Abstract
New Desires, New Selves, examines the production of self among upwardly mobile young adults from Turkey through the lens of love and sexuality. Ozyegin’s rich analysis is based on theoretical perspectives of gender, sexuality, love, social class, and identity development, which collectively branch out from her feminist framework. She uses empirical evidence to weave the societal transformations and cultural norms in Turkey with the narratives of the young adults to demonstrate the distinct challenges experienced by the men and women as they build relationships and construct their own gender and sexual identities. At the heart of the book, we observe how in their own quest to make sense of their sexuality and desires in a deeply patriarchal and paternalistic society, young Turks negotiate the tensions between connectivity (e.g., family relationships and expectations) and autonomy (e.g., sexual modernity and freedom of expression).
The book begins with a thorough introduction on theoretical perspectives and historical and societal contexts to set the stage for her analysis. In this way, Ozyegin successfully guides the readers to place the biographies of the individuals within a Turkish national identity that also experiences uncertainties in social and political grounds and secular and Muslim lines. In the following four chapters, Ozyegin explores her theoretical questions through the narratives of 87 upwardly mobile young adults from Bogazici University, a prestigious institution in Istanbul, Turkey. Her sample represents the voices of men and women from different socioeconomic and religious backgrounds and sexual orientations.
Chapter one shows how educationally advantaged young women construct “virginal facades” to negotiate their new identities as unmarried non-virgins in an emerging premarital sex culture. Chapter two focuses on how heterosexually identified men’s desires and production of selfhood are anti-patriarchal. In fact, central to their stories lie a newly defined masculinity that values self-actualization and self-expression and their struggles to reconcile conflicting desires for selfish women (charismatic and independent) and selfless women (maternal qualities of femininity). Chapter three captures the experiences of pious young women as they embrace a religious life guided by Islam yet reject the Islamic patriarchal constructions of Muslim womanhood. Chapter four investigates how gay men make meaning of their desires, sexuality, and “coming out,” and how they balance their individual interests with the familial and social class expectations. This book conceptualizes sexual relationships and desires as ways to both reproduce and challenge patriarchy. This constant tension also runs as a common theme in the lives of the young Turks.
New Desires, New Selves enhances our understanding of youth identities in several ways. First, Ozyegin accompanies the end of each of the four chapters with short biographical vignettes to reinforce the chapter’s themes. The featured biographies invite the reader to deeply engage with the struggles and contradictions that are salient in constructing their individual selfhood. Perhaps it is during this process that the reader comes to truly realize the different yet poignantly overlapping experiences shared across the men and women: their common attempt to refuse traditional patriarchal masculinity and selfless femininity.
Second, Ozyegin does a phenomenal job in illustrating the key political, economical, and societal shifts in Turkey from the founding of the modern state to the present that could be understood by native and non-Turkish readers alike. Third, by setting these historical and current changes as a backdrop, she demonstrates how the national “biography” of Turkey serves as a critical condition for the construction of the young men and women’s identities.
Ozyegin’s work could have been strengthened in a couple of ways. First, the sample comes from a selective group from a prestigious university and as a result, we do not hear the voices of minority youth: Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, or others. Second, a cross-sectional analysis across gender, age, and ethnicity would have widened our perspectives on these constructs and how they affect the identity formation of men and women of Turkey; we know that gender roles change over time by cohort. Third, Ozyegin refers to the young adults in her sample as “Turks.” It is unclear if the author is referring to ethnic Turks or the national identity of Turkey. Clarity on the term should have been provided and limitations around this term are important to discuss in future work on gender roles in Turkey.
Overall, New Desires, New Selves provides insightful contributions that challenge us to reexamine our understanding of gender and sexual identities. With incisive storytelling supported by empirical evidence, Ozyegin equips the reader to understand the culturally specific struggles faced among the young Turks as they construct their gender and sexual identities. The text is packed with theoretical perspectives, and Ozyegin shifts between the narratives of different subgroups, yet the clarity of her writing broadens her readership to scholars, gender and cultural studies in undergraduate and graduate programs, and the general public.