Rethinking the political: Ottoman women as feminist subjects

Abstract

This article examines late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Muslim Ottoman women’s journals. Drawing attention to the historical and social phenomenon of Ottoman Muslim women’s print culture, the author argues that women’s writings and activism around these journals functioned as a significant feminist public sphere that built a community of women’s discourse. Women’s journals established a real community of intellectual women writers and readers who overtly promoted a feminist agenda in the public sphere. Thus, they envisioned and created alternative roles for upper middle class and middle class Ottoman women. Contrary to the conventional narrative of Turkish feminism that identifies its origin with the Republican period, it was Ottoman women’s periodicals and associations that laid the groundwork for future feminists in the Republican period. In providing an analysis of these magazines, the author explores a class of now nearly forgotten publications that, she argues, created a feminist discourse in their time.

Keywords:

• Ottoman women
• print culture
• feminist public sphere
• women’s journals

Notes

1. My use of the problematic category of ‘Ottoman women’ mainly refers to upper class and upper middle class Ottoman Muslim women who wrote in Ottoman Turkish, while occasionally I also give examples of women from other ethnic, religious or class positions. During the nineteenth century, women within the Ottoman empire had an immense array of differences in terms of ethnic, religious, regional, and social identities. For the purposes of this study, I use the term Ottoman women to refer chiefly to Muslim women living in the urban centers of the empire such as Istanbul and Salonika.

2. I use the term feminism to refer to any activity, movement, or person that advocated women’s rights and the advancement of their lives in the public and private spheres. The framework of this article is a period-specific one. Therefore, in light of the view that one needs to approach a historical text within its own historical framework, I would like to note that most of the goals and assumptions of the texts that I am working with function within late nineteenth century feminism for which the main feminist objective was gender equality and women’s social and political rights in education, marriage, and professional life.

3. By the term ‘politics of sociability,’ I mean forms of activities that exist outside formal politics such as debates held in literary salons, and political and social opinions introduced and discussed in newspapers and journals, for instance. For a discussion and use of this term in other contexts, see Kale, French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848 (Kale, 2004).

4. My translation. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Turkish to English are mine.

5. Beth Baron cites al-Fatah (The young woman), which was published in Alexandria in November 1892, as the first Arabic women’s journal. Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press, p.1 (Baron, 1994). Baron focuses on women’s journals published specifically from 1892 to 1919 in Egypt.

6. For studies on the print culture of women from other ethnic and religious groups in the Ottoman Empire, see the following: Klein (2001, pp. 25–51), Alakom (2001, pp. 53–70), Rowe (2000) and Ekmekçioglu and Bilal (2006).

7. Salname-i Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye (1326/1910). For a list of publishing houses and publishers in the later years, see Servet İskit, (1939), pp. 301–306.

8. The historian Toprak states that between 1908 and 1918, there were over 1000 periodicals. There were 353 newspapers in 1908, 130 in 1910, and 124 in 1911 (Toprak, 1984). Though most of these periodicals were short-lived and only 2–8 pages long, they were also disseminated widely across Anatolia, parts of which also experienced a real growth in the number of newspapers published. For instance, while there was only one newspaper in Konya prior to 1908, after 1908 this number increased to eleven newspapers and eight journals (Varlık, 1985, p. 117).

9. One of the women who used the word feminism in her writings and discussed it is Emine Semiye (1864–1944), the sister of the first female Ottoman Muslim novelist Fatma Aliye and the daughter of the famous statesman Ahmet Cevdet Paşa. Emine Semiye was also the vice-president of the Committee of Union and Progress’s (CUP) women’s branch in Salonica. In her manuscript titled İslamiyette Feminizm (Feminism in Islam), she discussed issues such as the equality of men and women, women’s rights in Islam, women’s wider access to education, women’s right to participate in professional life, as well as criticizing the harmful effects of too-much Westernization, which was one of the popular topics of debate among the Ottoman intelligentsia of the time. Semiye (n.d.) İslamiyette Feminizm in İslamiyette Feminizm Yahut Alem-i Nisvanda Musavaat-ı Tamme, ed. Halil Hamid.

10. This magazine was the official periodical of the Osmanlı Müdafaa-i Hukuk-I Nisvan Cemiyeti [Ottoman Women’s Rights Association] and had a policy that all its editorial board and its authors would only be women. It aimed to discuss the problems of women from all classes of the society. The magazine supported the right of women to attend university and to work as state employees. It should be noted this was a very important feminist intervention in the political arena. For a detailed discussion of this association, see Çakır (1996).

11. Mehasin was the first monthly women’s journal, published with colored pictures. Its owner and director was Asaf Muammer, and its editor-in-chief was the novelist Mehmet Rauf. It was published for 12 issues, between September 1324/1908 and Teşrinisâni 1325/November 1909. Aşa (1989), ‘1928’e Kadar Kadın Mecmuaları’ (1989), p. 294.

12. Demet was published weekly and focused on the publication of poetry and short stories. In addition to these literary pieces, essays on fashion, health, and child-care were also included in Demet. Among the 44 signatures in the periodical, 11 of them were women’s. Demet was also exceptional in its specific effort to include non-Muslim Ottoman women writers. It welcomed to its pages important Armenian women writers, such as Madam Zabel Asador and Madam Zabel Yesayan, and it is significant that their work was published in the section entitled, ‘Osmanli Mesahir-i Nisvani’ (Famous Ottoman Women). We have only seven issues of the Demet. The first issue is dated 17 Eylül 1324/September 30, 1908, and the seventh issue is dated 29 Teşrinievvel 1324/December 11, 1908. Its owner and editor-in-chief was Celal Sahir. Toska et al. (1992), pp. 24–27.

13. Its owner was İbnül Hakkı Mehmet Tahir and its editor was his wife Şadiye Hanım. All of its issues are available in the Beyazıd Devlet Kütüphanesi in İstanbul, where I have examined this magazine along with others. Its authors included famous women of their time such as Fatma Aliye, Emine Semiye, Makbule Leman, Nigar bint-i Osman, Hamiyet Zehra, and Keçeçizade İkbal. It covered fashion, poems, readers’ letters, foreign and domestic news, announcements and advertisements, poems and short stories.

14. For instance, see Leman, (September 18–October 17, 1895), pp. 2–4; and Emine Semiye (April 20, 1899), p. 8.

15. For one of the earliest works on the Ottoman women’s movement and a detailed study of this magazine, see Serpil Çakır, Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi. Among the writers who wrote frequently in the magazine were Ulviye Mevlan, Aziz Haydar, Emine Seher Ali, Mükerrem Belkıs, Aliye Cevad, Sıdıka Ali Rıza, and Yaşar Nezihe.

16. On the development of wider education opportunities for Ottoman women and its representation in Refet, see Yıldız (2008).