Housewives and patriarchal conditioning in Turkey

How does patriarchal conditioning impact housewives' understanding and experience of life in Turkey? This study explains how housewives internalize this identity and resist to it, and the cultural codes that support it. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with 28 housewives revealed the following themes: internalization of patriarchal conditioning, double burden and burnout experience, egalitarian and sharing perception of womanhood, women's subjectivity and the quest for empowerment, and resistance to and transformation of patriarchal conditioning. The study shows that housewifery in Turkey remains a gender role shaped by patriarchal conditioning, but housewives have the potential to question, transform, and redefine their domestic and marital roles. Housewives consider motherhood important for the upbringing of children and thus separate from other traditional roles. Although housewifery is shaped by patriarchal conditioning, housewives can question and transform traditional roles. Through habitus-based practices, housewives can reproduce the patriarchal order and develop conscious alternatives to this structure as agents of social change.