(1913–2001), one of the adopted daughters of
Atatürk and the first woman combat pilot in the
world. Gökçen joined the Air Academy in 1936
and participated in a large-scale military operation
in Dersim, a Kurdish-Alevi dominated province in
southeastern Turkey in 1937. Upon her successful
undertaking of combat duties, Gökçen remembers
Atatürk telling her: “We are a military nation. From
ages 7 to 70, women and men alike, we have been
created as soldiers” (Gökçen 1996, 126). For the
New York Times (19 September 1937), she was
“The Flying Amazon of Turkey.”
Gökçen remained the only woman to join the
military until 1955, when several women won a
court case to join the Army College on the grounds
that the regulations did not specify gender as a
limitation for application. A number of women
entered the colleges of the army, navy, and air force
in the following years. But in the early 1960s, the
entry regulations for military colleges were amended
to include “being male” as a requirement for the
applicants (Kurtcephe and Balcıo(lu 1991, 172–3).
It was only in 1992 that women were, once again,
allowed to apply for the military colleges and acad-
emies. The 2001 figure for the total number of
woman officers in the Turkish armed forces is 918
out of a total force of more than 800,000 (Year-In-
Review 2001). Turkey has the second largest mili-
tary in NATO (after the United States), and one of
the lowest ratios of female personnel (together with
Italy and Poland). The recruitment of women into
the military academies after the 1990s may partly
have been a result of the pressures coming from
NATO, particularly the Committee on Women.
The implications of compulsory military service
and becoming a military officer are quite different.
While the latter can be seen as the right to choose a
military career, the former marks the right of the
state to ask for women’s service without their con-
sent. In the public debates on both issues, different
opinions have been raised by women, ranging from
demands to be conscripted to antimilitarist stances
critiquing the military establishment altogether.
Some women, like Gökçen, have been active in the
creation and perpetuation of the myth that the
Turkish nation is a military nation. Other women
have been critical of this myth altogether (see
Emektar 2003, Cumhuriyet 1992). In the absence
of in-depth research, we know very little about the
ideas of the large numbers of women who have not
participated in the public debates, but have been
essential to the military service system as mothers,
wives, girlfriends, and sisters. We also know little
about the actual experiences of women officers in
the military.490 military: women’s participation
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NATO Forces, 25th Anniversary, 2001, <http://www.
nato.int/ims/2001/win/00-index.htm>.Ayçe Gül AltınayThe United StatesWomen have served on the battlefield as nurses,
water bearers, cooks, laundresses, and saboteurs
since the revolutionary war. They held no official
positions in the military but worked as civilians
serving their country’s military needs until the
establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901
and the Navy Nurse Corps in 1908. During the
First World War (1917–18), the first formal mili-
tary positions were held by 21,480 army nurses and
more later served in the Quartermaster’s Corps.
The Reorganization Act (1920) allowed women to
hold “relative rank” from second lieutenant to
major (but without rights and privileges).
In 1942, the Army Nurse Corps changed to the
Women’s Auxillary Army Corps (WAAC) and in
1943 to the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), which
included the Women’s Air force Service Pilots
(WASP) who flew as civil service pilots. WASPs flew
stateside missions as ferriers, test pilots, and anti-
aircraft artillery trainers. The navy also recruited
women into its Navy Women’s Reserve, called
Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service
(WAVES) (Highlights of Women in the Military). In
1978, the women’s corps were terminated and
women were integrated with the regular services.
The number of women increased from 1.6 percent