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

During war time, the everyday experiences of ordinary people - and especially women - are frequently obscured by elite military and social analysis. In this study, the author 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. By showing women's resistance to war mobilization, wartime work life and the everyday struggles which shaped state politics, the author allows readers to draw comparisons between the past and the current events of today's Middle East.