Abstract
One of the longest running serials of Ottoman women's press, Kadinlar Dunyasi (1913-1921), proclaimed on its title page that it served the goal of “defending women's rights and interests”. The Second Constitutional Period, during which this journal was published, was in many ways a unique period in the history of Ottoman/Turkish modernization in terms of the lively debates and important developments regarding Ottoman women's social rights. Various women's organizations and publications flourished under the aegis of the CUP-run government. This study argues that three factors set Kadinlar Dunyasi's struggle for women's rights apart from the state-sponsored feminism of the CUP and from that of the rest of the women’s rights activism at the time.
First of all, Kadinlar Dunyasi had a forthright, bold feminist discourse, heralding a “women's revolution”. For many of the prominent female and/or feminist writers of the time this idea was “too radical”, therefore they avoided being associated with this journal. Instead of focusing on motherly and wifely duties of women and publishing educational articles on these subjects, Kadinlar Dunyasi focused on three issues that were the corner stones of its feminist agenda: reforming female outfit, improving female working life, spreading education among women.
Secondly, both the socio-economic profile of Kadinlar Dunyasi's writers and the content of their feminist reform proposals suggested a modest and lower-middle class agenda that helps shed further light on why many of the elite women writers of the time distanced themselves from this journal.
Thirdly, although Kadinlar Dunyasi had a clear nationalist discourse, its writers refused the subjugation of their gender interests to official nationalism and rejected the reproduction of gender inequalities through the policies of the CUP.
Despite the conspicuous lack of contribution to this journal by prominent elite female writers of the time, the relatively wide-spread circulation and the long publication life of the journal suggests a wide interest in Kadinlar Dunyasi's agenda among the women from regular walks of life. A through analysis of the feminism of Kadinlar Dunyasi will disclose the ways in which these “ordinary” Ottoman women sought new avenues to challenge their traditional roles and improve their living conditions in a floundering, war-torn empire
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