WOMEN TRAPPED BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SPHERES: MANIFESTATIONS OF ALIENATION

This study investigates the perception of femininity shaped by gender norms at the intersection of public and private spheres, and to which of these spheres women feel they belong more. This examination examines not only the ties or new forms of relations that women establish towards the private sphere, but also the alternatives available for the continuity of the private sphere and the meanings they carry in social relations. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 female workers in factories in Istanbul, and the data were interpreted through critical discourse analysis. According to the results of the research, women become strangers to the private sphere, which is characterized as their “place,” and cannot fully find a place in the public sphere. While women are not enough for the private sphere to which they feel they belong and cannot fully find a place for themselves in the male-dominated public sphere, they also become strangers to the gender norms they have internalized and their assumptions about being a woman. Women are squeezed between the private and public spheres and become alienated by losing their belonging, identity, and beliefs about their gender.