The issue of individualization and liberation of woman in Adalet Ağaoğlu and Emine Işınsu's novels

Women's subordination in the patriarchal system causes a life that being objectified under pressure. In order to change imposed life on women, political rights were actualized by First Wave Feminist Movement. Nevertheless, as the acquired rights did not provide equality between men and women, women questioned political structure of private. In this context, earlier decades of Second Wave Feminist Movement in Turkey have been identified as "dry". However, if it is further thought in Cold War Turkey between 1965-1980, the experience of women's individuality and emancipation which has been the root of Second Wave Feminist Movement in Turkey, can be seen. Consequently, in the atmosphere of social mobility and diversity, women voiced about being under pressure in the context of sexuality, family, and home in this era. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to reveal how novel offer a resistance area for Adalet Ağaoğlu and Emine Işınsu by approaching the two women writers' novels in terms of the issue of women's individuality and emancipation between 1965-1980 in Turkey. For that puspose, main women characters of Küçük Dünya, Tutsak, and Sancı penned by Emine Işınsu and of Ölmeye Yatmak, Bir Düğün Gecesi, and Hayır penned by Adalet Ağaoğlu is examined in terms of sexuality, family, and home themes. Eventually, the argument is that for Adalet Ağaoğlu and Emine Işınsu, two female writers with opposing political views, the novel has become a field that enables the authors to discuss on feminist arguments enabling women's individualization and emancipation in a way that goes beyond their political views. Furthermore, the fact that they did this at a time when ideological divisions and defenses of sociality were decisive made it possible to express openly the existing arguments and demands, which the women's movement could not yet express aloud, but in the public sphere.