At Liberty under Occupation but Bound Hand and Foot in the Republic: Istanbul Women, Corruption and Moral Decay after the First World War (1918–1923)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article provides a gendered history of Istanbul’s postwar years by focusing on the role “Istanbul women” had in discussions of corruption and moral decay that dominated representations of the city. It sheds light on how Istanbul was degraded to a “cosmopolitan and decadent” status. The Beyoğlu-Pera district came to symbolise this decadence. Furthermore, upper-class women of the city were associated with the radical Westernisation emanating from the district. The article also scrutinises how politically active women of the city negotiated these accusations, through an analysis of their endeavours to achieve women’s suffrage. It argues that devaluing late Ottoman feminists as “morally corrupt” Istanbul women, allowed the early Republican reformers to suppress the Ottoman feminist movement and present themselves as the emancipators of Turkish women.