Gender, Modernity and Liberty

Yi̇rmi̇nci̇ Yüzyılda Anadolu'ya Dai̇r Yazılan İngi̇li̇z Seyahat Edebiyatında Türk Temsilleri

“…138 Especially in Victorian England, there was a fascination in travel narratives for descriptions of the harem since it was mostly regarded as something exotic and authentic by the West. 139 As a result, in these earlier travel accounts, Turkish women were portrayed as long-dead beauties whose sighs of boredom, frustration and despair are all stored-up in the walls of harem, and many of whom never reach the Sultan's bed at all, but could neither escape, except in death in the Ottoman era. However, rather than this exotic and lascivious stereotype that allures the Orientalist traveller's colonial desire to penetrate into the veiled harem life, Vardy represents modern Turkish women to be emancipated, unveiled and walking side by side with men.…”

Introduction : genre et perspectives post/dé-coloniales

“…Le féminisme de La défense des doits de la femme plaide pour que l'Occident se débarrasse de ses manières orientales, afin de devenir plus occidental, c'est-à-dire plus rationnel, raisonnable et éclairé. Dans l'écriture et l'art orientalistes, le harem est souvent dépeint comme un endroit où un grand nombre de femmes illettrées attendaient passivement l'occasion de satisfaire les besoins sexuels de leur maître 15 . Les photographes orientalistes ont utilisé les images des femmes moyennes-orientales tantôt comme objets sexuels tantôt comme une métaphore de l'Orient.…”