Emine Semiye Önasya

Emine Semiye Önasya (28 March 1864 – 1944), mostly known as Emine Semiye and Emine Vahide, was a Turkish writer, teacher, activist, and early feminist. She thought that education plays an important role in the emancipation of women.

Like her sister, Fatma Aliye, she was a pioneer female novelist of not only the Ottoman but the Islamic world. Her last novel, Gayya Kuyusu, or Pit of Hell, is a savage indictment of Turkish society. It is available in an English translation by WD Halsey.

Early life and education Emine Semiye was born in Istanbul on 28 March 1864. She was the second daughter of Ahmed Cevdet Pasha and sister of Fatma Aliye. Her mother was Adviye Rabia Hanım. Emine Semiye studied psychology and sociology in France and Switzerland for seven years. and Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete (Ottoman Turkish: Newspaper for Women) after the declaration of the constitutional monarchy in 1908. In Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete she used first several pseudonyms, but later used her name and published various stories and travel writings. Another charity founded by her was Hizmet-i Nisvân Cemiyeti (Ottoman Turkish: Service of Women Association). In 1920, she was named a member of the governing board of the Turkish Journalists' Association which had been called the Ottoman Press Association until that year. She went into exile in Paris to avoid arrest by the Ottoman authorities due to her CUP membership. Emine Semiye was much more progressive and less orthodox than her sister. During the same period she argued in an article published in Hanımlara Mahsus Gazete that the reason for her writing career was to contribute to social development, not for women's development. The second was Reşid Pasha. They divorced later. She had two sons; one from each husband. Their names were Hasan Riza, son of Mustafa Bey and Cevdet Lagaş, son to Reşid Pasha. She died in Istanbul in 1944.