Social policies on female body in Turkey in the 1930s

Abstract

This thesis explores the social policies on female body in the 1930s in Turkey. The 1930s witnessed the construction and the institutionalization of the new regime. Early Republican elite had a vision and a project in the "creation" of the new generation and the construction of the new state. Nationalist discourse due to its unification effect and modernist discourse due to its stress on the progress had hegemonic tone in the project. With the impacts of the nationalist and modernist discourse, female body was determined as a "social" value. In this study, the construction of female identity, which is defined as a "social" value in the 1930s project, was questioned. This thesis that particularly examined the "desired" practices of female body sought to display the regulation of the everyday life by the new system with the legal applications, moral and social discourses. In order to follow the developed policies on body, particularly female body, the scientific, nationalist and modernist discourses and their effects on female body were examined.