Mothers, Fathers, and the State

Based on a sociological analysis of child custody trials, this book examines how parenthood is constructed, contested, and gendered in the legal realm in Turkey. Drawing from discursive and narrative analysis of thirty-four child custody cases heard in Istanbul, Turkey in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the study scrutinizes how women and men contest for and are awarded with a gendered set of parental rights and responsibilities in courts. The book, a slightly revised version of my Master's thesis, shows that gendered inequalities are sustained and reproduced within the legal institution through a number of legal discursive tropes that assign unequal gendered expectations and entitlements to mothers and fathers. Situated at the intersection of sociological, socio-legal, and gender studies, this book will be of interest to scholars of gender and law in Turkey and beyond.