week 12: Deniz Kandiyoti : The End of Empire : Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey

The End of Empire : Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey

In End of Empire Deniz Kandiyoti gives an interesting and detailed analysis of the way in which Turkey has come to distinguish herself from other muslim nations regarding the emancipation of women. According to Kandiyoti, women's emancipation can only be understood through an examination of the transition of an empire based on multi-ethnic national and religious communities to a secular nation state. The opening up of trade possibilities and the centralization of power (both Western capitalist ideals in my opinion) were important factors in this transition.

A very interesting and important aspect of the modernization is the fact that women's emancipation, ''the women question'', was employed as a useful and powerful way to address the problems male reformers themselves had with the patriarchal structures of the Ottoman empire. ''They thus made a case for the emancipation of women in moralistic, sentimental and 'civisational' terms, while at the same time condemning and bemoaning the moral decay occasioned by Western influences in Ottoman society.'' [Kandiyoti, p. 26] It is important to note that the reformers weren't rejecting the whole of Islamic Ottoman ideals, but that they were trying to find a sort of mediation between progressive western ideals - whilst rejecting the moral decay occasioned by the West - and the cultural identity of the Ottoman empire. Kandiyoti writes that the early reformers on the one hand tried to inhabit a modernist Islamic perspective with ideals compatible with the dictates of islam, and on the other hand taking on the women question because women's emancipation was seen as beneficial to the the 'health' of society as a whole.

I think we can connect this particular notion of 'health' to last week's reading by Afsaneh Najmabadi: the crafting and Educated Housewife in Iran. As Kandiyoti writes that the emancipation of women was seen as beneficial to the 'health' of society, we can ask ourselves in what way women can contribute to this health. Surely their education will not only progress their (equal) status regarding their partner and other men, but (maybe in that time seen as more important than equality) also influence the children as ''future citizens'' of society. Kandiyoti writes that the However Kandiyoti also writes that the women question became one of the pawns in the Kemalist struggle in the 20th century to abolish the theocratic remnants of the Ottoman state. Even though women's emancipation might have been an issue taken up to better the living conditions of men and promote a healthy society, this (consequently) did cause women to be seen as crucial components in the construction of society.

What is interesting to me is that she writes that women themselves within the Kemalist struggle played almost no role in this struggle. Kandiyoti writes: ''This suggests that the progress of mobilization and co-optation of women into the ideological struggles of the Republic followed a path that was quite distinct from early feminist movements in the West.'' [Kandiyoti, p.39] We know from Kandiyoti why the women question was addressed but I am curious to know why women themselves weren't active within this initial struggle for their emancipation. I suppose, as Kandiyoti supposes also, that a separate history of women's movements remains to be written.