Gender Roles in Turkish Society: A Journey through Elif Shafak’s Honour and The Forty Rules of Love

Abstract

Through her novels “Honour” and “The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak” Elif Shafak brings forth differential roles assigned to men and women in Turkish society. These novels analyze how society conditions boys and girls from a very young age to conform to these roles. In patriarchal societies, women usually bear the brunt of such conditioning. These include restrictions placed on ambitions, clothing, choice of partners, reproductive rights behavior in public, etc. They are often forced to compromise their happiness for the sake of their family and society. Women who dare to follow their dreams are often faced with violence and some are even killed by their family members to regain family honour. The novel “Honour” examines the evil practice of honour killing which still exists in some parts of Turkish society. When women are found to diverge from accepted codes of conduct, the family members, usually the father or the brother, murder them to regain the lost honour of their family in society. Through the character of Ella Rubinstein in “The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak”, Shafak examines the discontented life led by women across the globe even while performing the dutiful roles of a wife or a mother. The author highlights the need to redefine gender roles based on individual happiness and norms of equality.