The history of women's issues in Turkey goes back to the nineteenth-century Ottoman period, but more organized women's movements emerged in the context of the atmosphere of relative freedom created by the revolution of 1908. Following this revolution women were permitted to found associations pertaining to their own interests. The most outstanding of these was the Ottoman Association for Defense of Women's Rights, established in 1913. It sought to reform existing family law with the aim of creating an egalitarian family and to encourage women to take part in public life (Çakır 1996).

At…