Gendering the Centenary of the Turkish Republic: Institutional Continuity and Images of Modernity

The Turkish Republic is popularly understood as synonymous with a secular modernism that stands in sharp contrast to the Ottoman past. Yet this image of Turkey reflects a willful nationalist imaginary arising from the context of total war and colonial occupation in the early twentieth century that has overlooked the institutional continuities that continue to shape the gender politics of Turkish society up to the present day. In this paper, I examine the gender politics of social welfare in the Turkish Republic up to the present, highlighting the ways in which the Republican ideology secular modernity was layered over existing institutional definitions of gender roles and family structure, marking an incomplete transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. I argue that the Ottoman First World War and its aftermath, which witnessed the Turkish War of Independence and a short but impactful Allied Occupation, was defined by the quest for sovereignty pursued through gendered policies that leveraged the male breadwinner-led nuclear family towards militarization in domestic affairs and international relations. Throughout the twentieth century, the Turkish military, and the social structure that supports it, has played an instrumental role in the country’s political and cultural life and the shaping of masculinity, femininity, and family dynamics. The role of militarization and the institutional mechanisms of gender and family have become increasingly clear under the AKP party. As we approach the centenary of the Turkish Republic, this paper asks how gender can support an analysis of Turkish society and politics that moves beyond the nationalist imaginary towards an understanding of the ways that institutional continuity continues to shape politics and society in Turkey.