"That is not impossible," thought the woman. "At any rate, we must work, and it is the women of Turkey who must set the example. When the Turks have more generally embraced the idea that all there is worth while in life is labor, they will come to understand their non-Osmanli fellow-citizens better. I look upon that as the solution of the Ottoman race problems. Labor is the one platform upon which all men can meet. My objective is to have the races in the empire meet upon it. Turk, Greek, Armenian, and Arab will get along together only when they come to heed that old and beautiful saying of the Persians, 'How pleasantly dwell together those who do not want the ox at the same time.' That means that each of us must have his own ox—work ourselves, in other words."
And Halideh Hannym applies this to herself. There is no reason why she should write novels and articles to make money—she does not need it, so far as I know, if town houses and a country seat on the island of Prinkipo mean anything at all. Halideh Hannym works for the satisfaction there is in knowing that duty is done and done to the limit of one's ability, and within that limit lies the seizing of one's opportunity. Hers came with the war, and while others stood by and lamented she set to work and wrung from ungenerous man that which under the pressure of the times he thought unimportant. Halideh Hannym and her friends and co-workers gathered these crumbs, one by one, and then made a loaf of them, and that loaf is not small. Some future historian may say that the emancipation of the Turkish woman was due to the Great War. I hope that he will not overlook Halideh Edib Hannym Effendi.
The women of Central Europe have always worked hard, but at best they have been kept at drudgery. They have done what man would not do, as deeming it below his masculine dignity, or what he could not do. The result of this has not been a happy one for the women. The "lord of the household" has in the course of time come to look upon his wife as a sort of inferior creature, fit indeed to be the first servant in the house, but unfit to be elevated above that sphere. The rights of equality which he takes from his mate he generally bestows upon his daughters, and later he is inconsistent enough to have them enter the servitude of his wife. Thus it came that the majority of all women in Central Europe thought of nothing but the stomach of the lord and master, and when this was attended to they would put in their spare moments knitting socks.
The picture of the German Hausfrau may appeal to many. It does not to me. Nothing can be so disheartening as to spend an evening with a family whose women will talk to the accompaniment of the clicking of the knitting-needles. The making of socks should be left to machinery, even if they are intended to warm the "Trilbys" of the lord and master.
I am glad to report that a large crevasse was torn into this Hausfrau notion by the war. With millions of men at the front, the women had to stand on their feet, as it were. The clinging ivy became a tree. Though the ubiquitous knitting-needle was not entirely dispensed with, it came to be used for the sake of economy, not as the symbol of immolation on the altar of the Herr im Hause.
The woman who has fought for bread in the food-line is not likely to ever again look upon the breadwinner of the family with that awe which once swayed her when she thought of "his" magnanimity in giving her good-naturedly what she had earned by unceasing effort and unswerving devotion.
Thus has come in Central Europe a change that is no less great and sweeping than what has taken place in Turkey. All concerned should be truly thankful. The nation that does not give its women the opportunity to do their best in the socio-economic sphere which nature has assigned them handicaps itself badly. Not to do that results in woman being little more than the plaything of man, or at best his drudge, and, since man is the son of woman, no good can come of this. The cowed woman cannot but have servile offspring, and to this we must look for the explanation why the European in general is still ruled by classes that look upon their subjects as chattels. A social aggregate in which the families are ruled by autocratic husbands and fathers could have no other than an autocratic government. I believe that a pine forest is composed of pines, despite the fact that here and there some other trees may live in it.
The war has upset that scheme in Central Europe. While the labor of woman was valuable to the state, through its contributions to the economic and military resources of the nation, it also fostered in the woman that self-reliance which is the first step toward independence. Of this the plow-woman and the women in the steel-works are the factors and Halideh Hannym the sum. While the plow-woman and steel-workers were unconsciously active for that purpose, the Turkish feminist had already made it the objective of a spreading social policy.
What poor pets those women in the steel-mill would make!