ABSTRACT
S in c e life in the East as in the West is a synthesis o f change, it is not surprising to find that the social awakening of Eastern women is closely related to the movement toward economic independence. A basic change in one area of a woman’s life is reflected in a corresponding change in all o f her relationships. It is difficult to disentangle the finely woven threads of cause and effect. The sequence, however, is not always uniform; economic changes often condition social independence; sometimes the process is the reverse. But broadly speaking social advance has been the necessary prelude to the economic progress o f Moslem women. The lifting o f the veil, which we have said, is the barometer of social freedom registers also the economic advance o f Moslem women. I f the veil had not been discarded in Turkey, a full measure of economic participation for Turkish women would not have been possible. Although social change is the primary condition of economic change in the Eastern woman’s life, it is, however, true that the social awakening of the East as a whole has been in very large measure due to the effect o f world economic forces which have impinged on Eastern life and caused its fundamental transformation. The changing economic status o f Moslem women is merely an integral part o f this larger interplay of social and economic influences in the changing East.
