Essay: “The Emancipated and Threatening Turkish Urban Women in Boşboğaz (Bigmouth) Humor Magazine (1945–1947)”

One prominent perspective on the political and social standing of women in Turkey from the 1980s and onwards has been expressed in the ‘emancipated and unliberated Turkish women argument.’ According to this argument, providing women with legal and political rights was not sufficient to liberate them from the shackles of traditional and patriarchal norms and values. This article provides a background and a possible explanation for this lack of liberation, suggesting that emancipated women were perceived as a threat to men’s economic and psychological well-being, motivating a backlash against further liberation of women beyond mere emancipation. Summarising this explanation as ‘the emancipated and threatening Turkish urban women argument’, the present research illustrates this argument by making use of cartoons featured in the Boşboğaz humour magazine, published in the 1940s. These cartoons frequently depict emancipated Turkish urban women as opportunistic, seductive and exploitative in their dealings with men, using their good looks and lightly dressed bodies to manipulate gullible men, making them willing to open up their wallets and pay for the women’s consumerism.