Ece Kocabicak (LSE)

What is the significance of property ownership for varieties of patriarchy, and what are the implications for the existing theories of patriarchy? Using the case study of Turkey, I differentiate two forms of domestic patriarchy: premodern and modern. In the premodern form male dominance in landownership leads to patriarchal exploitation of women’s labour in agriculture, whereas in the modern form women’s exclusion from paid employment maintains patriarchal exploitation of labour within the home. In differentiating the reasons and consequences of the premodern form from those of the modern form, I use the methods of the legal and comparative analysis over time. The period considered is from the early-twentieth century to the contemporary period. I argue that women are legally dispossessed of agrarian land which, in turn, establishes premodern domestic patriarchy by maintaining patriarchal exploitation of women’s labour in agriculture. The premodern form increases the gender gaps in education, paid employment, and access to basic financial assets thereby limiting women’s engagement in the public sphere. This, in turn, prevents the transition from domestic to public patriarchy. Premodern domestic patriarchy further shapes trajectories of capitalist development by (i) sustaining a pattern of small landownership, (ii) constraining labour supply, (iii) subsidizing urban wages, and (iv) obstructing the production and export of advanced manufactured goods.

Speaker biography:

Dr Ece Kocabıçak is currently working as an LSE Fellow in the Department of Gender Studies at London School of Economics and Political Science (2017-current). Her teaching and research engage with the contemporary debates in international development, comparative political economy, political sociology, and social inequalities. Her research expertise is on trajectories of capitalist development; varieties of gender regimes; state-formation; the relationship between gender, class, race-ethnicity, and sexuality based inequalities; and the significance of political collective subjects for social change. She further focuses on the processes and factors that sustain gender-based exclusionary strategies in property ownership, labour market, education, and political decision making in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Ece is a member of the Female Employment and Dynamics of Inequality (FEDI) Network (led from SOAS) on the dynamics of gender inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Organised by the Gender Dynamics of Inequality Research Network.

Speakers: Ece Kocabicak (LSE), Massoud Karshenas (SOAS)

Released by: SOAS Economics Podcasts