The 2023 J.U.C. Media, Research & Writing Awards
Submitted Category: WRITING/Türkiye100
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The 2023 J.U.C. Media, Research & Writing Awards
Submitted Category: WRITING
Sub-Category: Dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Republic of Türkiye
Submission Code: W5/TR100
Student Grade: 11 | Word count: 1300

A Look In the Treatment of Turkish Women Throughout the Years

[The 2023 J.U.C. Awards, LMGlobal.Org]
Back in the XIX. Century, when the Ottoman Empire was on the edge of vanishing into the history books, the leading intellectuals of the time decided to be more like European countries. That is why they sent ambassadors there and wanted them to report everything that was happening in those countries. As much as many things successfully become more westernized, there were still some things that never changed. One of them was the way women were treated and viewed by society. In this essay, I am going to write about the value of women in Turkish society.

Before I talk about the place of women in society in the Ottoman Empire, I want to briefly touch up on the society of the Old Turks. In the year B.C. 200 lived the Old Turks where woman and man had equal rights. There was no discrimination between the genders. The wife of Kagan, the emperor, always attended meetings that concerned the future of the country and had a say in the political and administrative issues. There is a saying in Kazakh Turks that emphasizes the importance of women. “The first wealth is health, and the second one is women.” There are many more examples where it is clear that women were always treated with respect in the Old Turks.

If women had such an important status back then, what had changed? Well, they engaged with the Arabs. Most people believe that Islam has caused the change. That is not true at all because Islam and Old Turks actually treat women in similar ways. “Only an honourable man treats women with honor and integrity, and only a vile and dishonorable man humiliates and degrades women.” is a saying of Prophet Muhammed. However, the same thing cannot be said about the Arab and Persian culture. The sole purpose of Muhammed being sent to the Arabs was because of how corrupted their lifestyle was. Women were not allowed to have a say in the house and it was considered normal for men to have multiple wives. They were not allowed to walk next to a man and they always needed to keep a four foot distance.

The thing is, it is natural for a weak culture to inherit not only the religion but also the culture of that society when they convert to another religion. Nevertheless, Turks had hundreds of years of history and culture before they converted to Islam. It is wrong to say that Turkish culture was assimilated. However, because some people could not differentiate the difference between Islam and Arab culture, Arab culture found its way into Turkish culture, hidden under the name of religion. The value of women started to decrease and they were treated inferior to men.

The treatment had not changed in the Ottoman Empire either. They continued to do what they learned from their parents and passed it onto their children so the cycle never broke. Until one day, a man named Mustafa Kemal Atatürk stepped in and made significant changes in both Ottoman society and history. Those reforms did not only affect women but the whole society. Some of the best examples of these reforms would be the ones that were done in language and education. The new Turkish alphabet was adopted in order to make the Turkish language more pure and rich. TDK, which is the regulatory body for the Turkish language, was established during those times. This also effected the modern history to develop and the institution of Turkish History Association. Atatürk also opened schools for everyone who did not know how to read and write, no matter the age. On top of that, he closed down Islamic monasteries to secularise the education system.

After a law was published on the 3rd of March in 1924, girls and boys started getting an education with equal conditions. And in 1933 schools that gave business education to girls opened. Talking about laws, one of the biggest impacts on society was done by the new civil code. Women and men were seen as equals under this law and they had equal rights. For example, men having polygamious relationships were banned, women were given the right to divorce their partners and be judged in front of a court, etc. Basically, the law was separated from the religious beliefs. Though there were a lot of changes, Atatürk did not want to announce anything that was too difficult to accept by the society too quickly to the public. So he waited until 1934 to give the women the right to elect and be elected. As a side note I would like to add that the same rights were given to women much later in other European countries.

Even after Atatürk tried to prolong the duration between the reforms in order for the society to get used to them, old habits die hard. After being ruled by a 600 year-old Islamic empire it was not easy for them to get used to the new secular system. That is why when a man called Adnan Menderes promised to bring the old system back people were naturally drawn to him.

After the proclamation of the republic, the biggest dream Atatürk had was to have a multi-party system. However, after a few failed attempts, it became clear that Turkish society was not ready for it. Menderes was a part of SCF, Free Public Party, but after the party was closed for supporting sharia ideologies, he joined the ruling party CHP, Republican People’s Party. After Atatürk’s death İsmet İnönü became the new president. However, the public did not like him much. Menderes was against most of İnönü’s ideas. This caused a lot of arguments inside the party. So, Menders established a new party called Democrat Party, DP. DP came to power with 54% of the votes.

Menderes had less significance on the secular system. So, when he came to power he abolished some of the changes that were made. For example, he legalized the recitation of Azan in Arabic. In the meetings some people defended that boys and girls must have different schools, there were people who even said that “ Some female teachers are the epitome of snobbery with their behavior and clothes and they have a negative effect on the students.” The Quran was being read on radio programmes and people once again fell into their falsely learned Islamic opinions. Some preachers even claimed that women who didn’t wear a hijab or wore socks that were made of silk made them a heathen. In short, religion was once again used to manipulate the crowd for political reasons.

People have different opinions on whose fault it was that Turkey formed into what it is now. There are two sides to this because we can blame both Atatürk and Menderes. Atatürk had made significant changes that the public was not ready for so violence was used to silence followers of sharia. On the other hand, Menderes somewhat announced that Turkey was a Islamic country and everybody should acknowledge that. I’m going to let you decide whose fault it was because I, myself, do not know the answer myself.

So how is the situation now? Unfortunately, it hasn’t changed in a positive way since Menderes era. Instead of going forward Turkey went backwards in time. Women are still under pressure economically and socially. The main reason for this is because politics started using ’religion’ as a tool. Someone once said to me that religion is the strongest weapon someone can use. This situation is a great example of this because once people started using the excuse of the so-called religion women were forced to follow their ’roles’ and repressed whenever they wanted to do anything else.

Resources
Doğaner, Y. (2007). ATATÜRK DÖNEMİ TÜRKİYESİ’NDE SOSYO-KÜLTÜREL DEĞİŞİM. Uluslararası Asya Ve Kuzey Afrika Çalışmaları Kongresi ICANAS, 235–260. https://www.ayk.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/DOĞANER-Yasemin-ATATÜRK-DÖNEMİ-TÜRKİYESİ’NDE-SOSYO-KÜLTÜREL-DEĞİŞİM.pdf
Şur, Ş. (2015). DEMOKRAT PARTİ VE ATATÜRK’ÜN ÜÇ İLKESİ: CUMHURİYETÇİLİK, LAİKLİK VE DEVLETÇİLİK. Ankara Üniversitesi Türk İnkılâp Tarihi Enstitüsü Atatürk Yolu Dergisi, 56, 147–176. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/623564
Yaşar, V. ATATÜRK DÖNEMİ TÜRK KADINININ SOSYAL VE SİYASAL DEĞİŞİM SÜRECİ.https://www.academia.edu/25367980/ATATÜRK_DÖNEMİ_TÜRK_KADINININ_SOSYAL_VE_SİYASAL_DEĞİŞİM_SÜRECİ
Zafer, A. B. (2013). CUMHURİYET İLE BİRLİKTE DEĞİŞEN TÜRK AİLE YAPISI ve KADININ DURUMU. Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 14(24), 121–134. http://acikerisim.uludag.edu.tr/jspui/bitstream/11452/14053/1/14_24_8.pdf