Modernization and Gender Regimes: Life Histories of the Wives of Turkish Political Leaders

Abstract

This work is a close look at the life histories of the top Turkish political leaders with the aim of analyzing changes in gender role and gender identity and tensions between the two in the history of Turkish modernization vis-à-vis with contemporaneous debates on gender. The main objective is to situate modernization in its theoretical as well as historical context through subjective and private meanings as related to modern coming out of the narratives of the wives. It was argued that Kemalist modernization though created a modern outlook for women framed and sometimes limited their experiences of modernization. As the wives experienced it, the tension reflected itself in the relationship between the gender role performance and the gender identity construction. Additionally, it was argued that, under the attacks of different ideological political currents, Kemalist gender regime has become highly marginalized and except its symbolic power lost much of its power to provide women with a gender identity.