‘We have the right to work’: the rise of the ‘national economy’ and reformulating the demands of the women’s movement in the pages of Kadınlar Dünyası in the post Balkan Wars era

Abstract

This article utilizes the first 100 issues of Kadınlar Dünyası, published in 1913, to explore the emergence of new feminist discourse attributing women with new socio-economic roles, other than childrearing and household labor, in a general socio-historical context that was defined by the needs of a new national economy. The intention here is primarily to show how new visions of Ottoman womanhood emerged, radically different from the previous model of relatively modern, educated mothers and wives which had been promoted in former decades as novel, nationalist policies and projects of society began to unfold in the post-Balkan Wars era and to explore how these newer visions were represented in feminist discourse.