“It's like a gamble, anything could happen”: Women navigating safety and agency in online dating in urban Turkey

Abstract

Online dating platforms are increasingly used to explore dating and relationships by young adults. Although a growing body of evidence shows that they pose disproportionate and gendered risks to women's safety and health, the question of how young adult women respond to and resist these risks is not sufficiently understood. The present study aims to fill this gap by exploring how women navigate safety and exercise agency when dating men online in a non-Western traditional context in transition, that is, urban Turkey. Data were collected through qualitative interviews with 11 women users of dating apps, aged 24–33 years, and thematically analyzed from a feminist perspective. The analysis showed three themes that captured the women's extensive and individual safety-building labor when dating men via apps: (a) bearing the burden of risks, (b) exercising control in the midst of risks, and (c) planning for a safe exit. The conservative gender order that fails to effectively respond to gender-based violence and reinforces the stigmatization of women for dating online exacerbated their effort in contemporary Turkey. Our findings extend previous work by showing that women's safety work and agency in online dating are socioculturally, contextually, and continually mediated.