More generally, women’s position in Turkish so-
ciety and their experience of socialization have
undergone significant changes over the last few
decades with the acceleration of capitalist develop-
ment in the country and the high rates of internal
and external migrations. This is especially noted
for women dwellers of shanty towns (gecekondu)
and those running households of male migrant
workers. These women’s aspirations for their chil-
dren and expectations of gender power balance are
more akin to the modern attitudes prevailing in the
large urban centers than those in their rural points
of origin. Among such communities a change in the
male authority relations is observed in the greater
autonomy women are able to assume, whether it is
in the choice of marriage partners, consumption
patterns, or the management of family finances
(Abadan-Unat 1981). Similarly, in the case of
working-class households with women breadwin-
ners, the girlhood dream of being a perfect wife and
mother (commended for domestic skills such as
cooking, sewing, and maintaining hygiene) con-
flicts with the modern ideal of role-sharing
demanded in consequence of outside employment
(Cihan Bolak 1981).
The stereotype of the perfect housewife/mother is
one that still dominates the ideal of womanhood
even among the professional middle classes. This is
despite the large numbers of Turkish women enter-
ing white-collar work and a range of professions.
The media promote domesticity for women
through the popular press and television programs
that constantly deal with love and emotions, val-
orizing housework and home life (as, for example,
with the Latin American soap operas). They further
project the image of gentility, understanding, and
devotion to the family as the undisputable core of
femininity, whilst adapting to requirements of
modernity (Saktanber 1991). The education sys-
tem, however, reinforces gender discrimination
through the sexist content of primary level text-
books and the range of subjects (particularly at the
vocational school level) deemed suitable for male
and female students (Gök 1991). The growing
spread of religious functionary schools since the
1970s is a further reinforcement of conservatism in
the educational agenda for women, and a platform
for the Islamist forces that have entered Turkish
politics in a major way. The Islamic model of wom-
anhood presented by these establishments and the
media controlled by them contrasts the pious
Muslim woman, who is an obedient wife and
devoted mother, with the overworked, exploited,
and oppressed Westernized woman (Acar 1991).
turkey and the caucasus 207the caucasus
In the Caucasus, where there is as yet little intru-
sion by the outside Islamist groups, women’s edu-
cation, outside employment, and power relations
vary greatly according to the specific region and
rural/urban divisions. In the rural areas a strongly
patriarchal system dominates women’s gender and
intergenerational relations, and women have little
control over their fertility. In mountainous Daghes-
tan it has been noted that women constitute a highly
exploited labor force, engaged in very heavy physi-
cal work (Chenciner 1997), a situation similar to the
Black Sea region of Turkey a few decades ago.
In Azerbaijan, where early capitalist develop-
ment of the oil industry in the tsarist period led to a
degree of modernization, including the education
and unveiling of women of elite families, large-scale
industrialization and modernization took place in
the seven decades following the Soviet revolution.
By the 1980s Azeri women had already entered the
workforce en masse, forming a majority in some
fields, such as education and medicine (see Heyat
2002 for a study of women in Azerbaijan). This has
entailed profound changes in women’s status in
society, and their gender and inter-generational
relations, particularly in urban areas. The authori-
tarian mother/daughter-in-law relations prevalent
in many Muslim societies, for instance, have been
mostly transformed to mutual support and bonds
of affection and loyalty. More generally, the insti-
tution of family has been central to enabling
women to cope with the multiple tasks expected of
them: housewife, career woman, and educator of
the children. For the professional Azeri women
dealing with the double burden of career and heavy
domestic duties a crucial factor was the vertical
support across generations, particularly that of
grandmothers. The system of kin-based loyalty and
support also enabled these women to call on the
labor of others for the management of household
chores. This was particularly crucial under the
Soviet system, given the difficulties of obtaining
hired domestic labor, unlike in Turkey and other
Muslim Middle Eastern countries where profes-
sional women may easily rely on this sector.
In Azeri culture there is a strong association be-
tween domesticity and ideals of femininity, whilst
masculinity is associated with tasks that require
dealings outside the home. The codes of hospitality
are very demanding, in part due to investment in
personal networks that were crucial to gaining
access to scarce goods and services under the Soviet
system. All this required a great deal of time and
attention from women. It also placed them in a