In the early stages of the European Integration, gender equality related policies were narrowly tackled due to the economic recovery priority of the Union. Although there was a rise of national and international women movements all around Europe, gender equality, particularly as a new paradigm, had not gained priority until the 1990s, when the EU was newly building a political presence in the world politics. Since the Copenhagen Criteria were presented in 1993, gender equality embedded titles have proven to be more promising as they are declared as a part of the EU’s human rights norms and the EU’s self-image towards ‘Others’. In a similar vein, specifically in that period the EU has contributed several international women conventions and has undertaken responsibilities in terms of promoting equality between men and women in its external relations. However, the explanations how a gender equality norm matters in the EU are yet unsatisfied due to the continuity of gender blind policies and strategies. This paper scrutinizes the content within which the EU has constructed gender equality norm inside its borders and then exported it as a Europeanization norm in its relations with Turkey. In light of the EU’s official documents and imposition of gender equality as an accession criterion, it can be argued that instead of creating an ideational change in the unequal conception of gender roles, the EU constantly instrumentalizes gender equality as a regulatory mechanism for market economy both inside the Union and throughout its enlargement process. Hence, despite its gender sensitive image, the EU falls short in internalizing

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The European Union's (EU) gender equality norms are an important part of the EU's identity, as enshrined in many formal documents. The scope of the EU's gender equality approach has been broadened by agents, including feminists, transnational advocacy groups, national women NGOs, feminists in the European Parliament, and the European women's lobby. Despite these European-based feminist agents' ideational contributions that challenge socially constructed gender inequalities, EU policies and acquis privilege women's empowerment in the labor market, instead of combatting genderbased discrimination in every sphere of life. This market-based equality paradigm can also be seen in the enlargement documents of Turkey-EU relations, in which both the progress reports and the financial assistance programmes-such as IPA-prioritize women's economic independence as a solution for altering socially-constructed gender roles in Turkey. Even thoughin feminist understanding-women's empowerment within the context of labor market approachlacks a conceptualization of gender equality as ahuman right, this paper aims to analyze the degree of EU's norm promoter role through transference diffusion in the female labor market participation. It is argued that due to the public institutions' entrenched resistance and the lack of consent at the local level for ideational change; the EU-driven norm clashes with the local realities of Turkey and this challenges the EU's potential normative power in terms of human rights norm promotion

This study investigates the EU’s stance on post-Gezi civic engagement, which is based on alternative alliances and against the anti-democratic extremes of state power. Using a Gramscian perspective, the paper underlines the fact that before the protests, Turkey’s civil society had been politically socialized by the help of EU financial assistance as a sign of an ideology of consent. That is, the EU has focused on liberal-democratic cooperation with civic organic intellectuals, based on the conviction that civil society is the engine for social and political transformation. However, even though civil society organizations have strengthened their catalysing role and become a new counter-hegemonic political space since the Gezi protests, it is argued that Turkey’s normative distance from the EU and the pragmatic links between the EU and Turkey over refugees have led the EU to reduce its financial relationships with Turkey’s rights-based civil society.