Cultural-Feminist Tendencies in Turkish Society in the Example of Filiz Bi̇ngölçe’s Creativity

Abstract

In Turkish society, feminism in themes of women’s emancipation and women’s rights began to develop more intensively in literary and artistic creativity in the second half of the 20th century and continues to varying degrees until today. In addition to literary works, sociological studies, and various forms of artistic creativity expressing feminist content, a unique example of a specific female expression appeared in a specialized dictionary of female jargon. The subject of this paper is the lexicographic and literary analysis of social contribution of the author Filiz Bingolče who devoted a significant part of her work to pointing out the position of Turkish women in a traditional society, which requires them to be humble and obedient wives and mothers, which represents a challenge for new generations of young women who are living in a time of accelerated scientific and technological developments while at the same time trying to find their place as respected individuals in society. Using the method of analyzing the selected corpus of the author’s significant work, which consists of the “Dictionary of Feminine Jargon” and “Threnody of Murdered Women”, our goal is to present to the scientific public the author’s feminist struggle and her contribution to the understanding of the intimate and hidden female being in a traditionally male environment. We can conclude that according to Turkish women, even in the modern era, the constraints of traditions cannot be easily unchained and that the battle for equal existence continues both on a wider social scale and in the individual context of women as individuals.

Keywords

• feminism in turkey
• turkish feminist creativity
• women’s vocabulary
• threnody
• cultural elements in the turkish language and society