women in Turkish political thought: between tradition and modernity
- PDF / 125,611 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 536 x 697 pts Page_size
- 27 Downloads / 213 Views
abstract This article aims at revealing the patriarchal pattern that has dominated Turkish political thought in the 20th century. I analyse the construction of woman’s identity in the writings of three prominent thinkers of the early-republican era (1923–1945); namely, Ahmet Agˇaogˇlu, Peyami Safa and Zekeriya Sertel. The thinkers are deliberately chosen since each represents challenging political dispositions vis-a`vis the others. Ahmet Agˇaogˇlu is a liberal-nationalist, Peyami Safa is a well-known conservative thinker and Zekeriya Sertel is a leftist. However, despite the differences between and/or opposing foundations of their approaches all the three thinkers agree that there is a universally valid woman nature, attested by women’s reproductive function, and approach the ‘woman issue’ on the basis of this assumption. The thinkers also argue that participation of women in public sphere inevitably results in their masculinization. Moreover, they distinguish between femininity and womanhood and offer their ideal models of womanhood. Although one can trace differences among the models, all converge on the concept of ‘nation’s motherhood’ as the most significant feature of ideal womanhood. The main argument of the article is that women’s subordination in the Turkish context is reinforced by the wide acceptance of these assumptions, and is further reproduced by the exclusion of the construction of gender typologies in the studies on Turkish political thought for a considerably long time.
keywords modern Turkish political thought; women’s subordination; woman nature; feminist criticism
feminist review 86 2007 c 2007 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/07 $30 www.feminist-review.com (113–131)
113
introduction The past two decades have witnessed substantial increase in academic publications on the construction of gender typologies in Turkey. This increase can be attributed to two related factors. First, in the post-1980 era, a relatively autonomous feminist movement has emerged, especially from within the leftist circles of the previous decades. Second, starting with the early 1990s, women’s/ gender studies programmes were established in Turkish universities. However, except for the feminist literature on Kemalism, the founding ideology of Turkish Republic, and on the republican model of woman, in-depth feminist analysis of the construction of gender typologies in the history of Turkish political thought is still demanding.1 This article aims to contribute to a feminist re-reading of Turkish political thought by deciphering the intellectual aspects of patriarchal political structure. I analyse the construction of women’s identity in the works of three significant thinkers of the early-republican era (1923–1945): Ahmet Agˇaogˇlu (1869–1939), Peyami Safa (1899–1961), and M. Zekeriya Sertel (1890–1980); a liberal nationalist, a prominent conservative thinker, and a leftist respectively.2 Agˇaogˇlu was one of the significant members of the Turkist movement in the last decade of the Ottoman Empire. After the foundation of the R
Data Loading...
