Reductionist attitudes towards theatre and women as tools of modernity in the Ottoman Empire’s Tanzimat period

Abstract

The study is explored from two perspectives to show that women's relationship with the theatre was an important element and tool in the modernisation process that took place in the Ottoman Empire, starting with the Tanzimat reforms initiated by the Gülhane Rescript of 1839. The first is women's restricted freedom of going to the theatre, and the other is how women were portrayed in plays. Although women living in the palace can regularly attend performances at the Palace Theatre, the public did not approve of Muslim women going to the theatre. Reformist writers and Young Ottomans saw the theatre as a school for educating people. It was believed that men going to the theatre could be trained there, and then women, in turn, would be trained by their husbands or fathers. In the plays, women were portrayed as good and bad types, using a propaganda tool like the theatre. It is claimed that there is a reductionist attitude towards theatre and women as tools of modernity.