Send message to Authors

Abstract

This research addresses the changing image of women’s role in society as shown in the pages of Kazakh language print media from the beginning of the 20th century with the goal of identifying both the changes themselves and the factors behind them. The articles analysis is based on a selection of articles from the journals Aiqap, Qazaq, and Äiel Tengdigi focused on the questions of women’s equality, their rights, and their role in society. Major Kazakh intellectuals of the time, including figures like Mirjakup Dulatuly, Akhmet Baitursynuly, Mukhtar Auezov and others depicted women as figures whose importance was not limited to domestic labour but who were rather crucial actors in the work of education, enlightenment, and other tasks of national reform. Dulatuly’s article in Äiel Tengdigi argued that it was crucial that women receive an education and be free to participate in society. In this way, the question of female emancipation took center stage in political debates and a new image of women came to be depicted. This article analyses the articles in which these debates played out as well as documenting the emerging role of the press in Kazakh society as an arena in which questions of social reform and renewal were argued out.