This paper aims to review the ‘politics of the intimate’ in the Turkish context. By looking at
regulations and policy debates in the areas of sexuality, reproduction and family and
partnership in the 2000s, it critically analyzes the scope and content of state policies, as well as
the policy debates in these areas, from a gender and gender equality perspective. This analysis
further emphasizes the interaction between neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, two
political rationalities that have come to play important roles in the shaping or regulation of
public and private domains, and the relations within these domains, in the last decade in
Turkey. This paper will suggest that given the intermesh of neoliberal and neoconservative
rationalities, the notion of gender equality loses its significance, leaving disadvantaged groups
open to the detrimental effects of dominant power relations.
