Women's active participation in employment areas in the Ottoman empire (16th- 18h centuries)

The world of women, which is described by names such as free, concubine, Muslim, non-Muslim, urbanite, peasant, wife, woman, and has a formal similarity with the imperial identity, participated in the Ottoman economic life as sometimes visible and sometimes silent partners. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the classical period economic paradigm remained unchanged, limited policies towards women's employment were followed, within the framework of the relationship between public sphere, employment, livelihood and privacy, women were actively involved in the Ottoman economic life in their own historical context, with their assets, various income methods and working. Despite all the limits placed on the experiences of working women, who took part in the construction of economic history as historical subjects, their specific economic power, extending from the households to the fields, markets and workshops, continued until the Industrial Revolution, when radical changes were experienced in the economy. In the study, The Ottoman women's history narrative, which was revealed by research that started in the 1960s and continued after 1970, is tried to be explored and expanded with new questions and problems, especially in the context of working women who actively participated in the fields of employment in the Ottoman Empire. In this context, the problem of a paradigmatized historical approach that accumulates quantitatively is emphasized. The study has been carried out in the perspective of giving women their place in the economic context without falsifying the historical truth between the dichotomous conflict of narratives that consider Ottoman women completely devoid of economic autonomy or describe Ottoman women as subjects with full economic autonomy.