Women and Gardens

Women have not, historically, always been a part of Ottoman garden culture, and even when they were, it was on unequal grounds.  Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gardens were reserved for royalty and their selected visitors.  The women allowed in were few and far between, being largely limited to the royal family, slaves, and the sultan’s harem.  Ottoman urban historian Shirene Hamadeh notes that images of women in gardens proliferated in the eighteenth century, as we see in the image here of an imperial garden scene at Sa’dabad, from Enderunlu Fazil’s Zenānnāme (1793-96).  This is not to say women were granted equal privileges in outdoor recreational areas from this point forward.  In the nineteenth century, Turkish women were not permitted to walk or take carriage rides in public parks.  And although European female tourists were doing so, it was almost certainly considered immoral by the Ottomans.  In today’s Istanbul, Turkey’s equal rights allow women - regardless of nationality or ethnicity - to freely enjoy the city’s gardens and parks.