Emancipated but Unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish Case Author(S): Deniz A

Emancipated but Unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish Case Author(s): Deniz A. Kandiyoti and Deniz Kandiyoti Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 317-338 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3177804 . Accessed: 12/02/2015 10:46

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This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions EMANCIPATED BUT UNLIBERATED? REFLECTIONSON THE TURKISH CASE

DENIZA. KANDIYOTI

Western feminist theory has often been castigatedfor its ethno- centrismbut has rarelybeen subjectedto an explicitexamination from the point of view of its relevance and applicabilityto non- Westerncontexts. Conceptsgenerated by Westernfeminists have rarely been applied to informed analyses of women in Islamic societies;conversely, the experiencesof women under Islamhave not been systematicallyused to criticallyevaluate feminist concepts. This has been at least partlydue to the persistenceof orien- talist approachesand their tendency to treat Islam as a unitary ideology from which practicesrelated to women can be automati- cally assessed in any given Islamicsociety. Despite the privileged place assignedto Islam in analyzingthe position of women in the Middle East, there is little actual agreementon either its implications for women or on where exactly the specificityof Islam lies. Thus, CynthiaNelson and VirginiaOlesen, for instance, see Islam as an ideology of complementarityand suggest that "whatmakes an understandingand identificationwith contemporarywomen's liberationmovements in the West so difficultfor Muslimfeminists in the East is the latter'soverriding commitment to the notion of complementarity."Further, "Islam by postulatingdifference and complementarity(particularly between sexes) does not imply an ideology of oppression."' The "separate-but-equal"argument appears in the literaturewith varyingdegrees of sophisticationand generallyimplies a relatively uncritical stand on the possible role of religion in legitimating women's oppression.However, even when such a criticalstand is adoptedthere can be importantdivergences among interpretations of exactly how Islam construeswomen. FatimaMernissi suggests FeministStudies 13, no. 2 (Summer1987). ? 1987 by FeministStudies, Inc. 317

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YC C •

Asas Kocak, a cartoonist who lives today in Ankara, Turkey, drew this in 1983 while a primary school teacher in a rural Anatolian province. It illustrates his view of the patriarchal oppression of women in Turkey.

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in a provocative and interestingargument that women's subordination is related to the Islamic view of female sexualitywhich sees it as potent, active, and so potentiallydisruptive to the male social order. As she put it: "TheMuslim order faces two threats: the infidel without and the woman within."2Hence, the institu- tional arrangements(legal submission, veiling, and seclusion) to protect the unity of the umma(the collectivityof male believers). This perspective provides a refreshingdeparture from Western depictionsof female passivity in the orthodoxFreudian vein, but where does it leave women? However, BinnazToprak fails to be convinced by this argument as sexual potency does not imply mental capacity.On this lattercount, she finds Islamicreligion rife with clear indicationsof women's inferiority. In fact, so little is Islamic faith in women's ability for rational reasoning that the Koran accepts the testimony of two women as equivalent to the testimony of one man. In addition, the Koran explicitly states that men are superior to women and this has been interpreted by some Muslim commentators as proof of divine judgment that women lack mental ability and physical capacity to carry out public duties.3 Yet, why should these beliefs strikeus as so very differentfrom those, for example, of a Chinesepatriarch? Indeed, Lois Beck and Nikki Keddiesuggest that "thebasic patternsof male domination, the virginity-fidelity-son-producingethos, a sexual double stan- dardand so on, existed in the MiddleEast and in otherparts of the world long before Islam was born."Nonetheless: What is special about Islam in regard to women is the degree to which matters relating to women's status have either been legilated by the Quran, which believing Muslims regard as the literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet, or by subsequent legislation derived from interpretations of the Quran and the traditional sayings of the Prophet.4 Would the replacementof the Sharia(the Islamic code) by new secularlaws and codes, as in the case of Turkey,lead to the loss of such specificity?Or would there still be evidence of some continuity? In this article I will argue that Islam as an ideologicalsystem does provide some unifying concepts that influence women's experiences of subordination.These are vested in the culturallydefined modes of control of female sexuality, especially insofar as they influence subjective experiences of womanhood and femininity. This is not to suggest that such culturalcontrols are im-

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mutableand unchanging;nor is it meantto deny the complexityof contemporarysocioeconomic changes and their independentim- pact on genderrelations.5 What is proposedis thatcultural controls, to the extentthat they are intimatelyrelated to the constructionof oneself as a genderedsubject, may engage a deeper level of self- definition,a level that has to be acknowledgedif we are to address the questionof feministconsciousness in any meaningfulway. I will also argue,however, that there is a greatdeal of diversity and specificityin women's experiencesin Islamicsocieties which vary with the nationalisthistories and social policies of the countries within which women are located.The discussionof the Turk- ish case will thereforebe explicitly geared to a discovery of the general and specific conditions of women's experiences in the Middle East.6 This discussionwill providethe backgroundfor an evaluationof the relevanceand limitationsof Westernfeminist ap- proaches.

THE ROLE OF THE STATE Among the countriesof the Middle East, Turkey may be singled out as a republic that has addressed the question of women's emancipationearly, explicitly,and extensively.The formaleman- cipationof Turkishwomen was achievedthrough a series of legal reformsfollowing the war of nationalindependence (1918-23) and the establishmentby MustafaKemal Ataturk of a secularrepublic out of the remains of the Ottoman state. The adoption of the TurkishCivil Code in 1926, inspiredby the Swiss Code, outlawed polygamy,gave equal rightsof divorce to both partners,and per- mitted child custodyrights to both parents.Women's enfranchise- ment took place in two steps:women were firstgranted the vote at local elections in 1930 and at the national level in 1934. These rightswere not obtainedthrough the activitiesof women's movements, as in the case of Westernwomen's struggle for suffrage,but were grantedby an enlightenedgoverning elite committedto the goals of modernizationand "Westernization."7This fact had led to considerablespeculation as to what the strategicgoals of these reforms could have been. First-generationrepublican women writers have stressed the inevitability of these reforms in the developmentof a democratic,civic society.8More recently, Sirin Tekeli has suggestedthat women's rights have played a strategic

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 321 role both againstthe politicaland ideologicalbasis of the Ottoman state and in terms of establishingproofs of "democratization"vis-a- vis the West. She argues that singling out women as the group most visibly oppressedby religion,through practices such as veiling, seclusion, and polygamy, was absolutelycentral to Ataturk's onslaughton the theologicalstate which culminatedin the aboli- tion of the Caliphate in 1924. (The Caliph was the worldly representativeof the ProphetMohammed. The last OttomanSul- tan was also the last Caliph.)Tekeli interpretsthe timing of the legislationon women's suffragein the 1930s, on the other hand, partlyas an importantattempt on the part of Ataturkto dissociate his single party regime from the Europeandictatorships of the time (Hitler'sGermany and Mussolini'sItaly).9 In contrastto the "Kinder-Kiiche-Kirche"ideology of these fascist states, Turkey presenteditself as a countryelecting women to its parliamentand thereby symbolically claimed its rightful place among other Western democraticnations.10 This approach concurs with analyses of the strategicrole of women's rightsin other kinds of revolutionaryactivities. Gregory Massell'sanalysis of the mobilizationof Muslim women of Soviet CentralAsia and their use as a "surrogateproletariat" illustrates a different but equally pragmatic political project." Maxine Molyneux'sreview of policies geared to women in socialist societies suggeststhat improvingthe positionof women may be seen by reforminggovernments as a key to dismantlingthe old order. In this respect, she points out that the most strikingdifferences may be found between capitalistand socialist states in Muslim societies of the ThirdWorld.12 In the former,traditional practices such as polygamy, veiling, child marriage,and the seclusion of women from public life seem to prevailto a much greaterextent. This brings us to the rather obvious conclusion that the Islamic nature of a society can only be evaluated with reference to its broaderpolitical project rather than the dominantreligious affilia- tion of its population. In this respect Turkey emerges as a unique case. In historical terms, it is a countrythat has never been colonized.Therefore, the dilemma of the emancipationof women in Islam has not pre- sented itself quite in the same way as it has in those countriesthat were former Western colonies. Nelson and Olesen note that, in these latter countries,"the fact that western coloniserstook over

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 322 Deniz A. Kandiyoti the paternalisticdefense of Muslimwoman's lot characterisedany changesin her conditionas concessionsto the coloniser.Women's emancipationwas readilyidentified as succumbingto western influence."13More importantly,Leila Ahmed arguesthat the facts of dependencyultimately compromise the consciousnessof women themselves. For the Islamic woman, however, there is a whole further dimension to the pressures that bear down on her urging her to silence her criticism, remain loyal, reconcile herself to even find virtue in the central formulationsof her culture that normallyshe would rebel against:the pressurethat comes into being as a result of the relationshipin which Islamic society now stands in rela- tion with the West.14 Although "Westernizing"bureaucrats in Turkey have similarly been chargedwith capitulationto foreignvalues and, in extreme cases, with a form of internalcolonialism, the level of investment of elementsof nationalidentity into women's"traditional" behavior is notably lower than that in most Middle Easterncountries. The process of secularization,although far from being unproblematic, has undoubtedlyleft its mark.'5Nonetheless, the emancipatory measures geared to women in Turkey have been described in rather contradictoryterms as being either spectacularor merely superficialand cosmetic. In actualfact, neither statementis strict- ly true. It is a fact that Kemalistreforms remained a dead issue for a long time, especiallyin those ruralareas most weakly integrated into the national economy. The avoidance of civil marriagein favor of the religious ceremony, with the related possibility of polygamy,repudiation, and illegitimacy;the marriageof underage girls;the demand for baslik(brideprice) in the marriagecontract; the denial of girls' rights to education; and the emphasis on women's fertility were continuing signs of the uneven socioeconomic developmentof the country. There is no doubt, however, that the Kemalistreforms have directly benefited women of the urban bourgeoisie. Ayse Oncii's incisive analysis of Turkish women in the professions gives us important clues about the reasons and the implicationsof the recruitmentof women into prestigiousoccupations. The occupations analyzed are law and medicine, in which statisticsindicate that Turkishwomen's par- ticipationlevels comparevery favorablywith those in countries such as Franceand the United States.Oncii suggeststhat the entry of Turkishwomen into the professionswas a functionof the initial

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 323 mode of recruitmentof cadres under conditionsof rapid expansion in the new republic.'6The rapid expansion of elite cadres with specializedand technical education is a mark of many re- formingor revolutionarygovernments and may necessitatethe recruitment of individuals from manual and peasant origins, if upper-and middle-classwomen do not begin to enter professional schools. The favorableclimate of opinionvis-a-vis women's education in Turkeyhas been instrumentalin the recruitmentof upper- and middle-classwomen into prestigiousand highly remunerated professions. In this sense, women's education has acted not so much as a means of mobility as a means of class consolidation, because these women might have posed less of a threatthan up- wardly mobile men from humbler origins. However class-biasedthe republicanreforms may have been, they have had some obvious and some subtlerlong-term effects. As a case in point, we may turn to Oncii'sprognostic on the role of women in the professionsin Turkey.She suggeststhat despitethe historical specificity of their recruitment into the professions, women'sentry has createda momentumof its own and has avoid- ed the sex typing of many jobs and possibly providedrole models for younger generations.A Turkishwoman in the universityis as or more likely to become an engineer as any of her Western counterparts.All currentstudies, on the other hand, continue to show that the socioeconomicstatus of female universitystudents is clearly higherthan that of the overall male studentpopulation, indicative of a continuing elite recruitment pattern among women.17 The aim of the foregoingdiscussion was to illustrate,by means of the Turkishcase, how the politicalproject of the state can act as a major source of discontinuityin the experiences of women in Muslimcountries. The statemay be a powerfulinstigator of change throughpolicies that may in some cases representan onslaughton existing culturalpractices. These may be met with various forms of resistance or may, on the contrary, be facilitated by new politicalalliances and majortransformations in the socioeconomic sphere, includingwomen's own capacityto organizeand struggle for their rights.The case of Turkeyillustrates both the potentials and the limitationsof reformsinstigated by a politicalvanguard in the absence of a significantwomen's movement. This demonstra- tion has, however, left out a crucialissue, namely, a discussionof

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 324 Deniz A. Kandiyoti whether and how the discontinuitiesinstigated by the state relate to the developmentof a feminist consciousness.'8Put in another way, what is the relationship,if any, between "emancipation"and "liberation"?The changes in Turkey have left the most crucial areasof genderrelations, such as the double standardof sexuality and a primarilydomestic definition of the female role, virtually untouched.19In that sense, it is tempting to describe Turkish women as emancipatedbut unliberated,because signs of signifi- cant political activity by women to remedy this state of affairs have been largely absent. However, putting down the failure of the development of autonomouswomen's movements and feminist consciousnessin the Westernsense to women's"Islamically" mystified consciousnesses or their reticence to identify with "foreign"values would be a gross oversimplification.Women's liberationmovements do not simply refer to women's subordination as an abstractcategory but give it a contentwhich is reflective of concreteinstances of subordinationand subjectiveexperiences of oppressiondirectly derived from them. These are generallythe experiencesof women in the industrializedor postindustrialized West. In what follows, I will arguea ratherobvious point: that different cultural modes of control of female sexuality create different subjectiveexperiences of femininity. Insofaras subjective experiencesof femininityand/or oppression have a directbearing on the shapingof what we mightimprecisely label a "feministconsciousness,"they have to be taken seriously and analyzedin far greaterdetail than they have been.20

CULTURALCONTROLS AND THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCEOF FEMININITY No singleissue has been fraughtwith as much contradictionas that of Muslimwomen's sexed subjectivity.Their segregated lives have been describedeither as instancesof unrelievedoppression or as rich social lives in "parallelworlds," with greater potential for psychologicalliberation than their Westernsisters who have com- promised themselves throughprolonged social promiscuitywith men.21Their relationshipsto each other have also variouslybeen described as typical instances of the divisive rivalry of the op- pressed or, on the contrary,the sisterhoodand solidarityof those with strongsame-sex bonds. Apartfrom the fact that both visions

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 325 tend to be relativelyethnocentric, they tell us very little about the underlyingdynamics of women'sexperiences. There is nothingin segregationper se that necessarily breeds rivalry or fosters soli- darity.It will be suggestedthat it is the mode of controlof female sexuality, which includes the practice of segregation,that has a direct bearingon how gender is internalized.The discussionwill be by no means exhaustive but will selectively focus on the following issues: the "corporate"control of female sexuality, the psychologicaleffects of sex segregation,and the characteristicsof the female life cycle. Severalsimplifications will have to be made for the sake of clarity. Class-specificmodalities of these cultural controls will not be discussed;nor will distinctionsbe made between aspectsof the historyof the relationsbetween the sexes and their contemporaryvariations. The corporatecontrol over female sexualitybecomes strikingly evident in the largenumber of differentindividuals who see themselves as immediately responsible for ensuring women's ap- propriate sexual conduct. Parents, siblings, near and distant relatives, and even neighborsclosely monitorthe movements of the postpubescentgirl, firmly imprintingthe notion that her sex- ualityis not hers to give or withhold.This is clearlyapparent at the criticaljuncture of the choice of a marriagepartner. In societies where marriageis still defined as the formationof family alliances, it is not up to the individualwoman to "gether man."A national survey carriedout as recently as 1968 showed that as many as 67 percent of Turkishmarriages were arranged, albeitwith full consent of both partners.In 11 percentof the cases the marriage contract seems to have taken place without the women'sconsent, and in 3 and 9 percentof the cases in urbanand rural areas, respectively,the young couple escaped familial control altogetherby means of elopement.22In any case, the choice of a mate is by no means a personalmatter. Although a woman'sper- sonal attributesdo play a role in whether she is consideredmar- riageable,it is ultimatelyher family'sresponsibility to see to it that a suitablematch is arranged.In the past, and currentlyamong the less permissive strata of society, this has kept multitudes of women from competingagainst each other on the free marketfor sexuality and marriage.Against this background,the equationof love with marriage,notions of romanticlove, and images of marriage as woman's ultimate fulfillment find less fertile ground on

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 326 Deniz A. Kandiyoti which to flourish. Emotional attachment is often expected to develop after marriage.The degree of emotionalcloseness, actual or expressed,in the wife-husbandrelationship is variable.In the traditionalcontext, especially if it involved extendedfamily living, little overt displaysof interestin one'sspouse was encouragedand few occasions for intimacy were allowed outside the marital bedroom.In contrastto the apparentinstrumentality of the wife- husbandrelationship, legitimate expressions of emotionalwarmth and closeness become possible in relationto one's children, and also within same-sex groups, a point to which we shall return later. A centralcorollary of corporatecontrol over female sexualityin this context is the close connectionbetween female sexual purity and family or lineage honor. Women are vested with immense negative power because any misbehavioron their part can bring shame and dishonorto the male membersof a whole community, lineage,or family. Strictexternal constraints are placedon women, which may rangefrom total seclusionand veiling to severe restric- tions of their movements and their access to public places. Both Hanna Papanekin her study of purdahin Pakistan23and Fatima Mernissiin her analysis of Moroccolay great stress on the symbolic value of restrictivepractices directed at women to protect againstthe dangersof uncontrollableand socially disruptivesex- ual desire.Mernissi has noted the explosiveand dangerousquality ascribedto femaleness in Muslim societies. Papanekfurther suggests that it may be that internalised "guilt"feelings are more applicable to impulse control in societies which are highly dispersed. "Shame"mechanisms are more de- pendent on sanctions imposed by members of a group with whom there is fre- quent interaction. In terms of this differentiation, the purdah system clearly relies more on the use of shame rather than guilt mechanisms of social control. She concludes that "itwould be a potent irony to find that the seclusionof women throughthe purdahsystem operateseffective- ly enough to make sexual repression,in the Freudiansense, un- necessary."24 Withouthaving to venture so far afield, it might be quite safe to assume that the very strictnessof the controlsplaced on female sexuality gives women's femininity the status of an inalienable, permanent property. It is an ascribed status rather than something to strive for. The same cannot be said of man's masculinity. An

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 327 argumentthat had been presentedat a more generallevel by feminists workingwithin a revisedpsychoanalytic framework is thatto the extent that men's earliest identificationis with their primary caretaker,who is usually their mother, their ego boundariesare predicatedupon a radicalseparation from the feminine.25I would furtherlike to suggestthat culturalconstructions of the masculine and feminine play a significantrole in exacerbatingthe need for a constantreaffirmation of this psychologicalseparation. The more compellingthe myth of male superioritybecomes (asin the case of the Latinmachismo), the more difficultit is for men to live up to it. Masculinityis not an ascribedbut an achieved status, one that is never permanentlyachieved, because the dangerof being unman- ned is ever present. Thus, provingone's masculinityis a constant preoccupationas is the concern over the loss of masculinity.It may not be surprisingto find that in cultures such as Turkey, which controls female sexuality rigidly and at the same time re- quiresthat men flaunttheir masculineprowess, men are intensely preoccupiedwith possible loss of sexual identity. This state of affairs could partiallyaccount for the persistentelement of danger associated with the female sex, an element that introduces the possibilityof subjugationthrough violence especiallywhen and if female behavior is construed as a slight against masculinity or male "honor."Fatna Sabbah is quite rightin pointingout the defen- sive element in Muslim patriarchaldiscourse which sets itself the urgenttask of "neutralizing"women and their sexuality.Whether it reduces women to the rank of the "animal,"as in erotic discourse stressingfemale sexual potency at the expense of their humanity, or weakens her physicallyand morally,as in the sacreddiscourse, the result is a distortion and crippling of women's essential humanity.26 However, althoughwoman's very humanitymay be in question, her femalenessnever is. Very little has been said about the possible psychologicalconsequences of this specific combinationfor women of corporatecontrol over sexuality and a culturallyand emotionallycharged conception of one's femininity.Concern over loss of femininity,a preoccupationreferred to in the psychological literatureas one of the possible internalobstacles to women'ssuc- cessful professionalachievement in the West, seems conspicuous- ly absent in this context. A study carriedout in the United States by MartinaHorner proposed that a basic inconsistencyexists be-

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 328 Deniz A. Kandiyoti tween femininity and successful achievement: stories depicting professionallysuccessful outcomes for women met with negative affect and fear-of-successimagery.27 This study has been critized on both methodologicaland substantivegrounds, and there have been many failures at replication. Nonetheless, older, classic studies such as MirraKomarovsky's also pointedout the pressures on collegewomen to appearless competentthan they are lest they should appear unacceptableto their dates.28Clearly, such con- cerns are intimatelylinked to broaderexpectations of the female role which are subject to transformationand redefinition.How- ever, I thoughtthere might be some value in replicatingHomer's fear-of-successmeasure on a groupof female and male university studentsin Turkeyto find out whether similarconcerns could be elicited in a differentcultural context. Not only did I fail to find a statisticaldifference between the women and men, but, more importantly,I did not identify the criticalqualitative responses that were supposed to signal concern over loss of femininity among women.29The women who wrote stories involving the anticipa- tion of negativeconsequences following professional success were preoccupiedby very tangible, externalcontingencies such as in- tensified conflict with male colleaguesand within their families. There was nothing to indicate that their perceptions of professional success had any bearingon their views of themselvesas in- trinsicallyfeminine and desirable. The relationshipbetween Turkish women's gender roles and theirprofessional roles, on such occasionsthat women do step into public roles, is extremely puzzling. Paradoxically,their sense of gender,while strong,does not seem to permeatetheir being in the same diffuse,persistent way that it does Westernwomen's in most cross-sex interaction situations, including professional ones. It may be that the very rigidityof culturaldefinitions of femininity helps redefinewomen in positions of power as "nonfemale,"or at least "asexual,"or that a varietyof culturalmechanisms are special- ly mobilizedto constructsome cross-sexualencounters as sexually "neutral"(such as falling back into the kinship idiom that labels unrelatedwomen as sister, aunt, and mother accordingto their ages, with explicitovertones of asexuality).In any event, women seem to have the ability to act as professionalswhose habits of behaviordo not requirepersistent orientation to men as males. Ad- mittedly,these observationsare highly speculative;the reasonsof-

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 329

fered to account for them are even more so. For instance, Lloyd Fallersand MargaretFallers, in theirstudy of the women of a small town in westernAnatolia, invoke the possiblepsychological impact of sex segregation.They suggestthat "theseTurkish women in the public spherebring with them from the traditionalseparate world of women a sense of independencefrom men which makes them moreable to concentrateon the tasksat handin the publicworld."30 This assertionis in need of criticalexamination. Most of humanity continues to live in more socially sex- segregatedcircumstances that we are willing normallyto admit. The fact that certainsocieties do not impose visible restrictionson women's movements does not in and of itself mean that women share the same social worlds with men. Studies of Western working-classwomen presentexamples of intense primarygroup, sex-segregatedsocializing.31 Strong relationships between women expressedin frequentcontact and mutualcooperation do not exist only in formally sex-segregatedsocieties. Yet, there is a sense in which, comparedwith men's clearly articulatedpatterns of "men- only"leisure activities,women's culture in the West emerges as a sort of residual category rather than as a truly self-contained world. In sex-segregatedsocieties, women's parallelnetworks of sociability are highly articulatedand involve structuredvisiting patterns,specific forms of religiousand ritualparticipation, as well as specifiedforms of groupentertainment. A lot of self-expressive activitytakes place within single-sexgroups (such as singing,danc- ing, andjoking), and women do not dependexclusively or primari- ly on men for their self-definition.32The same is, of course, true about male groups and friendships. This backgroundof sex-segregationmay seem to have very little bearingon the contemporaryurban middle class in Turkeywhere couple or mixed-sex socializing is becoming the norm. Yet, a specific pattern seems to be emerging which Emelie Olson has characterizedas the "duofocal"family.33 Apart from the time spent togetheras a couple, women and men tend to continueto cultivate their separatenetworks of same-sexfriends. For women, this net- work involves relatives,old classmates,and neighborsas well as their colleagues,if they are workingwomen. However, this mode of socializingimplies continuedaccess to their primarygroup networks, and this access is bolstered by relatively low geographic mobility. Under conditionsof increasedmobility, more character-

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 330 Deniz A. Kandiyoti istic of the Westernmiddle class, it may be harderfor women to cultivatelong-term primary networks, and there may be a tendency-especially on the part of housewives-to gravitate toward husbands'networks of social relationsand the secondaryorganiza- tions, such as clubs and associations,of the communityin which they live. The extent to which the Westernnuclear family defines itself as an inward-looking,emotionally self-sufficient unit is clearly quite variable,and there are importantdifferences along class and ethnic lines. Nonetheless, to the extent that the "couple" operatesas a unit, and may in some extremecases come to represent the only source of primarygroup interaction for both sexes, it creates new sources of strain and places a greaterpsychological burdenon the institutionof marriageor cohabitation.The danger- ous levels of social and emotionalisolation that may resultfor non- working women have been documented extensively in both feminist researchand fiction. It should not seem surprisingthat the "rediscoveryof sisterhood"has been so high on the Western feminist agenda. Women'sgreater ability to foster and maintaintheir own networks of sociabilityin the Middle East appearsas an extremely importantelement in their controlover their lives. One of the con- sequences of this "socialembeddedness" of women is their ability to benefit from wider supportsystems for their domestic duties, especiallychildcare. These supportsystems may be of a reciprocal nature (especiallyamong kin) but are just as frequentlyexploitive of other women (as with domestic servants or poor relatives).It may seem ironic that, in the last analysis, these are the very mechanisms that serve to shelter the male role from any fundamentalredefinition, as domestictasks continueto be effectively absorbedby other women even when wives lead demandingpro- fessional lives. It is thereforeimportant to rememberthat women'scooperation and sociability in the Middle East takes place against a highly patriarchalbackground where a varietyof both materialand symbolic means will be mobilizedto minimizechallenges to men'sex- isting prerogatives.An examinationof women's life cycles will help us put in place a final but importantbuilding block of their identity as well as shed some light on the psychological mechanismsinstrumental in reproducingwomen's subordination. The nature of the female life cycle in the "ideal-typical"patri-

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 331 locally extendedhousehold provides us with importantclues with respectto both the reproductionof women's subordinationin the Middle East and the psychologicalinternalization of this subordination.This type of domesticarrangement, involving early marriage of women into male-headedhouseholds, clear son prefer- ence and devaluationof the female child, and a sharp age hier- archy within both female and male domains, is by no means specific to Islamic societies but is also quite typical of South and East Asian societies such as India and China. Nonetheless, many cultural practices that have a profound impact on women's psychologicaldevelopment in the Middle East emanate from this type of household, which is neither specifically Middle Eastern nor Islamic,and which exhibitssome significantvariations across Middle Easternsocieties. In Turkey, the critical relationshipsin the household are between in-marryingwomen to the male-headedhousehold. A girl comes to her husband'shousehold, as her title gelin (literally,the "onewho comes")indicates. In her own socializationas a little girl, it is made quite clearto her that she will have to leave her house of originand go to el (strangers).This may not be as extremea break with her past if she marrieswithin her kin group. However, she starts out her married life under extremely unfavorablepower terms. Within the household there is a clear hierarchywhereby the newest bride is subordinatedto her mother-in-lawas well as all the sisters-in-lawwith more seniority.Childbearing, especially of a male child, gives her fuller acceptancein her husband'sfami- ly, and, finally, when her father-in-lawdies she establishes her separatenuclear household and comes into her own. However, the apex of her influence and power comes when she in turn has grown sons who bringher brides. The cyclical natureof women's relative power position in the household, as well as the fact that their socializationis at every stage overseen by other women whose authoritythey may covet, leads to a thoroughinternaliza- tion and reproductionof this particularform of patriarchy.In this context, a women's relationshipto her son is absolutely crucial. The mother-sonrelationship is an intimate and affectionateone, where the woman indulgesher son greatly,sometimes protecting him againsta punitivefather, and lookingto him for futuresecuri- ty and protection. Conversely, a man's relationship to his mother may be stronger than that to his wife, and in cases of conflict his

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 332 Deniz A. Kandiyoti solidaritymay easily go to the former. The tug-of-warbetween mother-in-lawand wife for the man'sloyality is a productof this socializationwhich has far outlived the context in which it was born. Currently,extendedness accounts for a very short period of a household'sdomestic cycle, and it may not take place at all. As younger men become increasinglyemancipated from their own fathers,young couples in nuclearfamilies are also more independent.34The expectationof aging in an extended household sur- rounded by subservientbrides is simply no longer there. How- ever, the breakfrom the extendedfamily pattern does not seem to have a definitive effect on women's familial expectations. Women's socialization,which brings a promise of lifelong nur- turance, is more often than not actually fulfilled in the Turkish context. Adolescentsand youngsterscontinue to depend on their families for shelter and materialsupport, regardlessof whether they are requiredto contributeto the family budget. Even after marriage,actual material constraints may make a period of cohabitation, or at least close contact, inevitable. The birth of grand- children brings new responsibilities and chores to the older woman at a time when her Westerncounterpart may well be con- templating going back to college. On the whole, women experience continuityrather than discontinuitybetween the prom- ises of their socializationand their eventuallife-style. More importantly, in societies which continue to be more familialin orientation, for bothwomen and men, the sense of psychologicaldepriva- tion attachedto being "confined"to domesticitymay be less acute, if there at all. The same is not true for many Western women. Theirinvolvement in childcareextends over a period of ten to fif- teen years, a short period for an individualwith a normal life ex- pectancy. Childrentypically become more independentor leave home at a time when the husband is still active in his careerand the wife is at a near-menopausalor menopausal stage. Any at- tempt to understandthe psychologicalimplications of women's life cycles must simply take into account the emancipationof children, adolescents, and young adults. In societies where the materialand culturalbase for such emancipationexists, women are more likely to suffer from "roleloss" and may more easily turn to a fundamentalredefinition of their role and a search for alternative life-styles. Significantly,many Western women's dissatis-

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factions with their familial roles coincided with a restrictionand impoverishment of these roles. It may well be argued that women's liberationmovements in the West have helped to bring women's socializationand consciousnessmore in line with the actual demands of their situationrather than let them shoulderthe whole psychologicalburden of change- alone, alienated,and mystified.35 To summarize,an attempthas been made to show how in Tur- key, and more generallyin the MiddleEast, corporate control over female sexuality, sex-segregatednetworks of sociabilitywith ex- tensive informalsupport systems, and a life cycle involvinga con- tinued valuationof women'snurturant roles combineto producea specific experience of one's gender. This experience is clearly fraughtwith deep contradictions.A secure sense of genderedself is achieved as a by-productof the most restrictiveand oppressive controlsover female sexuality.The sense of strengthderived from mutual cooperationand supportamong women is ultimatelyin- strumentalin shelteringmen from new demands and prolonging their traditionalprerogatives. Moreover, the relationshipsamong women often tend to be of a highly exploitivenature. Middle- and upper-middleclass women, regardlessof whether they are involved in remuneratedwork outsidethe home, may have the pur- chasing power to hire domestic workers such as maids and nan- nies. For poor women, who join the labor force out of economic necessity, the only householdmembers who can be reliedupon to share tasks are daughters, daughters-in-law,or other living-in female relatives. In every case, the basic living comforts of the household are createdby women at the expense of other women. Processesof rapid social change increasinglyreveal and intensify these contradictions.There is no reason to assume that, in the same way that young men resentedforgoing independent income- earning opportunitiesfor unremuneratedlabor in their father's farmor shop, girlswill not resentbeing taken out of school to keep house and take care of younger siblings.We may expect intensi- fied conflictbetween differentgenerations of women especiallyif their position vis-a-vis each other representsan importantlabor relationin the household. Similarly,there is no reasonto assume that as the minimumwage comes to representa significantportion of middle-classincomes, and as job alternativesare createdoutside the domestic sector, the availabilityof domestic labor will not

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decline, leavingbetter-off women with no satisfactoryalternatives to cater for their needs. Many other aspects of women's lives are also in a state of flux. There is a growinguncertainty regarding sexual mores. Although corporatecontrol over sexualitymay continue to prevail, the actual nature of acceptablesexual conduct is constantlybeing chal- lenged and renegotiated,creating important areas of confusionfor both sexes across all classes.36This may expose women to sur- prises and humiliationsthat their motherswere sparedyet at the same time protect them from some of the worst excesses of the more traditionalsystem. In any case, there will be important changes in the parameters that currently shape women's experiences. Whetherthese changes will promote greaterempathy with the centralconcerns of women'sliberation movements in the West or will producea nostalgiafor and commitmentto traditional values and practicesis difficultto predict. In all probabilityboth tendencieswill be presentto some extent. At any rate, any obser- vations on the development of a feminist consciousness within this context must startwith a full recognitionof the set of specific contradictionsof women's experiences.

CONCLUSION In this articleI have attemptedto identify some of the factorsac- counting for similaritiesand divergencesin women's experiences in the Middle East through a detailed discussion of the Turkish case. I have chosen a specific historicallocation to demonstrate that the politicalproject of the state can exerta powerfulinfluence which inflects and modifies the place and practiceof Islam and, consequently, the life options for women. Thus, although the secularreforms of the TurkishRepublic may have had a set of na- tionalisticgoals as their ultimateobjective, they have nonetheless had a progressiveimpact on women'srights. I have, however, also arguedthat despiteimportant variations there are undeniableuni- fying themes in the experiencesof women emanatingfrom the nature of cultural controls over female sexuality in the Muslim Middle East. The corporatecontrol of female sexuality, linking female sexual purity to male honor, the segregationof the sexes, and the nature of the female life cycle, have been singled out as featuresthat exerta decisive influencein shapingand reproducing

This content downloaded from 134.58.253.30 on Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:46:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Deniz A. Kandiyoti 335 a culturallyspecific experienceof gender.Although there are deep and importantvariations both amongMiddle Eastern societies and within them (alongclass and ethnic lines), if an irreducible"core" of cultural practice had to be identified I would suggest that it residesprimarily in concretemodes of controlof female sexuality, not all of which are specific to Islamicsocieties, rather than in the unmediateddictates of Islam.This searchfor specificityis of more than purely academic interest, because I have been arguingthat ultimately we cannot totally divorce specific forms of consciousness (feministor other)from the social relationsthat condi- tion them. It is in accountingfor culturallyspecific forms of sexed subjectivity and their possible link with distinctmodes of consciousness that I have found Western feminist theories either inadequateor incomplete. Radicalfeminist theories of both the culturalistand materialistvariety, insofar as they choose to stress the universal aspects of women's oppression,have few tools to account for the specifichistorical and culturalarrangements that mediatebetween biologically rooted universal phenomena (such as childbearing) and their differentinstitutionalized forms. On those occasionsthat they make statements about the universal experiences of womanhood,the attemptsof Westernradical feminists turn out to be either un-self-consciouslyreflective of concrete, culturally specific contexts or ahistoricalsearches for the essential woman. Marxist/socialistfeminists, on the other hand, are generallybetter able to accountfor historicallyspecific forms of women's subordination (especiallywithin postindustrialcapitalism) and generate concepts that are abstractand broad enough to escape chargesof ethnocentrism.However, the very broad and abstractnature of these concepts makes a considerationof culturallydefined sexed subjectivity-the very stuff that consciousness is made of-dif- ficult if not impossibleto deal with.37 I would like to concludeby suggestingthat this is the terrainthat still remainsto be captured.Advances in this directionwould not only enrich feminist theory but would also make it a more sen- sitive tool for politicalaction.

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NOTES

1. See Cynthia Nelson and Virginia Olesen's "Veil of Illusion: A Critique of the Concept of Equality in Western Feminist Thought," Catalyst, nos. 10-11 (Summer 1977): 8-36, 27, 28. 2. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society (New York: John Wiley,1975), 12. 3. Binnaz (Sayari) Toprak, "Religion and Turkish Women," in Women in Turkish Society, ed. Nermin Abadan-Unat (Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1981), 285. 4. Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie, eds., Women in the Muslim World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 25. 5. On these questions, see Deniz Kandiyoti, "Sex Roles and Social Change: A Com- parative Appraisal of Turkey's Women," Signs 3 (Autumn 1977): 57-73, and "Economie Monetaire et Roles des Sexes: Le cas de la Turquie," Current Sociology 31 (Spring 1983): 213-28. 6. Although most of the empirical material for this article is drawn from Turkey, my aim is to open up a more general line of theoretical inquiry for women in the Middle East and North Africa. Any references to Islamic societies and Muslim women within the text must be understood to refer to this circumscribed area (excluding, for instance, Islamic societies in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia). 7. Nermin Abadan-Unat, "Social Change and Turkish Women," in Women in Turkish Society, 5-31. 8. Tezer Taskiran, Cumhuriyetin 50: Yilinda Turk Kadin Haklari (Ankara, Turkey: Basbakanlik Basimevi, 1973), 176 pages. Afet Inan, Ataturk ve Turk Kadin Haklarinin Kazanilmasi (Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1964). 9. Sirin Tekeli, "Women in Turkish Politics," in Women in Turkish Society, 293-310. 10. On this question, Nora Seni sees a greater degree of continuity between the Otto- man and republican state traditions, especially in terms of the symbolic value attached to the control of women. For her, the "granting"of political rights to women by the republican state has the same analytical status as the painstaking Ottoman legislation specifying the mode of dress and conduct of women in urban space. Although highlight- ing the importance of the symbolic, this argument ultimately falls short of elucidating the political necessity of the reforms. See Nora Seni, "Ville Ottomane et Representation du Corps Feminin," Les Temps Modernes (July-August 1984): 66-95. 11. Gregory Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Muslim Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919-1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). 12. Maxine Molyneux, "Women in Socialist Societies: Theory and Practice," in Of Mar- riage and the Market: Women'sSubordination in International Perspective, ed. Kate Young et al. (London: CSE Books: 1981), p. 167-202. 13. Nelson and Olesen, 32. 14. Leila Ahmed, "Feminism and Feminist Movements in the Middle East, Preliminary Exploration: Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen," in Women and Islam, ed. Aziza Al-Hibri (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982), 162. 15. The meaning and actual degree of success of this process is a hotly debated issue in Turkey. Analyses attempting to explain the resurgence of Islamic values in Turkey draw our attention to structural changes which produced the emergence of a new elite at the center, in the form of the religious National Salvation Party (see Toprak, 291), and to a more diffuse search for identity stemming from the rapid transformation of society which had to be acknowledged even by the country's "secular" military rules (Nur Vergin, "Quand L'Islam reinvestit la ville," Le Monde Diplomatique [November 19821: 11). Interestingly, most analysts seem to think that these developments do not pose a serious threat to women's rights.

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16. Ayse Oncii, "Turkish Women in the Professions: Why So Many?" in Women in Turkish Society, 81-193. 17. Surveys carried out among university students consistently show that on the whole, female students come from more affluent backgrounds than male students, judging by indicators such as father's profession, family income, parents' education, and patterns of residence (metropolitan, urban, rural). This suggests that parents of modest means will make a special effort to put their sons through college-but not their daughters. There is therefore a closer relationship between girls' class background in terms of giving them access to higher education, than boys' who are drawn from a wider variety of social backgrounds. 18. For the purpose of this paper, I will adopt a minimalist definition by proposing that a feminist consciousness may be deemed to exist whenever women act as the self- conscious subjects of their own struggle, that is, when they recognize a set of demands as explicitly their own. 19. Deniz Kandiyoti, "Urban Change and Women's Roles: An Overview and Evalua- tion," in Sex Roles, Family, and Community in Turkey, ed. Cigdem Kagitcibasi (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1982), 101-20. 20. This is not to suggest that the complex historical forces that have led to contemporary feminism can be reduced to a mere epiphenomenon of specific women's or men's consciousnesses but rather to indicate a willingness to explore the impact of different cultural contexts on the shaping of sexed subjectivity. Ultimately, this should lead us into a discussion of alternative constructions of the human subject. This issue, although critical to an understanding of feminism, must remain outside the scope of this article. 21. Ahmed, for instance, argues convincingly that the segregated women of the Ara- bian Peninsula are not in the least mystified as to the true nature of the relations between the sexes in their society and have few doubts about their own self-worth despite the prevalent ideology of women's inferiority. See Leila Ahmed, "Western Ethnocen- trism and Perceptions of the Harem," Feminist Studies 8 (Fall 1982): 521-34. Daisy H. Dwyer's study of Morocco, on the other hand, seems to suggest a greater degree of col- lusion on the part of women with the stereotype of female inferiority, although their ac- quiescence is mingled with protest and resistance. See her Images and Self Images: Male and Female in Morocco (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 263. 22. Serim Timur, TiirkiyedeAile Yapisi (Ankara, Turkey: Sevinc Matbaasi, 1972): 69-98. 23. Hanna Papanek, "Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter," Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (June 1975): 289-325; Mernissi. 24. Papanek, 316, 325. 25. Nancy Chodorow, The Reproductionof Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 26. Fatna Sabbah, Woman in the Muslim Unconscious (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984). 27. Martina Horner, "Femininity and Successful Achievement: Basic Inconsistency," Feminine Personality and Conflict, ed. Judith M. Bardwick et al. (Belmont, Calif.: Wads- worth Publishing, 1970): 45-74. 28. Mirra Komarovsky, "Cultural Contradictions and Sex Roles," American journal of Sociology 52 (1946): 508-16. 29. Deniz Kandiyoti, "Dimension of Psycho-Social Change in Women: An Intergenera- tional Comparison," in Women in Turkish Society, 233-58. 30. Lloyd Fallers and Margaret Fallers, "Sex Roles in Edremit," in Mediterranean Family Structure, ed. J.G. Peristiany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 255. 31. See, for example, Michael Young and Peter Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957); and Lee Rainwater, R.P. Coleman,

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and George Handel, Working Man's Wife (New York: McFadden Bartell, 1962). 32. See, for instance, Carla Makhlouf-Obermeyer, Changing Veils: A Study of Women in South Arabia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979). She suggests that women's meetings are also a vehicle for satire and ridicule of the male world. 33. Emelie Olson, "Duofocal Family Structure and an Alternative Model of Husband- Wife Relationships," in Sex Roles, Family, and Community in Turkey, 33-72. 34. For greater detail, see Deniz Kandiyoti, "Rural Transformation in Turkey and Its Implications for Women's Status,"in Women on the Move: ContemporaryChanges in Fami- ly and Society (Paris: Unesco, 1984); and "Social Change and Social Stratification in a Turkish Village," Journal of Peasant Studies 2 (January 1975): 206-19. 35. I do not wish to suggest that gender relations in the family, as we know it, are not intrinsically oppressive to women but rather want to reflect on when and how they come to be perceived as such. I am intrigued by the possibility that such perceptions may arise at the point of transformation of such relations or when an important disjunction takes place between the ideology and the facts of domesticity. 36. For instance, the continuing value attached to women's virginity in a context where opportunities for cross-sex contact are more available and to some extent more per- missible creates new practices such as the surgical replacement of the hymen designed to cover up any premarital lapses. For an insightful discussion, see Fatima Mernissi, "Virginity and Patriarchy," Women'sStudies International Forum 5 (1982): 183-91. 37. It is noteworthy that on those occasions when Marxist/socialist feminists do discuss subjectivity they often fall back on psychoanalytic theory and its contemporary off- shoots in ways that tend to obfuscate and trivialize, rather than engage with and prob- lematize, the very real differences the experience of womanhood may represent.

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