Masculinities, spatial dialectics, and discursive strategies: reproducing gender inequalities at home - the case of Izmir

Peker Dural H., MEŞE G.

GENDER PLACE AND CULTURE, 2023 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Publication Date: 2023
  • Doi Number: 10.1080/0966369x.2023.2170986
  • Journal Name: GENDER PLACE AND CULTURE
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, CAB Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), Gender Studies Database, Geobase, Index Islamicus, Public Affairs Index, Social services abstracts, Sociological abstracts, Veterinary Science Database
  • Keywords: Critical discursive psychology, gender inequalities, home, masculinities, spatial dialectics, MEN, NEGOTIATION, DISCOURSE, SPACE
  • Ondokuz Mayıs University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The spatial dialectics reveal themselves in gender relations, which reproduce and maintain gender inequalities. This article analyses meaning-making processes around the home space and masculine identities that focus on spatialized gender relations. This research was conducted in the relatively modern city of Izmir, Turkey. The study explores the negotiation of masculine identities at home. The analysis draws upon critical discursive psychology and identifies interpretative repertoires and subject positions related to men's accounts of masculine identities, practices, and roles as men at home. Two interpretative repertoires were revealed that positioned men in two contradictory but complementary roles. Men were positioned as the primary responsible person for the home's public space-related needs and as helpers for domestic chores. Moreover, the 'help' discourse was used by men, referring to modernization. Also, various discursive strategies men used to legitimise their limited contributions to domestic chores were revealed. The findings discuss what these discourses accomplish regarding masculine identities, wider power relations, and gendered social practices that maintain them. Such discourses have a substantial role in reproducing and maintaining gender inequalities in the home. Revealing these discourses is important for changing the traditional understandings of gender and everyday discursive practices since discourse and ideology produce each other.