TURKISH WOMEN

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1929, Page 23 (Supplement)

TURKISH WOMEN

! RUSHING INTO BUSINESS. FEMALE PROFESSIONALS. London, July U. Turkish women, among the first women of the East to be emancipated, are crowding into banks, offices, shops, and business concerns, to earn their own living. They are .even begining to oust the men from many of their immemorial occupations. The changes made by Mustapba Kemal Pasha, the Ghazi Pasha, to give him his Turkish title, have been far-reaching. The professions arc now open to women, and all over Turkey there are now women doctors, dentists, laXvyers, journalists, and school mistresses. Turkish . women show a special aptitude for teaching, and the educational authorities . report that the standard of learning among women students is, if anything, higher than among men. Besides allowing Turkish women to enter Stamboul University, the Government is sending girl students to various countries to complete their studies. It has taken a certain amount of time for the average Turkish woman to accustom herself to the liberties so suddenly bestowed on herj says the correspondent of the Times. A few of the richer Turkish women who had been in th© habit of travelling in Europe and .frequenting European society in Constantinople immediately acclimatised themselves jto their new life. The average woman was slow to take advantage of the opoftunities open to | her, and it is only now—six years after the reform took place—that Turkish women and girls go freely to cinemas, restaurants, and dances. Husbhnds and parents were nervous lest their wives and daughters should “taj<e liberties” with their liberty, and probably restrained them from appearing in public. But the women themselves were shy of going out alone, and the new problem of dress and deportment have no doubt prolonged their hesitation. For a long time Turkish women clung to the tcharehaf (a piece of silk wound round the head) both for day and evening wear. The Ghazi Pasha, however, made it known that he wished Turkish women to wear hats in the daytime and to appear bare-headed at night, thus falling into line with their menfolk, who had been bereft of the fez. Finding that his wishes were not being obeyed, the Ghazi actually took off the tcharchafs from the heads of Turkish girls at dances in Constantinople last summer and begged the wearers to abandon them. The action had its effect, rnd it is comparatively rare now to see a tcharehaf in the evening, although they are still worn out of doors.