The Politics of the AKP Women

This article explores the feminization of right-wing politics in Turkey, focusing on the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its incorporation of women into political activism. Despite the party’s conservative and antifeminist stance, women have become significant actors in the AKP’s political strategy. This study examines the dynamics of feminization within the AKP, addressing how women navigate the party’s gender contract, which emphasizes traditional roles, particularly motherhood, while allowing limited political participation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted during the 2019 local election campaign in Istanbul, this research uses Joni Lovenduski’s concept of feminizing politics to analyze women’s descriptive participation in the AKP. The findings reveal that while the party’s gender contract facilitates women’s involvement in political mobilization, it restricts their roles to domestic spheres and reinforces the party’s patriarchal agenda. By using motherhood as a central political tool, AKP women create opportunities for political survival, though their participation remains descriptive rather than transformative or substantive.