Avrasya Uluslararası Araştırmalar Dergisi

Öz

In the old Turks, there was no great distinction between men and women as a requirement of the difficult conditions of life and the respect for nature, and both sexes of human beings had their personal rights. At the administrative level, the wife of the Khan, with the title of Hatun, took a role in the state administration. In other contemporary societies, women are generally second-class citizens, either killed or sold. In other societies, it has been observed that women are not given the right of being human in the family.
In the period after the Turks accepted Islam and came to Anatolia, women were imprisoned in their homes, especially in cities, as a result of their interaction with the surrounding cultures and the interpretation of religion. In the 19th century, during the modernization and westernization period of the Ottoman Empire, women began to become more visible in society, especially due to the losses in the wars, women began to take a more part in working life. Women who succeeded to have rights in the field of education in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, after the proclamation of the Republic, first gained their personal rights through education, then civil law, and then their political rights. In gaining their political rights, they had the right to elect and be elected, first in the municipal elections, then in the mukhtar elections, and finally in the parliamentary elections.
In this study, the change and transformation in women's rights in the process from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey are discussed. The aim of the study is to better explain the development of women's rights by making use of primary and secondary sources.