Gendering technology through lines and laughter: a critical analysis of the Turkish cartoon magazine Bayan Yanı

This article examines representations of gender—technology relations in everyday culture through cartoons in Bayan Yanı, Turkey’s first and only women-led cartoon publication, addressing an understudied intersection of gender, technology, and satirical visual culture in Turkey. It explores how humour-mediated cartoons construct gender—technology relations as a key means of expressing gender, both reinforcing and challenging gendered ideologies embedded in social and cultural structures, while shaping power dynamics within Turkey’s political and cultural context, where freedom of expression—particularly for women—remains limited. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, the study draws on a dataset of 82 images depicting women and technology from a ten-year archive (2011–2021) of the publication. The dataset was examined through thematic and visual analysis. The findings show that while traditional gender stereotypes persist, new forms of femininity and related myths are also emerging, reshaping contemporary women’s relationship to digital culture.