Selfless Subjectivities that (Re)Build the Nation: Remaking the “Modern Turkish Woman” in the Early Republican Period in Türkiye

Abstract

This study explores the newly constructed female identities of the Early Republican Era in Türkiye (1923–1945). Through a thematic analysis of three contemporary women's magazines (Aile Dostu, Ev-İş, and Asrın Kadını) it aims to examine how conceptualizations of marriage and family were refashioned in the magazines to fit in the images within the newly constructed domestic ideologies of the state. We argue that the “selfless” subjectivities offered by the magazines point to dialogically constructed narrative identities which are not stable but fluid. The women's magazines of the Era aimed to reconstruct new identities by representing the Republic's ideas and official ideology to its people. Thus, they became one of the tools of social engineering in the way of “transforming the nation” into a “modern,” “Westernized” one. Analysing these magazines help us identify the repertoire of subjectivities and narrative identities from which women drew while making sense of their selves during an era of transformation.

How do you manage? An auto-ethnographic inquiry into contemporary maternal labor

“…Simultaneously, I was defining my mothering identity in opposition to “other mothers,” including previous generations and my contemporaries, against the patriarchal institution of motherhood imposing an essential, sacred, “selfless” motherhood (DiQuinzio, 1999; Oakley, 2018; and for a historical account on “selfless” motherhood in Turkey: Yakali and Atacan, 2023). Following Winnicott, I intended to be a “good enough mother,” not a supermom.…”