MAKING COMMON CAUSE?: WESTERN AND MIDDLE EASTERN FEMINISTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, 1911-1948 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charlotte E. Weber, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Leila J. Rupp, Adviser Professor Susan M. Hartmann _________________________ Adviser Professor Ellen Fleischmann Department of History ABSTRACT This dissertation exposes important junctures between feminism, imperialism, and orientalism by investigating the encounter between Western and Middle Eastern feminists in the first-wave international women’s movement. I focus primarily on the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, and to a lesser extent, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. By examining the interaction and exchanges among Western and Middle Eastern women (at conferences and through international visits, newsletters and other correspondence), as well as their representations of “East” and “West,” this study reveals the conditions of and constraints on the potential for feminist solidarity across national, cultural, and religious boundaries. In addition to challenging the notion that feminism in the Middle East was “imposed” from outside, it also complicates conventional wisdom about the failure of the first-wave international women’s movement to accommodate difference. Influenced by growing ethos of cultural internationalism during the interwar period, Western feminist attitudes toward Middle Eastern women were characterized less by overt racism and hostility to Islam than by a belief in the universal applicability of Western standards of progress. Some of the assumptions on which the discourse of feminist orientalism was based were shared by Middle Eastern feminists, who appropriated liberal ideals of national sovereignty and linear progress to articulate an autonomous vision of feminism that both challenged and affirmed loyalty to male ii nationalists. The common aspiration of modernity provided a fragile basis for solidarity between Western and Middle Eastern feminists, for whom the notion of sisterhood retained real meaning. But they understood its obligations differently. While Western feminists frequently invoked their responsibility to "lead" their less fortunate sisters, their Middle Eastern counterparts sought sisterly help from Western women in combating colonialism. The question of Palestine finally exposed the cracks in the foundation on which their unity had been built. It was around this issue that Western feminist orientalism collided most forcefully with Middle Eastern feminist nationalism. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation owes everything to the scholars who encouraged it. Leila Rupp, a mentor without peer, helped me formulate the topic and has suffered my angst with endless patience and good humor. Her reassurance, encouragement, and above all her keen insight helped me overcome paralyzing bouts of writer's block. Susan Hartmann has been a constant support; my work has benefited both from her probing questions and her unerring red pencil. Ellen Fleischmann, whose own dissertation proved inspirational, kindly shared her valuable research and agreed to serve on my committee. Her enthusiasm for this project has been vital to its completion. Carter Findlay, Jane Hathaway, Stephanie Gilmore provided helpful suggestions along the way. So, too, did Birgitte Soland, whose offer of friendship came at a critical moment. I thank them all. I am grateful, too, for the financial support provided by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowhip Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Ohio State Departments of History, Women’s Studies, Office of International Studies, and Graduate School. John Eisele, an extraordinarily gifted teacher, helped me master basic Arabic grammer at the University of Chicago’s Summer Intensive Arabic program. Here at Ohio State, Mahdi Alosh eagerly supervised some of my translations. Mary-Rose Halim also assisted with translations and provided pleasant company during a research trip to New York. iv Cherished friends, the most precious legacy of graduate school, made its burdens easier to bear. For their camaraderie, gallows humor, and ready willingness to hoist a few, I warmly thank Febe Armanios, Frank Byrne, Stephanie Gilmore, Mary McCune, Pamela Pennock, Bob Pennock, Emma Loss, Paul Eisenstein, and Safa Saracoglu. My parents-in-law, Sal and Joanne Pappalado, could always be counted on for stress relief; their home in the Poconos is a refuge of warmth, good food, and cold beer. My sisters Rebecca Piermattei and Miriam Weber Fastaeia saw me through many an existential crisis and continue to inspire me with their own dogged pursuits. I never would have made it this far without the love and support of my parents, Arnold and Sigrid Weber. Their deep respect for the life of the mind encouraged my own path into academia. Of the many lessons they taught, the most valuable was that that education offers its own reward. (They just didn't expect it to take so long. As their initial enthusiasm for this venture turned gradually to consternation, my mother had the good sense to keep quiet. My father did not, but I can now acknowledge that "just finish the damn thing!" turned out to be good advice.) At home, my daughter Renna not only helped me procrastinate in the most delightful of ways, but accepted her later exile in daycare with all the grace that a toddler can muster. I am forever in debt to her talented and hardworking caregivers at the OSU Child Care Center. Finally, my deepest thanks go to Dan, my husband. Making me laugh every single day is the least of what he does. v VITA March 25, 1969....................................Born - Washington, D.C. 1991......................................................B.A. History, Pennsylvania State University 1996………………………………… .M.A. History, The Ohio State University 1994-present.........................................Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Charlotte Weber. “Univeiling Scheherezade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911-1959,” Feminist Studies 27.1 (2001): 125-157. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………. ….ii Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………..iv Vita …………………………………………………………………………………….vi Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………1 Chapters: 1. Defining Feminist Orientalism: An Analysis of Jus Suffragii ………………..23 2. Ruth Woodsmall and Moslem Women Enter a New World ………………….. 49 3. Between Nationalism and Feminism: The Eastern Women’s Conferences of 1930 and 1932 ………………………………………………………………………...88 4. The 12th IAW Congress in Istanbul, 1935 ……………………………………121 5. The International Women’s Movement and the Question of Palestine ………169 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………....219 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………..223 vii INTRODUCTION ISTANBUL, April 18 (U.P.)--Women of thirty-five nations met today in the old Yildiz Palace, once the world's greatest harem, to work for emancipation of women.1 For eight days in April 1935, the residence of former Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II served as the site of a widely publicized international feminist conference. Nearly three hundred women from around the world convened in Istanbul for the twelfth congress of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship (IAW), where they affirmed their commitment to equal rights and peace. According to the organization's American press secretary Louisa Fast, what gave the congress "publicity value" was the sheer incongruity of its locale: the very rooms where, as one reporter put it, the Sultan's "numerous wives...trod on slippered feet twenty-seven years ago."2 The contrast was all the more striking in light of the recent political gains made by Turkish women. As part of the dramatic reform program initiated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, Turkish women were enfranchised at the local level in 1930 and at the national level in 1934. The parliamentary elections held in March, 1935 returned 18 women (4.5%) to the Assembly, the highest number of female 1 Press clipping from the New York Sun, 1935, box 8, Josephine Schain Papers, Sophia Smith Collection (SSC). 2 "The Press," IAWSEC Report of the Twelfth Congress, Istanbul, 1935, 17, box 2, IAW Papers, SSC. The quote is from an unidentified press clipping dated 11 May 1935, box 8, Schain Papers. 1 deputies in Europe at the time.3 In an interview she granted a few months before the April congress, the venerable American suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt, founder and retired president of the IAW, pointed out the symbolic importance of the congress' intended setting: "The fact that the Congress is to assemble in Turkey is of great significance and is a commentary on the advance that women have made. There has never before been an international women's meeting in a Mohammedan country. Not only that--the government has joined in the invitation and provided the place of meeting, a thing that has not happened in a Christian country." 4 Whatever resonance these news accounts may have carried for Western readers clearly derived from juxtaposition: "harem" versus "emancipation for women;" "Turkey" versus "the advance that women have made;" "Mohammedan" versus "Christian." Such binary constructions serve