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writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

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physician Pakize Tarzi, who was born in Aleppo in 1912 during her father's appointment to that city,<br />

may be considered as a representative of the second generation of women's rights activist. While she<br />

was not a member of the Administrative Board, as she noted in her memoirs, she, along with Lâtife<br />

Bekir Çeyrekbaşı, participated in the TKB's rural incentives by working as gynecologist. The latter was<br />

also a full member delegate of the 1935 Congress. While the two full delegates Mihri Hüseyin Pektaş<br />

and Safiye Hüseyin Elbi sometimes joined in their efforts, they were not among the administration<br />

cadres of the TKB. Mihri Hüseyin was born in Bursa in 1895. She served as a teacher at the Robert<br />

College and also served as a Malatya MP in the fifth, sixth, and seventh sessions of the Parliament.<br />

While her name was prominent in the earliest period of the TKB, she did not participate in the<br />

union's current policies. Born in 1881, Safiye Hüseyin followed in the footsteps of Florence<br />

Nightingale (who had worked for long years as a nurse in Turkey), and ensured that the profession of<br />

nursing was both accepted as a science‐based profession and was given a sustainable form. She also<br />

represented Turkey at international congresses devoted to nursing that were held in Germany, and<br />

Switzerland. While she was an active participant in the 1935 congress, in later years she preferred to<br />

support the TKB from a more distant stance. While Nebahat Hamit, who was born in Istanbul in 1905<br />

was working at the Istanbul Girls School for Teachers, she also gave speeches on 'sexual education'<br />

and she worked to include such subjects into the high school curriculum. I was not able to find even<br />

the most basic information about Leman Fuat and Faika Nahit, both of whom were full delegates<br />

despite the fact that they were not members of the TKB board.<br />

As I mentioned above, even though she was a member of the TKB board, it was only Vecihe Ziya<br />

who was not named as either a full or alternate delegate to the Istanbul Congress. Despite this, she<br />

did serve as a member of the TKB Commission for Equal Conditions of Work between Men and<br />

Women that had been established at the 12 th Congress. Belkıs Halim, an alternate member who was<br />

born in 1904, started her career in journalism at the Son Posta news<strong>paper</strong> that had been founded in<br />

1930 by her brother Zekeriya Sertel. The oldest TKB delegate was Seniye Cenani, who had been<br />

fourth on the list of candidates put forward by the Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası for the Beykoz City<br />

Council. Hasene Sabri Ilgaz was born in Istanbul in 1904. Like Vecihe Ziya, she devoted herself to the<br />

education of the young generation of the newly formed Turkish Republic. Hasene Hanım carefully<br />

preserved all kinds of documents on all kinds of subjects. Composed of thousands of documents, the<br />

fact that her archives contains nothing that mentions the Congress leads us to conclude that she had<br />

not been an active participant in that event. Born in 1888, Emine Saffet served as a health care<br />

worker during the Balkan War. In the 1920s she worked for a foreign company. She joined forces<br />

with Louisa Fast, Rosa Manus, Necile Tevfik and Nermin Muvaffak to work actively in the organization<br />

of the 1935 Congress. During the course of the Congress, she both assisted and served as a translator<br />

for Katherine Bompas.<br />

As understood from existing documents, other than Lâtife Bekir, Lâmia Refik, Seniha Rauf and<br />

Necile Tevfik, the remaining seven members of the Board did not play an active role in TKB<br />

international relations or in the 1935 Congress. One of these members, Aliye Esad (1896‐1984) also<br />

ranked, along with Lâmia Refik, as one of the 18 women to have graduated from İnas Darülfünunu in<br />

1917. Because she was a good speaker, the General Secretary Aliye Esad had been chosen to speak at<br />

the 1930 TKB meeting held in Sultanahmet. An alternate member of the 1935 Congress, she also<br />

served as the member of a commission. The name of Aliye Halit Fahri appears in an article in the TKB<br />

Kadının Sesi (Women's Voice) journal that had been published to mark the tenth anniversary of the<br />

founding of the Republic. While no biographical information was found on Ayşe Remzi, we were only<br />

able to learn that prior to her service to the 1935 Congress as an alternate delegate, she had been<br />

named in the 22 nd place on a Cumhuriyet Halk Fırkası (Republican People's Party) list during the TKB's<br />

1933 campaign endeavors. Other women candidates in that election were Ayşe Remzi Seniye İsmail<br />

Cenani, Nezihe Muhiddin, Rana Sani Yaver, Lâtife Bekir and Safiye Hüseyin. The only information we<br />

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