Reflections of women’s identities and the woman question in the Magazine Resimli Ay in the 1920s Turkey 1924-1928

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine the changing position and identities of women in the construction and modernization processes of the new regime in 1920s, the problems women have faced and the discussions on these subjects, through their reflections in the women’s press and mainly in the magazine Resimli Ay and the writings of Sabiha Sertel. The work also tries to understand the harmony and conflicts between the regime and the feminist movement. The Turk-ish women’s movement had a coherent discourse with the regime in terms of giving women social, legal and economic rights. However, in the process, the feminists of the era became oppositional with the regime when they wanted the right of suffrage in the 1920s Turkey. This thesis tries to examine the voices of other intellectuals to understand the discussions on the woman question and women identities in all respects. Therefore, reflections of the woman question in Resimli Ay was chosen to be examined because it is a magazine which was published by the intellectuals and was not a mainstream one. The publishers are not a part of the feminist movement, yet they have not had intimate relations with the government, and so they can criticize the government and the society. In order to reach an analysis, secondary resources about the history of the Ottoman and Turkish women and feminism and also the transliterations of all of the articles about women in the magazine Resimli Ay between the years 1924-1928 have been used in this research