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Arzu Öztürkmen

Journal of Women's History, Volume 25, Number 4, Winter 2013, pp.

255-264 (Article)

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DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2013.0039

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2013
The Women’s Movement under
Ottoman and Republican Rule
A Historical Reappraisal

Arzu Öztürkmen

Since the 1980s, the second wave of the feminist movement in Turkey
contributed a great deal to the launching of important academic research
on women’s history, established activist associations, and continued to be
vocal and visible in different aspects of women’s issues. While academic
research focused on a critical review of the women’s movement during
the late Ottoman era (the nineteenth century) and early Republican
decades (1923–1950), activism focused primarily on a feminist critique
of civil law, women’s visibility in the political arena, socially traumatic
issues like domestic violence and honor crimes, and on peace regarding
the Kurdish issue. This article tries to conceptualize the turning points
of this historical journey, which led us in new directions in Turkish
women’s history and its changing paradigms.

F or Turkish historians, the history of women has not been a key issue in
mainstream Ottoman studies for a long time. The fact that few scholars
had a competence in reading old Ottoman script during the Republican
era can be seen as a general reason behind the scarcity of academic work
in this field.1 The early interest in women’s history usually consisted of
the role women played in the Palace as mother-sultans. The initial focus
has therefore been mainly on the harem, with its glamour and its relation
to stately power.2 National historiography written during the Republican
era also produced a literature on how women contributed to the national
Independence War.3 As in other domains of Ottoman-Turkish studies, the
historiographic approach focused mainly on the Turkish-Muslim experi-
ence, ignoring to a great extent the experience of the non-Muslims and the
Muslim migrant communities who spoke languages other than Turkish.
The dominant concept of the early Republican era was that of “wom-
en’s emancipation,” one of the major reforms of the new regime. Here, the
way the concept of “emancipation” was defined did not have any feminist
implication. Instead, it had a “progressive” connotation of emancipation
from “backwardness” or “tradition.” Many journals and newspapers pub-
lished in this era celebrated the passage of women’s suffrage.4 There were
also efforts to promote women’s visibility in public space.5 The notion of
“women’s emancipation” continued to be part of the mainstream national
narrative throughout the Republican era, usually presented in comparison

© 2013 Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 25 No. 4, 255–264.

256 Journal of Women’s History Winter

with the ancien regime of the Ottoman times.6 There were also a number of
historical studies about women. Based on Ottoman archival documents, the
historian Zafer Toprak, for instance, wrote a series of articles on women’s
history studying marriage patterns, clothing, and women’s associations.7
The major critique which targeted the “women’s emancipation” para-
digm came later, as new research revealed significant historical data, which
had remained inaccessible to the following generations because of the old
script. The historical process through which this critique had been shaped
has different phases. To begin with, starting with the late 1960s, the new
trends in the social studies movement, inspired by a Marxist economy-
based approach, paved the way for an alternative imagining of state and
society. Scholars searched for new ways of studying Ottoman history and
commenting on social change during the Republican era.8
The feminist movement of the 1980s partially grew out of conscious-
ness-raising groups within the Marxist movement.9 In the scholarly works, a
historiographic critique emerged by the late 1980s with the writings of such
feminist social scientists as Şirin Tekeli, Deniz Kandiyoti, and Nükhet Sir-
man.10 When Şirin Tekeli’s book, Kadın Bakış Açısından 1980’ler Türkiye’sinde
Kadınlar (Women in the 1980s: Turkey from the Women’s Perspective), first ap-
peared in 1990, it stood as the compilation of a number of women scholars,
mostly rooted in the leftist tradition and voicing for the first time critical
women’s issues in modern Turkish history.11 The 1980s also witnessed the
rise of popular feminism, a turning point being the publication of Kadının Adı
Yok (The Woman Has No Name) by the journalist Duygu Asena (1946–2006).
Asena’s book, a sharp critique of the oppression of women and of marriage
without love, became a best seller and was, in Tekeli’s terms, the “mani-
festo of Turkish feminism.”12 Asena also successfully edited the popular
feminist magazine Kadınca (Womanly) between 1979 and 1995, which had a
nationwide distribution and a great impact on the dissemination of feminist
issues at a popular level.13
The publication of the women’s studies scholar Serpil Çakır’s Osmanlı
Kadın Hareketi (Ottoman Women’s Movement) in 1994 appeared as the first
modern Turkish transcription of Ottoman women’s magazines, show-
ing the larger scope of Ottoman women’s imaginary when compared to
the Republican women’s emancipation project. However limited in the
analysis of the corpus of discovered data, Çakır’s book called attention to
a new trend of research in the first wave of the feminist movement under
the Ottoman realm.14
Access to Ottoman women’s magazines revealed a whole new world
of debates regarding how women’s issues were approached among Otto-
man women. Feminist scholars of the 1980s discovered the first wave of the
women’s movement in Ottoman’s times, which indeed had more extensive
2013 Arzu Öztürkmen 257

demands than what the Republican regime had granted. In her seminal
article commenting on different historical phases of Turkish feminism, the
anthropologist Nükhet Sirman reminds us that Ottoman women’s publica-
tions emerged within the new atmosphere of freedom brought by the Young
Turk revolution of 1908.15 This was a period where Ottoman women began
to establish their own organizations.16 Although many of these women’s
associations focused mainly on charity, some were established to promote
education, western style clothing, and cultural development. Osmanlı
Müdafaa-i Hukuk-ı Nisvan Cemiyeti (Association to Defend Women’s Le-
gal Issues) had a more feminist stance, advocating women’s integration in
public and professional life, the struggle against inequality and oppressive
traditions, and in support of female education. As for the magazines, they
covered such topics as homemaking, fashion, and health, but there were
also some political journals that expressed women’s disappointment with
this new era of “freedom.”17 In Sirman’s terms, “freedom turned out to be
only freedom for men and reformists had forgotten the role of the women
during this period.”18
Initial scholarship on Ottoman feminism covered primarily women’s
journals published in Turkish. The visibility of Armenian women’s journals
or the role of Kurdish women in Ottoman feminism were issues elaborated
much later in the 2000s. A more comprehensive approach to the term “Otto-
man” emerged, especially at the turn of the nineteenth century when desire
for freedom was expressed by all parts of Ottoman society.19 Literature on
Turkish-Ottoman feminism can be best illustrated in the works of women’s
magazines published beginning in the late nineteenth century.20 One can
start with the leading sisters Fatma Aliye and Emine Semiye. Emine Semiye
was the first to launch the term “feminism” in a booklet entitled “İslamiyet’te
Feminizm” (Feminism in Islam), raising questions on the issues of gender
equality, religious bias, women’s rights, and freedom, along with the status
of women’s educational and professional life.21 While Fatma Aliye focused
on how men prevented women’s access to education and enlightened
thought, another female writer, Naciye Hanım, was critical of men’s limited
understanding of the concept of freedom. Azize Haydar called on women,
similarly, to take control of their own lives in search of social reform. 22
Women’s debates during the Young Turk era took another turn with
the beginning of World War I. The outbreak of the Gallipoli War, in March
1915, triggered patriotic feelings in women’s circles. Mainstream newpapers
like İkdam, Sabah, Servet-i Fünun, Tanin, and Tasvir-i Efkar brought women’s
activities to headlines. Fatma Aliye herself wrote articles in Servet-i Fünun
praising “heroic women.”23 Hilal-i Ahmer, the Red Crescent, opened a chap-
ter for women, which was also praised in mainstream newspapers.24 The
year 1915 was also marked by the massive exile of Armenian communities
258 Journal of Women’s History Winter

from their homelands. This issue was long silenced under the patriotic mi-
lieu of the war. Feminist Armenian novelist and writer, Zabel Yesayan, who
had written about Adana massacres in 1911, had to escape from Istanbul
in 1915 when the Ottoman government began arresting leading Armenian
intellectuals. In 1919, Hayganuş Mark, another leading woman writer of the
Armenian community in Istanbul, began publishing a women’s journal, Hay
Gin (Armenian Woman).25 Among the many articles, the most noteworthy
was perhaps Kohar Mazlımyan’s “What did the Turkish Woman do dur-
ing War Years?” published in 1920. There, Mazlımyan blamed “educated
Turkish women” for not interfering in what happened during the War, nor
empathizing with Armenian women’s and orphans’ situations.26 Another
important magazine published during the same era was Kadınlar Dünyası
(Women’s World), edited by Nuriye Ulviye between 1913 and 1921. Kadınlar
Dünyası cast itself as a publication open to all Ottoman women of different
ethnic origins.27
During the Independence War, educated women sided primarily with
the resistance movement led by M. Kemal Atatürk. The 1919 public speech
of Halide Edip in Istanbul turned out to be an iconic moment of national
resistance.28 War also mobilized women in the rural areas to take active
roles behind the lines. Yet, as Tekeli reminds us, in the aftermath of the war
women went back to their traditional roles as mothers and wives.29
The Ottoman women’s movement, which flourished in the freedom
atmosphere of the Young Turk revolution, was followed up by the patriotic
dynamics of war, and faced a challenging turn after the founding of the
Republic in 1923. Under the leadership of Atatürk, the new regime was de-
cisive in centralizing the establishment of new associations under its control.
Replacing Islamic family law with a Civil Code taken from Switzerland, the
state now “granted rights” to women, such as the abolition of polygamy,
the right to divorce, and equality in inheritance rights. In 1935, eighteen
women representatives were elected to the National Assembly.30 In return,
however, the government did not allow women to form their own associa-
tions and ruled that the expression of feminist ideas threatened the image
of the new national order. As Sirman elaborately states, “the second wave
of interest in the position of women defined women as ‘patriotic citizens,’
where the new patriotic woman was still a wife and a mother but she had
another mission, that of educating the nation.”31
In this context, women who were opposed to the newly established
regime faced difficulties. With her oppositional stance to Atatürk, Halide
Edip had to leave Turkey and was not to return until 1939, after his death.
Another similar figure was Nezihe Muhiddin, who created a women’s party
even before the founding of the Republic was announced. Founded in July
1923 to advocate women’s political and social rights, “Kadınlar Halk Fırkası”
2013 Arzu Öztürkmen 259

(the Women’s People Party) was not recognized officially by the state, lead-
ing Nezihe Muhiddin to found another organization, Türk Kadınlar Birliği
(the Turkish Women’s Union). In 1927, the Union decided to promote a male
candidate for parliament, which turned out to be unsuccessful. That same
year, Nezihe Muhiddin was prosecuted for corruption as the chair of the
Union and was forced to leave her position.32 In 1935, the Turkish Women’s
Union dissolved and, like many similar independent organizations, it was
invited to join the semi-official People’s Houses. Similarly, Hayganuş Mark’s
Hay Gin, which had continued to be published during the first decade of
the Republic, was discontinued in 1933.
The silence on the Armenian issue continued during the early Re-
publican years among women involved in activism. An exception was an
important article by the writer Suat Derviş that appeared during this period.
Inspired by the “peaceful interaction” between women from different na-
tions at the Congress of International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and
Equal Citizenship held in Istanbul, Derviş published an article in Nor Huys
(New Hope), an Armenian weekly, in 1935. Her piece entitled “Türk Ermeni
Kızkardeslerimle Hasbuhal” (A Conversation with my Turkish-Armenian Sis-
ters) was published in Turkish and called for more dialogue.33 A particular
interest in the leading feminist figures of different ethnic origins during
the Ottoman and Republican periods became more visible with the work
of a new generation of young scholars by the 2000s. The work of the Otto-
man Greek lady Demetra Vaka (1877–1946), The Unveiled Ladies of Istanbul
(Stamboul), was translated into Turkish in 2003.34 The sociology scholars
Melisa Bilal and Lerna Ekmekçioğlu’s work on five Armenian feminist
women appeared in 2006.35 In 2008, the history scholar Rezzan Karaman
wrote a Master’s thesis on women’s role in Kurdish nationalism. Recently,
Duygu Köksal and Anastasia Falierou published a book on the social his-
tory women during the late Ottoman Era.36
The decades of the 1990s and 2000s witnessed the establishment of
many new women’s institutions. Women’s Research Centers were opened in
different Turkish Universities, including Istanbul University and the Middle
East Technical University. The Women’s Library and Information Center
was also opened in 1990 in Istanbul, collecting a corpus of sources written
by and about women. Muslim activist writer Hidayet Tuksal established
Başkent Kadın Platformu Derneği (the Capital City Women’s Platform) in
1995, questioning patriarchy in the Islamic tradition and other women’s
issues. In the late 1990s, women in South-Eastern Anatolia also began
to organize. In Diyarbakır, the Woman’s Center (KAMER) was founded
in 2004, after years of preliminary work, to raise awareness on domestic
violence and honor crimes. Founded in 2001, one of the most influential
feminist organizations, Amargi, adopted a feminist, anti-hierarchic, anti-
260 Journal of Women’s History Winter

nationalist, and anti-militarist stance, publishing its own journal, Amargi.

Other feminist journals like Kaktüs (1988–1990) and Pazartesi (1995–2006)
also had very important impacts on the debates surrounding the flourish-
ing of new scholarship and activism on honor crimes, domestic violence,
LGBT rights, ethnic discrimination, and peace.
Over the last two decades, there has been a visible shift of focus toward
questioning how Islam and modernity can co-exist and be practiced. The
sociologists Nilüfer Göle and Ayşe Saktanber have been at the forefront of
scholars who have commented on the new wave of Islamist women, focus-
ing mainly on their approach to conservatism and modernity.37 They were
followed by a new generation born into the debates about veiling, Islamist
modes of living, and new forms of appropriation of modernity.38 Islamist
circles today express more loudly their desires and their sense of depriva-
tion. The rising Islamist way of life, in contradiction with the imaginary
of the early Republican secularist ideals, continues to spawn new debates,
produce different discourses, and show a growing need to study further
the history and sociology of the ideology and experiences of the early Re-
publican generations.

Notes
1
All translations by author unless otherwise noted. Ottoman Turkish was
written using the Arabic script, and included Arabic and Persian vocabulary. Adapt-
ing the Latin script, the 1928 Alphabet reform was thought to meet the phonetic
requirements of the Turkish language. But undoubtedly, it was also a strategy of
the new regime to take a distance from the Ottoman past.
2
See Ahmet Refik Altınay, Kadınlar Saltanatı (Istanbul: Kitabhane-i Askeri,
İbrahim Hilmi, 1916); Muhaddere Taşçıoğlu, Türk Osmanlı cemiyetinde kadının sosyal
durumu ve kadın kıyafetleri (Ankara: Akın matbaası, 1958); Nimet Arzık, Osmanlı
sarayında yabancı kadın sultanlar (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1969); Turhan Oflazoğlu,
Kösem Sultan (Istanbul: Adam Yayıncılık, 1982); Çağatay M. Uluçay, Harem (Ankara:
Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1985); Pars Tuğlacı, Osmanlı saray kadınlar-The Otto-
man palace women (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1985).
3
Cahit Caka, Tarih Boyunca Harp ve Kadın (Ankara: As. Fb. Basımevi, 1948);
Aynur Mısırlıoğlu, Kuva-yı Milliye’nin Kadın Kahramanları (Istanbul: Sebil Yayınevi,
1976); İnci Enginün, Müjgan Cunbur, and Cahide Özdemir, Milli Mücadele’de Türk
Kadını (Ankara: Türk Ticaret Bankası, 1983).
4
See “Türk Kadınlığı Sevinç ve Heyecan İçinde,” Cumhuriyet 5, no. 6 Birinci
kanun (1934): 1; “Türk Kadınlığının Zaferi Hariçte Derin Akisler Yaptı,” Cumhuriyet
25 Birinci kanun (1934): 1; “Türk Kadınlığının Bayram Günü,” Ulus, 6, no. 7 İlk
kanun (1934): 1; H.F. “Seçme Ve Seçilme Hakları Kabul Edilen Yabancı Memleketlerde
Kadınlar, Bu Haklarını Nasıl Kullanıyorlar,” Fikirler, no.145 (1937): 15.
2013 Arzu Öztürkmen 261

5
In his 1933 speech, politician Necip Ali Küçüka criticized the fact that
women contributed little to the Theater Section of the newly established People’s
Houses and stated that they should not hesitate to perform such a “national duty.”
See “Söylevler 1932–1941,” C.H.P. Genel Sekreterliği Halkevleri ve Halkodalarının
Onuncu Yıldönümü Yayınlarından (Ankara: Recep Ulusoğlu Basımevi, 1942), 102.
Similarly, writer Kemal Güngör praised those folk dances which were performed
by men and women together. See Kemal Güngör, “Halk Raksları,” Ülkü 17, no. 100
(June 1941): 368–70.
6
A. Afetinan, The emancipation of the Turkish woman (Paris: Unesco, 1962);
Cengiz Orhonlu, “Türkiye’de Kadın Haklarının Kazanılması Meselesi,” Türk Kül-
türü 72 (October 1968); Tezer Taşkıran, Cumhuriyet’in 50. Yılında Türk Kadın Hakları
(Ankara: Başbakanlık Basımevi, 1973); Kamile Şevki Mutlu, “Türkiye’de Kadın
Doktorlar,” 50. Yıl Armağanı, C.II, Erzurum 1974, 85–150; Tezer Taşkıran, Women
in Turkey (Istanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi, 1976). Burhan Göksel, “Atatürk ve Kadın
Hakları,” Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi 1 (November 1984): 213–35; Burhan
Göksel, Çağlar Boyunca Türk Kadını ve Atatürk (Ankara: Kültür Ve Turizm Bakanlığı
Yayınları, 1988); Ömer Çaha, Sivil Kadın, Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Kadın (Ankara:
Vadi Yayınları, 1996); Rauf İnan, “Atatürk ve Türk Kadını,” X.Türk Tarih Kongresi,
Vol. VI. (September 22–6, 1986), Ankara, 1994.
7
Zafer Toprak, “Cumhuriyet Arifesi Evlilik Üzerine Bir Anket: Görücülük
mü ? Görüşücülük mü?,” Tarih ve Toplum 50 (February, 1988): 32–4; Zafer Toprak,
“Osmanlı Kadınları Çalıştırma Cemiyeti, Kadın Askerler ve Milli Aile,” Tarih ve
Toplum 51 (March, 1988): 34–8; Zafer Toprak, “Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası’ndan
Önce Kurulan Parti: Kadınlar Halk Fırkası,” Tarih ve Toplum 51 (March, 1988): 30–1;
Zafer Toprak, “Milli Moda’ ve Çarsaf,” Boğaziçi (winter 1989): 3–8; Zafer Toprak,
“İttihat ve Terakki ve Teali-i Vatan Osmanlı Hanımlar Cemiyeti,” Toplum ve Bilim
(Fall 1989): 43–4.
8
See Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Mod-
ernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962);
Şerif Mardin, Türkiye’de iktisadi düşüncenin gelişmesi (1838–1918) (Ankara Ankara
Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayınları 12: Ajans-Türk matbaası, 1962);
Niyazi Berkes, The development of secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University
Press, 1964); İdris Küçükömer, Düzenin yabancılaşması: Batılılaşma (Istanbul: Ant
Yayınları, 1969); Şerif Mardin, Din ve ideoloji: Türkiye’de halk katındaki dinsel inançların
siyasal eylemi etkilendirmesine ilişkin bir kavramlaştırma modeli (Ankara, Ankara
Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayınları 275: Sevinç Matbaası, 1969); Şerif
Mardin, Continuity and change in the ideas of Young Turks (Istanbul: Robert College,
1969); Jan Hinderink & Mübeccel B. Kıray, eds., Social stratification as an obstacle to
development: a study of four Turkish villages (New York : Praeger, 1970); İsmail Cem,
Türkiye’de geri kalmışlığın tarihi (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1970), İsmail Cem, Türkiye
üzerine araştırmalar (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1970); Çağlar Keyder, The definition of
a peripheral economy: Turkey, 1923–1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981); Ömer Lütfi Barkan, Türkiye’de toprak meselesi (Istanbul: Gözlem Yayınları, 1980);
Çağlar Keyder, State and class in turkey: A study in capitalist development (New York:
Verso, 1987); Mehmet Genç, Osmanlı imparatorluğunda devlet ve ekonomi (Istanbul:
Ötüken, 2000).
262 Journal of Women’s History Winter

9
Aytunç Altındal, Türkiye’de Kadın: (Marksist Bir Yaklaşım (Istanbul: Birlik
Yayınları, 1975); Şirin Tekeli, “Sunuş,” in Yaprak Zihnioğlu, Kadınsız İnkılap: Nezihe
Muhiddin, Kadınlar Halk Fırkası, Kadın Birliği (Istanbul: Metis yayınları, 2003), 9–12.
10
See Şirin Tekeli, Kadınlar ve siyasal-toplumsal hayat (Istanbul: Birikim
Yayınları, 1982); Deniz Kandiyoti, “Emancipated But Unliberated? Reflections on
the Turkish Case,” Feminist Studies 13 (1987): 317–38; Nükhet Sirman, “Feminism in
Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34.
11
Şirin Tekeli, Kadın Bakış Açısından 1980`ler Türkiye`sinde Kadınlar (From
Women’s Perspective, Women in Turkey in the 1980s). The volume included the con-
tributions of the following scholars: Nora Şeni, Feride Acar, Yeşim Arat, F.Yıldız
Ecevit, Ferhunde Özbay, Günseli Berik, Fatma Gök, Yakın Ertürk, Ayşe Saktanber,
Hale Bolak, Nükhet Sirman, Lale Yalçın-Heckmann, Ayşe Güneş-Ayata, Fatmagül
Berktay, Nilüfer Çağatay, Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysay, Şahika Yüksel, Arşalus Kayır,
Deniz Kandiyoti.
12
Şirin Tekeli “Şirin Tekeli’den Duygu İçin”, BİA Haber Merkezi, 01/08/2006.
http://eski.bianet.org/2006/08/03/83117.htm. (Accessed March 29, 2013).
13
Arzu Öztürkmen, “A Short History of Kadınca Magazine and Its Femi-
nism,” in Deconstructing Images of “The Turkish Woman,” ed. Zehra Arat (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 275–93.
14
Serpil Çakır, Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi (Ottoman Women’s Movement) (Istanbul:
Metis yay., 1994).
15
Nükhet Sirman, “Feminism in Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives
on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34. Young Turk movement emerged as an opposition to
Sultan Abdülhamid II’s (1876–1909) autocratic rule which lasted for about thirty
years. They founded the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the most impor-
tant modernizing political force of modern Turkish history, with a desire of radical
change. The CUP came to power with the revolution of 1908 until the total defeat
and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War in
1918. See Feroz Ahmad. The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in
Turkish politics, 1908–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969); Mehmed Naim Turfan, Rise of
the young Turks: politics, the military and Ottoman collapse (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000).
16
Serpil Çakır, “Osmanlı Kadın Dernekleri,” Toplum ve Bilim 53 (Spring 1991):
139–59, quotation in 150–51.
17
See Tülay Keskin, “Feminist/ nationalist discourse in the first year of the
ottoman revolutionary press (1908–1909): readings from the magazines of Demet,
Mehasin and Kadın (Salonica)” (MA Thesis: Bilkent University, 2003).
18
Nükhet Sirman, “Feminism in Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives
on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34, quotation on 6.
19
See Lerna Ekmekcioglu,“Suad Derviş and Hermine Pakgönül”, paper
presented at the “Turkish Armenians after 1915” Panel at MESA Annual meeting
on November 22, 2009; Mithat Kutlar,Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan ve Kadınlar Dünyasında
Kürtler, Avesta Yayınları; Zozan Özgökçe,“Sessizleştirilmiş: ‘İsyan-ı Nisvan’,” Qijika
2013 Arzu Öztürkmen 263

Reş Dergisi, no. 3, http://qijikares.blogspot.com/2011/06/sessizlestirilmis-isyan-nisvan-

zozan.html (Accessed on April 30, 2013).
20
See Mithat Kutlar, “Osmanlı Kadın Dergileri içinde Erkekler Dünyası Der-
gisi,” FeDergi 2, no. 2 (2010): 1–15.
21
Emine Semiye, “İslamiyet’te Feminizm,” İslamiyet’te Feminizm Yahut
Âlem-i Nisvanda Musavat-ı Tamme, ed. Halil Hamid (Istanbul, Kiteum Matbaası,
1910), 3. Another publication of Emine Semiye on feminism came a decade later,
Emine Semiye, “Feminizm Ne Demektir?,” İzler, no. 25 (15 February 1921), quotation
on 2. See also Şahika Karaca, “Öncü Bir KadınYazar Emine Semiye’nin Kaleminden
İslamiyet’te Feminizm,” Ç.Ü.Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 21, no.2 (2012): 269–80.
22
Nükhet Sirman, “Feminism in Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives
on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34.
23
Fatma Aliye, “Kahraman Kadınlarımız,” Servet-i Fünun, June 11, 1915: 67;
Fatma Aliye, “Kadınlar Hakkında,” Servet-i Fünun, March 2, 1916: 179.
24
See Nevin Yazıcı “Çanakkale Savaşı’nda Türk Kadınının Rolü,” Akademik
Bakış 5, no. 9 (2011): 245–64.
25
See Lerna Ekmekçioğlu and Melisa Bilal, Bir Adalet Feryadı- Osmanlı’dan
Türkiye’ye Beş Ermeni Feminist Yazar (1862–1933 (A Cry for Justice: Five Armenian
Feminist Writers from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic (1862–1933)) (Aras
Yayıncılık: Istanbul: 2006), 246.
26
Kohar Mazlımyan, “Türk Kadını Savaş Yılları Boyunca Ne Yaptı?” (What did
the Turkish Woman do during War Years?) in Hay Gin (Armenian Woman), translated
into Turkish by Lerna Ekmekçioğlu in Feminist Yaklaşımlar, no. 2 (February 2007):
http://www.feministyaklasimlar.org/ozet/?postid_=470 (Accessed on August 9, 2013).
27
Mithat Kutlar,Nuriye Ulviye Mevlan ve ‘Kadınlar Dünyası’nda Kürtler (Istanbul:
Avesta Yayınları, 2010).
28
Ayşe Durakbaşa, Halide Edip Türk Modernleşmesi ve Feminizm (Istanbul:
İletişimYayınları, 2000).
29
Şirin Tekeli, “Emergence of the Feminist Movement in Turkey,” in The New
Women’s Movement, ed. D. Dahlerup (London: Sage, 1986), 179–99; Nükhet Sirman,
“Feminism in Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34.
30
Ayten Sezer, “Türkiye’deki İlk Kadın Milletvekilleri ve Meclis’teki
Çalışmaları,” Atatürk Araştirma Merkezi Dergisi 14, no. 42 (November 1998): 889–905.
31
Nükhet Sirman, “Feminism in Turkey: A Short History,” New Perspectives
on Turkey 1 (Fall 1989): 1–34, quotation on 9.
32
The process which led Nezihe Muhiddin to be tried is a complicated issue
well analyzed in the biographic study of Yaprak Zihnioğlu. The fact that opposi-
tion to Nezihe Muhiddin grew in the Union gave state authorities the opportunity
to investigate their internal affairs and led to corruption accusations for the Chair,
264 Journal of Women’s History Winter

namely Nezihe Muhiddin. In Zihnioğlu’s terms, Nezihe Muhiddin had been intimi-
dated by a series of trials, disreputed, and forgotten by both the state authorities and
her women companions. See Yaprak Zihnioğlu, Kadınsız İnkılap: Nezihe Muhiddin,
Kadınlar Halk Fırkası, Kadın Birliği (Istanbul: Metis yay., 2003).
33
Lerna Ekmekcioglu, “Suad Derviş and Hermine Pakgönül,” paper pre-
sented at the “Turkish Armenians after 1915” Panel at MESA Annual meeting on
November 22, 2009.
34
See Demetra Vaka, Istanbul’un Peçesiz Kadınları (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi,
2003). For an analysis of her work see Eleftheria Arapoglou, A Bridge Over the Balkans:
Demetra Vaka Brown and the Tradition of “Women’s Orients” (Piscataway, NJ : Gorgias
Press, 2011) and Duygu Köksal “From a Critique of the Orient to a Critique of Mo-
dernity: A Greek-Ottoman-American Writer, Demetra Vaka (1877–1946)” in A Social
History of the Late Ottoman Women: New Sources, New Stories, ed., Duygu Köksal and
Anastasia Falierou (Leiden: Brill Publishers, Forthcoming).
35
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu and Melisa Bilal, Bir Adalet Feryadı Osmanlı’dan Türkiye’ye
Beş Ermeni Feminist Yazar 1862–1933 (Istanbul: Aras Yayıncılık, 2006).
36
Emine Rezzan Karaman, “Femininity within the context of Kurdish nation-
alist discourse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” (MA thesis:
Boğaziçi University, 2008); Duygu Köksal and Anastasia Falierou, A Social History
of Late Ottoman Women: New Perspectives (Leiden: BRILL, 2013).
37
Nilüfer Göle, The forbidden modern: Civilization and veiling (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1996); Ayşe Saktanber, Living Islam: Women, religion
and politiczation of culture in Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002); Nilüfer Göle, “Con-
temporary Islamist movements and new sources for religious tolerance,” Journal of
Human Rights 2, no. 1 (2003): 17–30; Ayşe Saktanber, “Women and the iconography
of fear: Islamization in Post-Islamist turkey,” Signs 32, no.1 (2006): 21–31; Nilüfer
Göle, “Post-Secular turkey,” New Perspectives Quarterly 29, no.1 (2012): 7–11.
38
Mustafa Akyol, “Turkey’s veiled democracy,” The American Interest 3, no.
2 (2007): 88–94; Ali Çarkoğlu, “Women’s choices of head cover in turkey: An em-
pirical assessment,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 29,
no. 3 (2009): 450–67; Metin Toprak, and Nasuh Uslu, “The headscarf controversy
in Turkey,” Journal of Economic and Social Research 11, no. 1 (2009): 43–67; Bayram,
Salih, “Reporting hijab in turkey: Shifts in the pro- and anti-ban discourses,” Turkish
Studies 10, no. 4 (2009): 511–38; Banu Gökariksel, and Anna Secor, “Between fashion
and tesettür: Marketing and consuming women’s islamic dress,” Journal of Middle
East Women’s Studies 6, no. 3 (2010): 118–48; Ömer Çaha, “The ‘islamic women’s’
movement: Transition from the private domain to the public sphere,” Islam and
Civilisational Renewal 3, no. 1 (2011): 116–32.