week 15 nadine naber

In this week’s reading, Nadine Naber discusses on the subject of the cultural disputes uprising ever since being a child in San Francisco and having deeply rooted upbringings of her family’s culture. Coming from a strong Arab background, the culture embedded within each family member was brought up whenever they could do something, when they could not, who could belong and who did not. The American and Arab values and differences that Naber had to face were not easy. She did respect her culture’s rules and guidelines, however this was not entirely true at all times. What felt even worse about not listening to her parents was that when breaking the rules there were times she felt as if she was disrespecting her people’s culture. Because this culture revolved around the word, “we.” Naber also endured the struggle of knowing her uncles need to change their names, in order to stop being harassed by Americans. This exemplified how her family had to assimilate into this American culture, however most things they could not necessarily do was part of the American culture. Even then, assimilation was difficult. Orientalism was the struggle she and her people had to face, because, despite following their culture, it brought them to a greater risk of belonging in a new country. The culture that Naber had to face is much more different than what I had to follow compared to us both being American born, yet having two separate cultures. I am not saying one culture is better than the other, but each culture takes time in order to assimilate in a country like this. Nonetheless, this reading was eye opening and relatable in many aspects to individuals with immigrant families.

Decolonizing culture

Nadine Naber writes about the cultural clashes her family and neighbors met when moving to the US from Jordan, and how it affected the way she was brought up. She talks about the "cultural war" between American and Arab values that she as a teenager had to endure, and the pain of feeling like she betrayed her culture when she chose to go against her parents rules. The issue of us vs. them is discussed throughout the chapter, as she and other Arab-Americans she grew up with or interviewed met the same attitudes from their parents, something she calls reversed orientalism. Naber explains the theory behind orientalism, and shows us how their immigrant parents turned it around to the favor of their Arab culture. Basically, whatever their parents did not want them to do, became part of the "American culture," which was morally bankrupt, sexually depraved and degenerate. Naber talks about how much stricter her and other immigrant parents were compared to her relatives in Jordan, and concludes that the "Arabness" she was brought up in is a reaction to the cultural clash her parents met when moving to America, rather than built on traditional Arab values. Through interviews, she discusses similarities between herself and other young Arab-Americans, to come up with theories about the historical conditions and power structures that have shaped their community.

Week 15 Response

In Nadine Naber chapter called "Decolonizing Culture," she talks about her experience of being a child in an immigrant family residing in the SF Bay Area. Many of her memories would be her parents telling her to that she is unable to do certain things because it did not correlate with the culture of her parents. This becomes problematic for her because she is dealt to figure out which values does she follow, "Arab" or "American". What impacted me the most was when Naber mentioned that her immigrant parents felt the need to pressure her to become a perfect Arab girl since her parents felt were a large reflection of the family and the father(79). Nadine mentions that she "couldn't wear [my] trendy jeans with the tear down my side for the fear that my relatives and parents' friends would curse my sloppy clothes and bare skin"(80). This makes me think of not only women in the Arab community are pressured to be the ideal image of the family but also in many other countries such as my mothers in El Salvador. Nadine then speaks of why it was so important for her and the family to assimilate within a predominately white neighborhood(80). She mentions how her uncles had changed their names to American names because they were called many racist slurs(80). Through this Naber was able to fully understand the meaning of Orientals, and how that reflects the many reasons why her family struggle to assimilate being an immigrant family in America. It begins to influence the way she begins to see the world since she was unable to bring her problems to the real world because that is not the way to deal with immigrant family problems(81). Nadine then begins to express how she began to do research among the Arab community in the Bay Area and how that has been influenced between the tradegy that happening in the Bay as well as their homeland back East(82). Through her research she was able to encounter many Arab teens and older to share their stories discovering that Orientalism was the heart of their struggle growing up Arab(82). Because of Orientalism, many Arab girls were afraid to disobey their families values, being homosexual never existed, and social movements were disregarded because it did not follow the values of the Arab community. Orientalism created much fear within the Arab Community that Nadine mentions that prevents many conversations of Gender and Sexuality to be brought to the table(87). To many of these things I can relate while growing up. My mother is an immigrant from El Salvador and I remember her telling my sisters and I that we could not do many things such as sleep overs, ballet, friends birthday parties because she did not want us to nor did she give us an explanation.

Week 15 Reading Response

In Nadine Naber’s chapter entitled “Decolonizing Culture,” she examines the ways in which “Arab culture”—particularly as it pertains to the dominant middle-class Arab Americans—is imagined and reinforced. By doing so, she simultaneously interrogates the perpetuated dichotomy between “Arabness” and “Americanness.”Naber begins by recounting personal stories of how Arab “culture” was constantly used as a tool to assert control over her and her siblings, which essentially translated as being the opposite of “American” in order to truly “be Arab”; that is to say, she notices that it became a common understanding that being American is to immerse oneself in sexual promiscuity and weak family structures, while being Arab was its antithesis. By noticing this reinforced dichotomy, Naber illustrates how gender and sexuality, and their attached ideologies, are among the biggest indicators of this imagined difference between American and Arab cultures. For example, in one of the interviews she conducted within Arab communities, a participant discloses that “[t]here was pressure to marry an Arab woman because the idea was that ‘She will stand by her family, she will cook and clean, and have no career…She will do anything for her husband” whereas “‘American women leave their families’” (83). The ideals of femininity and heterosexuality and the corresponding imagined “good Arab girl,” then, become the primary symbols of maintaining Arab “culture” and rejecting “Americanness.” Arabness is painted as morally superior. Naber further discusses this idea of Arab “culture” that actively works to be in opposition of American “culture” as “an immigrant survival strategy for replacing U.S. Colonialist and Orientalist discourses about Arabs, Muslims, and the Middle East with seemingly positive or empowering concepts of culture identity” (85). Ironically, she notes, homophobia and patriarchy that seem essential to Arab “culture” are actually sustained within middle-class Arab communities in order to meet the “demands of white middle class acceptability” (86). This is to say: though it seems Arab Americans work to maintain their learned culture from their nation of origin, compulsory heterosexuality and patriarchy have emerged not just because of cultural matters, but because of their subconscious assimilation—not because of their desire to be un-American (read as not sexually promiscuous and not having broken families). Naber asserts that it is crucial for Arab communities to talk about things such as this compulsory heterosexuality because it enables steps forward for dismantling divisions between Orientalism and anti-Orientalism, American “culture” and Arab “culture,” and “the communal” and “the political.”

Week 13

In Cynthia Enloe’s “The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire”, Enloe explores the idea of the United States as an empire and what it takes to be an empire in the past and what it means to be an empire today. She also asks an important question: where are the women in these empires? Whether we are discussing an empire of the past or today, feminist historians know that “diplomatic halls, the bloody battlefields and the floors of stock exchanges” are not where we’d find them. We are to look inside brothels, factor windows and parlors for they are the sites where women are and where the foundation to empire-building is found. 

An unexpected political forum for most would be found in a beauty salon, where women of different ages, backgrounds and opinions can be found sharing ideas and educating one another in a same environment. That is perhaps why one of the three women of the Governing Council in Iraq is Nimo Din’Kha Skander, a woman who operates a small hair salon in Baghdad. Unfortunately, that low number of represented women still implies a largely male dominance in the council with the females voice often marginalized and amounting to little to no influence. Iraqi women activist oppose the imbalance of sexes on the council and what that imbalance could imply for a new draft of the country’s constitution. This has forced some to reach out to international organizations and alliances to strengthen their voice and it’s these cross-national alliances among women that has widened understanding and knowledge and challenges us all to explore the real impact of empires today and what they’re capable of becoming.

Week 6 Posting

In Afsaneh Najmabadi "(Un)Veiling Feminism", Najmabadi's goal is to point out how feminism has worked as a veil to understanding different Islamicate societies which works against building working alliances in contemporary gender politics. She wants to make it clear that her study and historicization of secularism, nationalism and feminism in this essay is not to point out how women were once united, then divided and now are in a period of finding bridges to reconnect in todays day an age. Instead, the author points out that secularism, nationalism and feminism are historically defined and therefore differ for each country and to understand their definition of these terms, it is imperative to understand their historical context and to not group them together as one, as if assuming all Islamic countries are the same and for the same reasons. Najmabadi uses Iran as an example of this veiling generalization that plagues Islamic countries. The configurations of Islam are have unfolded/are unfolding as they should based upon the fact that the Islamic republic has been in power for more than 20 years.

Building upon Iran as an example, in her section titled "Woman and the Culture of Revolution", Najmabadi  points out that despite the legal and social restrictions that are placed upon women and the fact that feminist in the country still feel silenced, there is still a flourishing of women's intellectual and cultural production. According to the author, women who are responsible for this uprising are not only doing this to prove the islamic republic wrong and to succeed against all odds. It is also the rise of the Islamist moment in the 70's and the emergence of a new political sociability that centers around gender and its place is the political discourse making what was once marginal and illegitimate into a light of immediate authenticity and importance.

Week 15 Readings

Nadine Naber's piece was reflective on the colonial influence of Arab culture specifically in the U.S. It was interesting to see how Arabs view there internal and external problems and why they choose or choose not to identify them. She speaks a lot about her confusion growing up in "two worlds" telling her what it means to be not only a woman but an Arab woman in America. She also addresses the difficulties with trying to balance them and figuring out her identity in today's society without losing a sense of self and identity.

It seems that that is the struggle for many families that are migrating and trying to establish themselves in the U.S. This piece reminded me of Borderlands written by Gloria Anzaldua where she talks about the  importance of understanding and claiming cultural roots but also the heartache of realizing that the culture you fight for is the same culture that oppresses in the way that it doesn't provide a safe space for people of their community to be who want to be when it comes to sexuality and gender roles. It was a powerful perspective to read because of how important I believe it is to reclaim roots that have been stripped away through colonization but also understanding that there are internal factors that I deal with everyday, in my own culture, that contribute to this dehumanization of it's our own people. This point also relays to another piece I read entitled Sexuality and Discourse by Emma Perez where she backtracks the internal problem of machismo in latino culture and how colonizers can be rooted back to this because of the strive for success and the standards that they have placed of what it truly means to be successful.

In the same way, it seemed that Naber was addressing this observation too where the media influences how Arabs act on certain issues and what they define as important or "fight worthy". There's this conflict of wanting to take accountability for where the culture is faulted, itself, but easier to address what the U.S. has done because of the fear of how they would be represented by the media.

While Naber touches on the fact that homophobia is an internal problem within the Arab culture, Huda Jadallah talks about her own experience being an Arab lesbian mother and the different intersectionalities that she faces because of cultural pressures and social stigmas placed by the media. It was also a good follow up piece to read because it shows a first hand perspective of the topics that Naber had been lecturing about in her analysis.

It was cool to read, connect and identify how different cultures accommodate to fit this idea of what it means to be them in American society..... I dont know if that makes sense.

Week 13 readings

This week’s readings were extremely interesting with the way they touched on the issues concerning the unequal participation that women have in political matters as well as how certain countries such as Egypt go about portraying themselves to the western media.

Cynthia Enloe focused on Afghanistan and Iraq when discussing women’s participation in political matters. Enloe even questioned how women were hidden away during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they weren’t talked about as much as they should have been during the historical time.

However, of the two readings I found Paul Amars, Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out, to be the more interesting of the two. Primarily since it touched on western media and the portrayal of Muslim communities. Amar emphasized Egypt and the protests that went on. Egypt’s government has a heavy influence and control over gender roles between the sexes, which to me, I find unique.

Going back to the protests, Amar brought up how groups were hired to put Muslim communities in a bad light, to attract the Western media. My assumption is that this was done in hopes of getting more aid from the United States, or it could have been done to further influence the people of the West, to view Muslims in a bad light. Even this weekend, with the unfortunate attacks in Paris proved even more that the media has a huge influence on how people react to events like this. Unfortunately, the media is focused on one attack rather than the rest of the attacks that happened throughout the world.

Amar brings up a few great points when talking about the media and using Egypt and their governments’ tactics to gain Western sympathy and to put a negative light on to certain groups.

Week 13 Readings

Both of these article, to me, seemed to have interesting similarities between them. They both addressed women's roles in the strive for justice but also mentioned how the media is the prime source of how these actions are interpreted. In Paul Amar's piece he reflects on the protests done in Egypt and how they have increased the "needed" U.S. military aid there. While the aid has done more harm than good, it was the media and Egypt's own national government for putting them into place. There's this overlaying idea of people giving gender roles and deciding where woman should be on the grand scheme of things and this is controlled by the government by influencing what the media hears and sees. Amar mentions the hired "gangs" from the slums of Egypt to divert the media away from the true intentions of a national protest and portray the muslim community in barbaric and inhumane ways. These representations were intentionally caused by Egypt's own government because they knew that Western  media sources would fall for it because of the preconceived stereotypes of what it means to be a Muslim in the world.

I didn't really understand why their government would do that but it was really messed up. From my interpretation of the piece, it seemed like a way to get help with becoming a developed country like America, in which case, Egypt had to create a reason for the U.S. Army to come in and "help" them out but it really just caused a lot of harm to innocent people. The U.S. didn't even properly investigate the situation because of how they view this community of people already and they used it as a way to control and justify what they were doing to these people in Egypt. Even when the women had an upper hand in their fight to justice and finally got laws that would incriminate sex offenders, their country used it as a control tactic and manipulated the facts to make the laws in the ways that would benefit them. They did this by creating harsh, but needed, consequences but took advantage of their power and started charging people with crimes that they didn't commit in order to get money.

The power has been manipulated and taken advantage of that their way of maintaining the idea that "women do need this help from these barbaric hyper-sexual men" has crippled women from making the progress that they need to and outs women in this place that they feel like they need to be in.

This is apparent in media even today. With the current events of the attacks in Paris, it is evident that the attackers are from Muslim communities and the media reports the issue as if Islam is to blame and generalizes these people under the same blanket of terrorists when in reality that's not the case. It's really agonizing to know that some people actually think that it's ok to do that. I'm not trying to say that somehow this was set up and a scam to put Muslims on the radar but I will say that the coverage of the media will issue an emergency that insinuates that all Muslims are a risk and use it as a way to justify their own barbaric acts, in retaliation of what happened, in the name of "protection."

All in all, it was a good read and very informative.

Week 13 Cynthia Enloe & Paul Amar

     The reading “Where are the Women in Occupied Afghanistan and Iran” by Cynthia Enloe raises the question in regards to the involvement that women from Afghanistan and Iran have when it comes to political affairs. Moreover, there have been more international alliances over the years which also raised the question of how unequal international power relations (alliances) between the allied masculinized governments depend not only in relationships between men and women, but also in the concept of where women should stand. From the alliances there was a continuous involvement of military and political awareness of the lost of rights that has been taken away from women then and now. This chapter of the book also makes note of the means that women have to go through to explore the different alternatives that they have to stand up and have their voice heard through these new international alliances. Some the practice that have help women raise awareness and raise their voice is academics. 

     The reading also compared and contrast the difference in alliance between the U.S-Japanese military alliance to the alliance between the US and Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, it also explores the steps that a Japanese woman takes to raise her voice to raise the question of where women stand. However, in respect to the difference in political power for women between Afghanistan and Iraq when compared to let’s say the Japanese has been noted to be rooted in the culture and social statues that has been persistent for a long time. It can be seen that the main reason for inequality between men and women when it comes to political and military affairs come from the social statues as well as culture and how these two have been present or a long time. 

November 17&19 BlogPost

In the article, “The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age Empire,” by Cynthia Enloe, discusses the following feminist historians in order to demonstrate through interviews and featured articles, ‘where were the women?’ in regards to post-invasions, as well as war in Afghanistan and Iraq. While, Paul Amar also introduces similar regions, but in regards to sexual harassments towards Egyptian Muslim women in “Charging the police with Sexual Harassment in Egypt.”

Enloe touches upon the functioning of brothels and sexual relations on teal plantations in regards to their correlation with ‘empire-making’ and the feminist standpoint. This standpoint is observed on Muslim developing countries by analyzing Muslim women as, tea pickers, nannies, teachers, wives, explorers, and so on… because of the following factors mentioned, “The United States imperial enterprise from the vantage points of parlors and brothels. To make sense of putative American empire-building, we have to become much more curious—curious about the marriage aspirations of factory women, about the gender dynamics inside soldiers’ families, about sexual policies of the U.S. military forces…”

However, Amar discusses on recent Egyptian Revolutions of January and February of 2011, as well as the global and domestic feminist struggling to be in the ‘political sphere;’ portraying the feminism literature content in regards to critical theory on security state practices. Thus, both Enloe and Amir portray that of assertive female agency through “politics of respectability and strange bedfellow processes of NGO-ization, this state-allied, pro-enforced demobilization of class-based movements for democratic change. Also, “creating a national identity in countries such as Afghanistan has meant foe many women advocates crafting comparative judgment’s about both past and present foreign rulers and about rival male led local parties, each claiming to represent the nation each claiming to know what is best for the nations women’s.”

Week 13 Cynthia Enloe & Paul Amar

            This chapter basically questions the involvement of women in the political affairs and issues of Afghanistan and Iraq. Over the years, international alliances and imperialism has been present in these countries, such as the US military forces in Afghanistan. In situations where certain political, international and even military issues arise, the involvement was lost and the voices of women remained unheard. Because of this, the chapter has explored the different reasons and the means women get to stand up, such as through international alliances. At the same time, this chapter served several implications for women to become more actively involved in politics and even military affairs, which includes the academic field. Moreover, the chapter has numerous insights to offer with regards to the creation of an empire and the role of gender in establishing such.

            The issues and diverse pictures of this Chapter about feminism in the aspect of imperialism and political issues are insightful. It is personally learned that the core involvement of women in the Afghanistan and Iraqi international and political affairs has been gendered. The concept of feminism was also found to be deeply rooted in the culture of social status for a long period of time, which makes it difficult to for women to get involved in issues like international alliances and military affairs. It is as well saddening that women’s voices are not heard in the field of politics, which emphasizes that they are underrepresented in the society.

Week 12: End of Empire: Turkey

"A separate history of Turkish women's movements still remains to be written"

In End of Empire: Turkey, Deniz Kandiyoti talks about the transition in Turkey from a multi-ethnic empire to a secular nation state. This reading reminds me a lot of the Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran reading in addition to parts of U.S. history. In Iran, women's education and participation in society ultimately became of importance. They were first viewed "as objects of political discourse and later as political actors and citizens" (42), just like this reading.  In U.S. history we see similar things happening such as the need for women in the workforce after WWI. However, the emancipation of women had not happened quite yet. 

With the emergence of the Turkish Republic in 1923 came the emancipation of women. In 1924 the ottoman institutions vanished one-by-one. Women were granted the right to vote on the local level in 1930, and at the national level in 1934. This was a crucial time in Turkey's history as it could present itself as a democratic country. The reading focuses on the progress of feminism between the Tanzimat  period (1839-76), where the Ottomans were pressured to Westernize, and the transition to a secular nation state. It wasn't until after the Tanzimat period that the woman question would arise and progress as it gradually distanced itself from Islam. There were many feminist movements that occurred in the 20th century. A few feminists even went as far as arguing pro-female emancipation. For example, Kandiyoti says that "'modern men' often felt alienated from Ottoman patriarchal structures which curtailed their own freedom considerably, even though women were the more obvious victims of the system" (26). I find this statement imperative, because some men who were not even the victims of oppression have argued for women's emancipation. This would have not crossed my mind. 

I think that understanding history and looking at its progress is imperative as we move forward. In this case, feminists its feminists looking at how women participating in politics and contributing to society ultimately concluded a unified citizenry.

Week 12 reading

               In the deniz kamdiyoti reading I came to the understanding that basically women in turkey was becoming to their political rights. Modernization was becoming a part of the new turkey laws and practices. With these changes, Islam being the accepted religion as state which was revoked because it was going against the Muslim civil code. Turkey women movement was based on a lot of western feminist. She talked about how the women hold a deeper meaning for cultural integrity and the Ottoman Empire. In order for these changes to happen the women political status became more and more distanced from “Islam”.  Women became able to vote in 1908, which was one of the first huge changes. In 1908 women revolution gave power to the Turkish women, expanding their public experiences. Women emancipation under kemalism was part of a broader political project, and that was part of a western cultural orientation. Medical school institutions started in 1842, female vocational school started in 1858, women being trained for college was in 1869, and these are some of the changes that were made to the empire practices. Also after World War 1 the male loss in labor demanded females to go to work. “The Turkism of the second constitutional period represented an attempt at recuperating a sense of national identity which did not rest solely on Islam”. She talks about how the second constitutional was debates among women and the family. She talks about how women in turkey transitioned from a multi ethnic empire to a secular nations state with the stance of political engagement .

 

 

Week 12- Deniz Kandiyoti

The later years of the Ottomans saw the emergence of feminist movements across the empire. The Tanzimat Era (1839) called for reforms that made the empire look towards the West as a model for modernity. Aside from dissolving the Janissary Corps and the establishment of a more sophisticated taxation system, the Ottoman Empire turned to gender equality as one of the goals of the reform. Opening up the "woman question" is a sign of progress for the Ottomans. Before, women did not really play much of a role in Ottoman society, so the Tanzimat Era changed the norms. This meant giving women more freedom, socially and politically. Fast forward to 1923, the new Republic of Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who also served as the first president. The Kemalist regime  pushed for westernization through his Reforms. One of the most significant ones is to give women the right to vote and hold office in the 1930s. This significant step was too progressive even for Grace Ellison, an English woman who thinks it's too "strange" for women to take on huge roles. Ataturk continued to promote the emancipation of women with more reforms. It seems like women have a strong control at this point. For example, female leaders from Fatma Aliye Hanim, Halide Edib, to Ataturk's wife, Latife, emerged during these times to continue promoting women's rights in the country.

Week 12

Even though this reading was very confusing to me what I did get out of it evoked some weird emotions. The fact that the advocates for the emancipation of women are men who were there to begin with as a form to criticize the modern western women and not to just support the freedom and liberation of these women from social and religious restraints. The other problem is that even when they are looking out for the women, these men have their own agenda as to what needs to be done for them that will selfishly benefit them in the future. Even when searching for the ability to make emancipation for women happens it is still up to a man and his power to do what these ladies may want.

Week 12 - Deniz Kandiyoti

This week we read the text by Deniz Kandiyoti, about the history of feminism in Turkey. She took us through the different stages of women movements, from the Tanzimat era all the way to the Kemalist era. I found it very interesting to see in what order the rights of women were discussed, with the forced marriages as the first issue she talks about. I am currently taking a course on Turkish history and contemporary challenges, and it makes me see the bigger perspective of the feminist movements within the Kandiyoti text. What caught my eyes the most was the Balkan- and World Wars, during which women had to step up, much like in many western countries. One clear comparison would be the 'we can do it' movement in the US, where women in a similar way were invited into the workforce. The difference would be the mandatory employment in Turkey, and the hard restrictions on women still at this time. Just the fact that "in the midst of war, a committee was set up to discuss the suitable length for women's skirts"(page 31) shows us that even though the Turkish government at the time needed the women to step up and do the jobs the men left behind, controlling the fashion of the women were still prioritized. The reaction of the women during this period was inspiring, as they demanded to dress however they liked. The division within the CUP is discussed by Kandiyoti as a result of the confused times around the era of the wars. However, the step back towards authoritarianism meant that the hope of women's rights were crushed for the time being.

This is an interesting contrast to the Kemalist era, when the empowerment of women became a symbol for a break with the past. It was, as is discussed in the text, one part of the systematic reforms instated by Ataturk which moved Turkey towards a more westernized culture. Although they did not ban the veil completely, it was later forbidden to be worn by parliamentary women, a rule that has been overlooked lately, with the AKP in power. But if we go back to the Ataturk era discussed in the text, we can see that the decreased importance of Islam within the government did not mean that the population had to change their beliefs, nor did they have western cultures forced upon them like in the Tanzimat era.

Deniz Kandiyoti

     Before starting this reading I knew very little about the history of Turkey, specially the role that women played. According to Deniz Kandiyoti Turkey distinguishes itself from other Muslim nations due to the emancipation of women. These changes started from the early 1900’s however, what Kandiyoti is suggesting in her reading is that “the specifity if the Turkish case with respect to the emancipation of women can be fully appreciated only through an examination of the process of her emergence from an empire based on the multi- ethnic millet (national and religious communities) system to the Anatolia based secular nation state”.

     Turkey went through several changes during and after World War I. These changes included education and it termination of medrese which was religious education. Moreover, women were also given the right to vote in 1930 in the local level and four years later in 1934 they were granted the right to vote at the national level. In addition polygyny was outlawed and couples (men and women) were given equal rights to divorce and child custody. This last reform really interest me because is one of the strongest inequality between men and women in other Muslim areas such as Iran. As clearly expressed in last week’s discussion, marriage and divorce and custody works differently for men and women in the Muslin community. For example, it seems that in Iran women have fewer opportunities to keep their child custody if they remarry and divorcing their current husband doesn’t come easy.

      Another topic of interest that grabbed my attention in this reading was the right given to women to vote. This was really interesting for me because it seems that this is a struggle that not just Muslim women went through in Turkey, but also a struggle here in America and probably in other parts of the world. It also proves that social hierarchy and inequality between men and women exist everywhere in the world.

Week 12: Deniz Kandiyoti

     The progression of the enfranchisement of women is greatly impacted by the political and social change a country (in this case, Turkey) experiences throughout their history. Deniz Kandiyoti explains these changes in the context of the rise of Turkish nationalism through a secularization of the nation-state in “the Second Constitutional period, and leading to the Kemalist republican regime” (23). Focusing on the impact of war and foreign influence on Turkey’s government, Kandiyoti maps the shift of the “woman question,” that is the role and rights of women in Turkish society, away from viewing “Islam as the only form of legitimate discourse on women’s emancipation,” instead using cultural nationalism to talk about women’s rights (23). The article chronicles the move from the Tanzimat period in the late 19th century to the Young Turks, and finally to the Kemalist republic, and uses this timeline to show what form women’s emancipation took in each period. A factor noticeable in the Second Constitutional period is what Kandiyoti explains as male reformers making “a case for the emancipation of women in moralistic, sentimental and ‘civisational’ terms,” while nevertheless, still rejecting Westernism and its influence on Turkey (26). While male reformers supporting women’s emancipation but critiquing Tanzimat and Westernism may be considered a contradiction to many, it seems their opposition to Western influence was more to do with the loss of a national Turkish identity than the progressiveness the ‘West’ usually stands for. 

     The Tanzimat period in Turkey is a period of Western encroachment where the Ottoman state adapted to the expectations of Western powers in a way that resulted in alienating “the groups and classes which were excluded from the new ‘modernised’ structures” (25). This brought on the founding of the Young Ottomans which later influenced the Young Turks. The social upheaval that followed the overthrow of Abdulhamit’s regime found women’s rights issues  in the crossroads of the Balkan war as women began to enter the workforce in larger numbers. It was interesting to read about the change in workforce in Turkey and how the Turkish government dealt with the shift of women into the public sphere. There were “pro-natalist policies” implemented which made marriage required by the age of 21 for women and 25 for men, as well as offering financial incentives for each birth in the marriage (31). These policies seem to come out of the anxieties of having women enter the workforce and leaving their usual presence in the private sphere. This emphasis on family as women became workers is reminiscent of the shift to education for women in Iran which Afsaneh Najmabadi talks about in “Crafting and Educated Housewife in Iran.” The basis of calling for more educated women was the idea that women care for the future of Iran and the future of Iranian national identity, in the same sense, Turkish identity was being negated by the Westernization of Tanzimat, so modernizing Islam was a push back against Westernism by allowing women’s emancipation in the workforce, while still governing family formation. 

     The Kemalist era further distanced Turkish government rom Islam and brought in a “new notion of ‘citizenship’ dictated by the transition from a monarchy to a populist republic” (39). Yet one downside of this era was the lack of women actually involved in creating the ‘new woman’ of Kemalism, so that the ‘woman’s question’ became a male-centered debate with women being passive onlookers (38). The intertwined nature of politics and women’s emancipation in Turkey has not only served a source of “nation-building and secularism,” but it also was part of building a national identity away from the influence of Western powers (43). Kandiyoti, like many other academics we have read, has brought up the question of on whose agenda is the emancipation of women progressing, and who is this emancipation benefitting in the long run?

Works Cited

Deniz Kandiyoti. 1991. "End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey" in Women, Islam and the State, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Afsaneh Najmabadi. 1998. "Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran" in Re-Making Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod, Princeton: Princeton University Press.