Feminist Perspective on Women’s Museums in Turkey: İzmir Case

Year 2019, Volume: 22(2) Issue: 44, 125 - 145, 20.09.2019

Selin Önen

https://doi.org/10.18691/kulturveiletisim.629070

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Museums appeared as modern institutions in the nineteenth century. Historical transitions

such as the Enlightenment, emergence of scientific conceptions based on principal of

universality and preservation of dominant ideology (such as imperialism, nation building)

affected the context of modern museums. Hence, museums clearly indicate the inclusion and

exclusion mechanisms of modernity. The changing nature of history through pluralization

opened new spaces for women, children, workers, ethnic and religious communities as well

as other silenced people. Thus, women’s museums reflect the flux of identity, alternative

history and representation of mundaneness. Turkey’s first women’s museum, Women’s

Museum İstanbul, was established as a virtual museum in 2012. The first women’s museum

to have an actual location, however, came in 2014 in İzmir. Women’s museums ensure

visibility of women contributing to the feminist movement. Feminist critiques indicate that men

and women in the classical museum are not represented based on equality principle; on the

contrary, exhibitions of gender relations are hierarchical, and the roles of women are

secondary to those of men. Apart from gender roles, women’s museums are also important

for representation of women, since the issue of women who are represented and women

who are excluded, is also subject of feminist debate. Women’s museums, considered in

relation to collective memory and can be differentiated from historical experience. This paper

thereby tries to evaluate opportunities and limitations of women’s representation in the case

study of Turkey’s first women’s museum in İzmir.

Keywords

Women’s museum, feminism, museum studies, collective memory, izmir

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