Women in Turkey obtained full political participation rights, including the right to vote and run for office nationwide offices in 1934. Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex. It is the first country to have a woman as the President of its Constitutional Court. Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution reads that the family is "based on equality between spouses".

There are many historical examples of Turkish women involved in public life and activism. The Turkish feminist movement began in the 19th century during the decline of the Ottoman Empire when the Ottoman Welfare Organisation of Women was founded in 1908. The ideal of gender equality was embraced after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey by the administration of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose modernising reforms included a ban on polygamy and the provision of full political rights to Turkish women by 1930.

Turkish women continue to be the victims of rape and honour killings, especially in Turkish Kurdistan, where most crimes against women in Turkey take place. Research by scholars and government agencies indicate widespread domestic violence among the people of Turkey, as well as in the Turkish diaspora. Turkey is the first and only country to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. It was estimated in 2012 that 40 percent of women have experienced physical sexual violence. The participation of Turkish women in the labour force stands at about 35 percent.

Women in Turkey face discrimination in employment, and, in some regions, education. The participation of Turkish women in the labor force is less than half of that of the European Union average, and while several campaigns have been successfully undertaken to promote female literacy, there is still a gender gap in secondary education. Child marriage in Turkey dropped below 1%, although some cases still occur in the Kurdish-inhabited eastern parts of the country.

In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries during the Sultanate of Women, some individual women of the Imperial Harem achieved an uncommon degree of influence on politics of the Ottoman Empire. The period started in 1520 during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent until 1656, the reign of Mehmed IV.

The sultans did not fear their female relatives as much as they feared their male relatives, allowing women to become close advisers. Some of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, like Kösem Sultan, who were the leaders of the Harem and effectively ruled the Empire, though at one time it was the daughter of the sultan, as with Mihrimah Sultan. Most of the sultan mothers were former concubines (sex slaves).

During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, educated women within the elite classes of Istanbul began to organise themselves as feminists. The first women's magazine, Terakki-i Muhadderat, appeared on 27 June 1869 as a weekly supplement to Terakki (Progress) newspaper.

With the Tanzimat reforms, improving women's conditions was considered as part of a wider modernisation effort. Ottoman women's movement began to demand rights. They fought to increase women's access to education and paid work, to abolish polygamy, and the peçe, an Islamic veil. Early feminists published woman magazines in different languages and established different organizations dedicated to the advancement of women. The first women's association in Turkey, the Ottoman Welfare Organization of Women, was founded in 1908 and became partially involved in the Young Turks Movement, and the Sade Giyinen Hanımlar Cemiyeti campaigned for the unveiling of women and their participation in public life.