Conclusion: The Road Ahead: What’s in Store for Bașörtülü Kadinlar?

Abstract

Women’s outer appearance did not lose its importance despite the changes that came about throughout the history of Turkish Republic. Some of the introduced changes that were considered to be significant in the modernizing revolutionary movement in the early 1920s became less significant after several decades. Nonetheless, Turkish women’s attire and its centrality to the success of the regime’s goal of westernizing its people remained as critical as in the early days of the establishment of the republic. The meticulousness that the state depicted in the modern representation of women and their appearance explained the social and political reaction bașörtülü kadιnlar received as they pushed their way into the public sphere. The state perceived these women as a threat to its laiklik and a marker of the failure of the westernization project through which modernity was directly linked to women’s attire and attitudes. For the Orientalized Oriental that comprised the state and the Kemalist elite, bașörtülü kadιnlar were reminders of the religious past and were identified as internal enemies.