists in the face of anti-gender backlash. The study's empirical findings are derived from in-depth interviews with feminist activists and media coverage of their responses and discourses in opposition to anti-gender threats, particularly during debates on the Istanbul Convention. It contends that feminists in Türkiye have activist fear and anxiety due to democratic backsliding and oppression, which is defined as "activist anxiety." However, this paper focuses on how feminist activists strengthened their solidarity despite all the oppression, how they developed strategies to enhance feminist activism, what strategies they employed to sustain democratic resilience, and whether feminist activists have formed discursive alliances with other actors of democratic opposition within society. The findings suggest that "narrative strengthening" is the most effective strategy for the struggle of feminist activists, which they define as a "silent struggle." The research highlights how feminist activists in Türkiye strengthen their local campaigns through transnational solidarity and draws parallels with other research on feminist strategies in Eastern Europe and/or Latin America from a comparative perspective to provide insights that go beyond local factors.