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World Bank Group, GenderStats database of Gender
Statistics, <http:// devdata.worldbank.org/genderstats/
home.asp>.Elizabeth F. ThompsonTurkeyThe revolutionary movements in Turkey can be
traced back to the late Ottoman period, to the
Young Turks (Hanio(lu 1995) who eventually
came to power in the Second Constitutional Period
(1908), and to other groups, some of them social-
ist, which were active but never dominant within
the state structure. Prior to the Turkish Republic,
modernizing movements sought to accomplish
social transformation in the Ottoman state. The
influence of Islam in cultural, spatial, and social
spheres was viewed as responsible for the exclusion
of women from most parts of public life. The legal
codifications of 1839 and the constitutional reform
movements of 1876 and 1908 brought about
change in this structure toward centralization, sec-
ularization, and freedom, directly affecting women’s
claims for individual rights and independence
against the constraints of traditional gender roles.
The political discourse of prevailing intellectual
trends, namely Ottomanism, Westernism, and
Turkism, always included the theme of women’s
emancipation; hence, the first protagonists of the
Woman Question were modernist men. However,
the debate over this issue was not confined solely to
men; women themselves were actively involved in it
too. These pioneering women wrote in women’s664 political-social movements: revolutionary
journals, such as Aile(Family), Hanımlara Mahsus
Gazete(Journal for women), Genç Kadın (Young
woman), Demet (Bunch), Kadın(Woman), Süs
(Ornamentation), Kadınlar Dünyası (Women’s
world) and ÷nci(Pearl), of which there were alto-
gether 40. These activities can be defined as the
“Ottoman women’s movement,” for the number of
journals and organizations run by women at the
time deserves such a characterization (Çakır 1993).
The Osmanlı Müdafaa-i Hukuk-u Nisvan Cemi-
yeti (Association for the defense of the rights of
Ottoman women) founded by Ulviye Mevlan, and
its publication Kadınlar Dünyası, problematized
women’s status in Ottoman society and struggled
against traditional gender inequalities as Ulviye
Mevlan’s words witness: “Women shall not any
more rely on male writers’ deceitful remarks that
women are men’s life-long comrades and compan-
ions. These are all lies. However, although we know
they are lies, they lure our feelings. This is why we
cannot defend our rights” (Çakır 1994, 125).
The revolutionary nature of the Turkish Repub-
lic is evident in the abolition of the Caliphate
(1924), the secularization of education by the
enactment of the Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu (Law of
union of education, 1924) and the adoption of the
new Civil Code (1926), which opened the way for
women’s citizenship. The modernization project of
the republic aimed at national mobilization of both
genders, and important steps toward the inclusion
of women into the public sphere were achieved. The
“new man” of modern Turkey tried to define and
promote the “new woman,” equipping her with
certain rights of citizenship and professional roles
in the public realm. But the Turkish Republic was
based on the fraternity of male citizens (Durakbaça
1998) and women were not regarded as parties in
the social contract until 1934 when they acquired
full citizenship rights.
Politically eminent women such as Halide Edip
(Durakbaça 2000) and Nezihe Muhittin protested
against the terms of emancipation defined by the
male protagonists of Turkish modernization, argu-
ing for the political rights of women against the
idea that the republic was not mature enough to
grant women the right to vote. Nezihe Muhittin
founded the Kadınlar Halk Fırkası (Women’s peo-
ple’s party, 1923) to defend the participation of
women in politics. She became the founder of Türk
Kadınlar Birli‘i (Turkish women’s association)
when this party was not legally authorized.
As the republic established itself ideologically
and institutionally the revolutionary character of
the modernization project weakened until the
1960s when major republican values were reawak-