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.