From a Woman's Perspective

Earlier this week, I spent the lengthy bus ride on the way back from a party at one of our teacher's houses in conversation with one of my friends from the program, discussing perceptions of (and the need for) feminism in today's world. We talked about variations of gender inequality, about our mothers' generation, about her experiences as a "western feminist" in Russia, and about the role of women in Turkish society today. She shared a very powerful article that she had recently read, which addresses the problem of societal expectations that teach women to give in to men, to be quiet about their concerns, and which allow rape to happen. Later on, I came across a New York Times op-ed piece written by Bob Herbert, in which he also laments the horrible truth of violence against women in America, stating that "we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected."

Yesterday, two reporters from Aksam, a local newspaper, came to talk to our class about our experiences living and learning Turkish in Ankara. At one point, one of the men asked us about any problems we'd had during our time here - what was difficult for us in Turkey? At first, we all agreed that our host families had been great, that the program had been great, our summer was going along just fine. But I thought briefly about what has been on my mind for the last few weeks, and raised my hand to say that it is extremely difficult to be a foreign woman in Turkey. And by that I think I meant to say that it's difficult to be a woman at all in Turkey - it might only be more difficult for me because I have very different cultural expectations.

Back in the US, I'm used to being frustrated at the littler things, like outdated expectations of chivalry that perpetuate structures of female dependence rather than equal, mutual respect between two human beings. I have no problem with people opening doors for each other, it just shouldn't be based along gender lines. I often cringe when I hear girls my age complaining that a guy won't pay for dinner, telling me that the feminist revolution has already finished, or that "oh god no, I'm not a feminist..." Really? You don't favor equal rights for women? Strange...

I don't expect a man to treat me well because I'm a woman. I expect him to treat me well because I'm a human being. And that's just it. I'm used to defining myself as a human being. Since coming here, I've become much more aware of my place as a woman specifically, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Obviously, I am aware of the fact that I am, biologically speaking, a woman. And I'm quite happy with that. But it doesn't need to define me as a person. When I walk down the street in New York, I usually feel like myself. Here, I am acutely aware of the fact that I am a women, and that most of the people I pass along the road are men.

My host sister, who is only slightly younger than me, lives at home, and will probably continue to do so until she gets married. I'm sure if she were a son she'd have a much easier time moving away from the family if she wanted to. From what I've learned in my time here, there is an extreme double standard when it comes to Turkish guys and girls. For many Turkish girls, sex before marriage is unheard of, forbidden, a societal taboo. Men, on the other hand, are able to be more promiscuous with fewer social ramifications. And while a lot of these expectations exist in the United States as well, they're much more pronounced here. Women are given far less agency in Turkey, and I can tell that many guys here are oblivious to the situation and needs of Turkish women, and of women in general.

Stuck in a co-dependent state, many Turkish women seem to coddle their husbands along with their children. With a few exceptions, I've gathered that the majority of the host fathers in the program families do significantly less around the house than their wives. One of the mothers even broke down crying to a student because she was so frustrated with her unequal role in the household and the fact that she could do nothing to change her situation.

Unlike the guys in our program, I can't sit down in a local cafe and play tavla with a group of Turkish men. Nor can I play tavla with a group of Turkish women - because they, with the exception of some younger women, don't really go to the cafes. It's eerie to sit on some of the terraces after class to look in front of me and see only one or two women - and they're often friends of mine that are sitting at our table. We jokingly call them "dude bars," but their existence, to me, reflects some of the more serious realities of gender inequality in this country.

The reason I initially brought up the articles on the mistreatment of women in America is to remind myself that gender inequality is a universal phenomenon, and to maintain perspective. It's easy to demonize another culture for practices that we consider offensive or unjust, but it's much harder to recognize them in our own surroundings. I'm also wary of essentialist cultural criticism, especially when I find myself flirting with it now and again. One of my greatest worries in Europe at the moment concerns leftist and feminist discourses of emancipation which often reinforce tropes of Muslim cultural minority, unwittingly orientalizing and victimizing Muslim women rather than actually raising their status in society. Many Turkish women in Germany, for example, are not only marginalized as Turks in Germany and as women in general, but by their combined status as both Turks and women within the dominant German society, for which the Turk is the quintessential Muslim Other and the Turkish woman is the quintessential victim of male Turkish power.

Many of these issues that have been bothering me lately are far too complex to be treated in full in this simple blog post. But I felt the need to process some of my thoughts on gender relations before I leave Turkey in two days. I'm spent a wonderful summer here, and I don't mean to say that I've been bothered non-stop by my status as a woman here. I've just gained another reason to keep fighting the fight our mothers won't be able to finish without us. :)