Negotiating Gender in the Early Modern Period: The Illusion of seclusion and metaphors of Ottoman Imperial Women's sovereignty
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Metin Mustafa
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Abstract: Historically, early modern Ottoman imperial women's architectural works have been well documented to demonstrate their sovereignty and authority. Recent scholarship, however, has turned to the nature of gendered architectural necessities and ceremonial processions of early modern Ottoman imperial women to assert their sovereignty to their subjects by their physical presence. By resorting to mimicry, the women of the Ottoman Imperial Harem subvert the patriarchal norms of the period. It is the aim of this article to provide another viewpoint from a feminist paradigm to the nature of the sovereignty of the early modern Ottoman imperial women through the visual representations of processional ceremonies and the 1582 illustrated manuscript Surname-i Hümayun. Furthermore, by comparing Ottoman imperial women's processional and funeral ceremonies with that of Elizabethan England, there arise similar practices by Renaissance women asserting their power and sovereignty.