ADVERTISING MODERNITY IN WOMEN'S WORLD: WOMEN'S LIFESTYLE AND LEISURE IN LATE-OTTOMAN ISTANBUL

Abstract

AbstractWomen and gender can be used as an index of modernization in late-Ottoman society. The study of women in relation to consumption is relatively new, but it is a topic capable of informing us simultaneously about the emergence of modern goods and services targeting women and women's attitudes and expectations towards the new lifestyle that was beginning to attract them. This study explores advertisements—mostly on education, entertainment, leisure and conveniences, food, and wealth—which appeared in a late-Ottoman women's journal, Women's World, during the early decades of the twentieth century. It traces the emergence of "the new woman" through the popular press, showing how women comprised a well-defined, visible market for many of the modern goods and services in these areas. Advertisements paint a picture of upper-class Ottoman women who were active in shaping a hybrid Ottoman modernity, even as they shared the anxieties of the broader culture, which greeted many of the new products, tastes, and customs with ambivalence.