Even in cases where the resulting products are mar-
keted, constituting significant contributions to
household income, these activities are generally
regarded by both men and women as either leisure
or simply part of womanhood (Berik 1987, Ka(ıt-
çıbaçı 1982, 13–14).
In urban households where the husband’s income
can support a comfortable standard of living, a
woman who chooses full-time homemaking is not
regarded as deviant as long as she fulfills domestic
and childcare obligations. These duties are per-
formed by (usually female) domestic servants if
household income can support their wages without
threatening the secure survival of the family. Since
supervision of domestic servants is easily combined
with full-time employment, it is common for (espe-
cially younger) women from affluent households to
pursue professional and managerial careers with-
out breaking serious gender norms (Öncü 1981,
Erkut 1982). However, an able-bodied woman
who does not contribute to a household income
that is insufficient for a culturally expected level of
security and comfort invites social disapproval.
Thus, in urban households where adult men are
un(der)-employed, women commonly engage in
income-earning activities ranging from taking in
piecework (White 1994), to waged work in both
the informal and formal sectors (Ecevit 1998,
÷lkkaracan 1998). However, men’s contribution to
housework and childcare is considered inappropri-
ate by the majority except in times of family crisis,
and there appears to be a consensus that under
those circumstances, the most suitable domestic
chore for adult men is shopping (Baçaran 1985).
These asymmetries in definitions of gender-
appropriate work impose serious strains on women,
especially in low-to-middle-income households.
Additionally, and somewhat paradoxically, they
create and maintain two highly gender-segregated
domestic role clusters and relative autonomy for
(especially older) women carrying out female-
appropriate daily tasks. Consequently, most schol-
ars of the Turkish family agree that it follows a
duofocal pattern rather than a classical patriarchal
one (Olson-Prather 1976, Olson 1982)
Though by no means unique to the region in its
broad outlines, the particulars of this division of
labor nonetheless bear the marks of a highly spe-
cific set of historical and sociocultural factors.
Male and female duties clearly derive from Islamic
family norms, as does the dependence of masculin-
ity on the ability to distance itself from feminine
tasks, and the resulting autonomy of women within
the domestic sphere (Ahmed 1982). Norms gov-
erning women’s roles outside the home, however,248 household division of labor
underwent drastic revisions under the Kemalist
reforms in Turkey and the Bolshevik Revolution in
the Caucasus.
Both movements incorporated women’s emanci-
pation as an integral part of their program, and as
a litmus test of success. Observing gender asymme-
tries in domestic labor, Bolshevik reformers con-
cluded that women, and not the working class,
were the truly exploited and hence were their
potential allies in the predominantly Muslim areas
around the Caucasus (Massell 1974). In Turkey, the
modernization of women was a key component of
Atatürk’s reformist agenda. Through speeches and
legislative reforms, he actively coaxed Turkish
women into the public sphere of work, career, and
politics. The female comrade in Soviet revolution-
ary culture (Wood 1997) and the (especially rural)
woman within the Turkish discourse of national
liberation and rebirth (Atatürk 1923) are both rep-
resented as strong workers and brave fighters. Both
discourses, however, were silent about domestic
labor except to reassert women’s importance as
mothers. Consequently, neither reform movement
significantly altered masculine duties and prohibi-
tions as defined by Islamic law and practice, while
they drastically widened the scope of female duties
and aggressively challenged prohibitions against
women’s public roles. In other words, women’s
emancipation came with high labor costs.Bibliography
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