Ottoman women writers have always been a part of Ottoman intellectual history. Even though they have always been categorized specifically based on their gender as “women” in major literary histories from the 15th to 20th centuries, women writers only started to embrace this gender appropriation in the 19th century. Before that, women writers did not seem to be interested in highlighting their gender. What happened in the 19th century to embolden women’s gender consciousness? Did this only happen to women? If we are talking about an overall gender consciousness in the Ottoman intellectual world, is it possible to read this development in the light of Foucault’s ideas of historicizing sexuality? The best cases for investigating the idea of Ottoman authorship and its relation to gender in the 19th century are the writings of Ahmet Mithat (1844-1912) and Fatma Aliye (1862-1936). Mithat’s biographical narrative of the first woman novelist, Fatma Aliye, Fatma Aliye Hanım yahud Bir Muharrire-i Osmaniye'nin Neşeti [Fatma Aliye: An Ottoman Woman Writer is Born] registers a male intellectual’s perspective on the emergence of a woman writer. In comparison to Mithat’s work, Fatma Aliye’s Nisvan-ı Islam [Women in Islam] is a woman’s reflection on gender roles in an Islamic state. Interestingly, Fatma Aliye writes her opinion about the issue through a dialog with an unknown French woman. This paper through a comparative analysis of these works, not only contextualizes the emergence of the Ottoman woman writer in the 19th century, but also traces its links to the classical period.