The Democratic Gap: Transcultural Confrontations of German Immigrants and the Promise of American Democracy

Abstract

This abstract examines Hester Donaldson Jenkins' *Behind Turkish Lattices: The Story of a Turkish Woman’s Life* (1911), which chronicles Turkish women's lives from childhood through education and marriage during the Second Constitutional Era. As an American educator at the American College for Girls in Istanbul, Jenkins offers firsthand observations of this transformative period. While she perceives it as promising for women's emancipation, her narrative is marked by Western biases and orientalist perspectives. Jenkins portrays Turkish women as needing modernization through Western education, reflecting a "white woman’s burden" mentality. Despite these limitations, her account provides valuable insights into the cultural perceptions of her time. The text highlights how Jenkins overlooks the selective adoption of Western modernity by Ottoman women, who embraced certain aspects without losing their cultural identity. By focusing on child-rearing practices and educational norms, Jenkins constructs a narrative that downplays Turkish women's agency and intellectual capabilities. This abstract underscores the importance of critically engaging with such texts to understand both historical biases and the nuanced realities of early 20th-century Turkish society.

(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)