Ottoman Women during World War I
Everyday Experiences, Politics, and Conflict

Using the newest sources, this book reveals the experience of Ottoman Muslim women during World War I.

Elif Mahir Metinsoy (Author)

9781316648391, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 March 2020

289 pages
15 x 23 x 1.5 cm, 0.43 kg

'This is a significant contribution to the existing lacuna of the social history of First World War in the Middle East. With Elif Mahir Metinsoy's richly textured and archivally grounded depiction of ordinary women's war experience, we are a step closer to a rigorous portrayal of the home front as experienced by Middle Eastern families. The book brings to life the wrenching burdens of total warfare, multiple dimensions of womanhood in wartime, the state's intrusion into citizens' lives, and the survival strategies of non-elite women, including negotiation and resistance.' Hasan Kayal?, University of California, San Diego

During war time, the everyday experiences of ordinary people - and especially women - are frequently obscured by elite military and social analysis. In this pioneering study, Elif Mahir Metinsoy focuses on the lives of ordinary Muslim women living in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. It reveals not only their wartime problems, but also those of everyday life on the Ottoman home front. It questions the existing literature's excessive focus on the Ottoman middle-class, using new archive sources such as women's petitions to extend the scope of Ottoman-Turkish women's history. Free from academic jargon, and supported by original illustrations and maps, it will appeal to researchers of gender history, Middle Eastern and social history. By showing women's resistance to war mobilization, wartime work life and the everyday struggles which shaped state politics, Mahir Metinsoy allows readers to draw intriguing comparisons between the past and the current events of today's Middle East.

List of illustrations
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Chronology
List of abbreviations and archive references
Glossary
Introduction
Part I. The Home Front: 1. Women in Europe and the United States
2. The Ottoman home front
Part II. Women's Negotiation of Wartime Social Policies: 3. Hunger and shortages
4. Monetary assistance for soldiers' families
5. The housing problem
6. Motherhood
Part III. Women and Working Life: 7. Wartime work opportunities and restrictions
8. Working women's problems
Part IV. Women's Resistance to War Mobilization: 9. Forced labor and overtaxation
10. Discontent with Conscription
11. State control of morality and marriage
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]