An examination of the statistics indicates that Turkish women have made great strides with respect to their recruitment to positions at all levels in the higher education institutions of their country, particularly in such fields as medicine, the hard sciences, and engineering in which women in very many countries are usually thought to be underrepresented. The author attributes this achievement to the Republican ideology of post-1923 Turkey, the opportunities which were opened to elite women by the correspondence of the latter with the developmental needs of the country, the availability of domestic service provided by non-elite women, and the existence of family solidarity networks. Women, however, have not been so well represented in such fields as law and political science which, were traditionally close to the loci of political power. In recent years, however, with the expansion of the higher education system, competition between men and women for posts has greatly increased, and economic change and urbanization have dried up the supply of inexpensive domestic help and have stymied family solidarity networks. Thus academic women are increasingly beset by conflicts between their professional and their family roles. This new situation has caused Turkish women to lose ground with regard to recruitment to prestigious positions in higher education and to seek conservative Islamic solutions to the conflicts in question. Reforms based on a renewed Republican ideal are needed to improve the situation and to enable Turkish women academics to build on their past achievements.
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