Intellectual activism and pivotal paradigms in casting the model woman of the early Turkish Republic: the voices of Şükûfe Nihal and Nezihe Muhittin

Abstract

ABSTRACT Feminist historiography on the late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican era treats female women’s rights advocates typically as merely activists or literary figures and rarely focuses on their intellectual property, which constitutes the origin of their theoretical contribution to and active struggle for women’s equality. The academic corpus on the two prominent figures of the era, Şükûfe Nihal and Nezihe Muhittin, follows this pattern and concentrates predominantly on their literary works or activism, leaving their intellectualism overshadowed. This article employs an innovative perspective and argues that they were genuine intellectuals first. The article uncovers the intellectual lenses behind their discourses and claims their views were embedded in the premises of Enlightenment thought, positivism and nationalism, which constituted the building blocks of their paradigms on feminism, gender equality and womanhood. Unearthing their ideal woman image in the early Turkish Republic rests on the methods of contextual deconstruction and textual analysis.