The reflections of the Ottoman-Turkish feminism on the literary works of Nezihe Muhittin

Download

index.pdf

Date

2006

Author

Coşar, Seda

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

686
views

303
downloads

With the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, improving the status of Turkish woman and creating a new republican woman image turned out to be pivotal issues. Women’s rights were considered as the indicators of the Turkish modernization, therefore were placed at the core of the agenda of the new republican regime. However, before the foundation of the Turkish Republic, there was a strong Ottoman-Turkish Feminism which came into existence in the late period of the Ottoman Empire and continued in the early years of the Turkish Republic. Although the Republican Reforms are considered as the unique source of equality between Turkish man and woman in the public sphere, the contributions of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism on the progress of the status of the Ottoman-Turkish women should not be overlooked. The Ottoman-Turkish Feminism aimed at ameliorating and improving the living conditions of the Ottoman-Turkish women. Gaining equal political, economic and educational rights with men were the crux of the movement, as they were in the Western First Wave Feminism. However, struggling for the abolish of the female slavery, forming a national family, creating a new woman image were the other issues that were discussed widely during the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism. Women’s associations and women’s magazines were the two important vehicles of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism in the struggle of gaining equal rights. Nezihe Muhittin was one of the leading activist woman who took part in the various activities conducted under the roof of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism. Muhittin participated in the foundation of diverse women’s associations and she was an efficient social worker. Besides her activism, Muhittin was also one of the eminent literary figures of the time. She contributed to the formation of the new woman image as she wrote various short stories, articles and novellas all of which touch upon crucial issues about Ottoman-Turkish womanhood. In the light of this theoretical framework, this study focusses on the literary works of Nezihe Muhittin, analysing the reflections of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism on the novellas written between the years 1911 and 1944. With the aim of detecting the implications of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism on the literary works of Nezihe Muhittin, frequently referred themes are compared with the main tenets and discussions of the movement. By the same token, the good and evil woman characters in the novellas are compared with the appreciated and criticised woman types of the time. By doing so, it is aimed to demonstrate that Muhittin’s literary works can be considered as the products of the Ottoman-Turkish Feminism.

Subject Keywords

Women, Feminizm.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607653/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/16166

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

The critical overview of the European Union gender equality policies and their implications for Turkey Gökalp, N. Ela; Ertürk, Yakın; Department of Sociology (2005) Since the 1990̕s, interest in the European Union (EU) gender equality policies has increased among feminist scholars and activists. In this context, studies focusing on equal pay for work of equal value, equal treatment in education, and access to employment, among others have been undertaken and different dimensions of the EU gender equality policies have been a subject of much debate. This thesis is an effort to critically review the potential of these policies vis-à-vis their capacity to bring about gend...
Changing discourse on women and islam in Turkey in ethnographic studies Onur, Petek; Saktanber, Ayşe Nur; Department of Sociology (2016) This thesis provides an analysis of the change of ethnographic discourse on women and Islam in Turkey. Based on the theoretical framework of feminist postcolonial theory it analyses the ethnographic studies as texts and focuses on the concepts of subjectivity, subalternnes, otherness, and agency in Muslim women's discursive representations and binarism, Eurocentricism, essentialism in the way discourse is produced. It adopts Michel Foucault’s theorization of discourse, knowledge and power as a methodology t...
Challenging the image of Turkish women: travel accounts of female authors 1762-1935 Ezer, Özlem; Acar, Feride; Department of Gender and Women's Studies (2002) This thesis brings to light the image of Turkish women over time as it is depicted mostly in the travel accounts and the memoirs of Western and Turkish women. As such, it attempts to contribute to women's history and to analyse travel writing from a gender-sensitive perspective. The works covered here were written between lS^O centuries. Included are the works of Western female writers (Lady Montagu, Grace Ellison and Marc Helys) who traveled to Turkey as well as Turkish women who wrote their impressions of...
Writing the History of Ordinary Ottoman Women during World War I Metinsoy, Elif Mahir (2016-03-01) Ordinary women are among the least known subjects of Ottoman Turkish historiography. One of the most important reasons for this lack of information is that the Turkish archives are not organized in such a way that researchers can easily access documents on ordinary women. However, the difficulty in finding women's voices in historical documents is only one part of the problem. Whereas conventional Ottoman-Turkish historiography prioritizes the acts of those holding power, most Turkish feminist historiograph...
Professional women in Turkey: a qualitative study Gencher, Siv Dale; Acar, Feride; Department of Gender and Women's Studies (2002) The Turkish state has developed few policies and legal structures aimed to support female work participation compared to several "western countries". Despite the lack of formal support structures encouraging female work participation, Turkish professional women show a high level of work attachment and succeed professionally in fields that are male dominated in "western" countries. This study explores the choices, priorities and experiences of a group of (eighteen) professional women in Turkey, and how these...

Citation Formats

S. Coşar, “The reflections of the Ottoman-Turkish feminism on the literary works of Nezihe Muhittin,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2006.