Şehbenderzâde Ahmed Hilmi’s Feminism and Perception of Women

Abstract

The Renaissance and Reform movements that developed after the darkness of the Middle Ages, technological advances, and developments in the fields of knowledge and thought triggered changes and transformations in the social field. As a result of these changes and the modernization that developed in Europe, women, who have been oppressed under masculine power for centuries, who are not fully free individuals and whose human rights are quite limited, have started to demand their rights as human beings in this changing world, as well as trying to reshape their place and roles. Women’s movements that started with this effort began to become visible in the 18th century and turned into a systematic movement in the 19th century. With the influence of these women’s movements in the changing world, an interest in women’s movements began in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The feminism movement, whose seeds were sown with the Tanzimat in the Ottoman Empire, started to bear fruit with the II. Constitutional Monarchy and gained momentum. In the 19th century, in the search for a solution to the problem of the Ottoman’s backwardness in many areas against Europe and the problems of the state in the troubled period, interest in social issues along with political solutions increased and discussions arose. The feminist movement, which started in Europe and had its effects on Ottoman society, was discussed among the thinkers of the period because it concerned the social field. One of the people who expressed their opinion on the mentioned issue in the Ottoman Empire is Şehbenderzâde Ahmed Hilmi, who is among the Islamist thinkers.