Waxing feminine in Turkey
Tuesday December 5, 2006
He was right on both counts. Istanbul women were different, and it wasn?t culturally condoned for me to seek male friends. My workplace didn?t offer any candidates anyway; my unpolished Turkish made it impossible for me to land a job in the software industry so I became a secretary at an emerging markets investment fund where my co-workers spent all day locked in a room with television monitors and computers, furtively tracking stock markets. I arrived home each night to our flat in the hilly waterfront district of Bebek in desperate need of social interaction.Thankfully, Bar???s parents and sister lived in the flat two floors above us and Lale stepped into the void created by Tunç?s marriage. I wasn?t initially enthused about having a female best friend, especially ultra-feminine Lale, so it was some time before I got beyond her beauty-queen looks to acknowledge her strong character. At twenty-five years old she still lived with her parents, which made me assume she lacked the independence I prized in my own life. Yet I came to understand that living at home is customary for unmarried children of any age in family-focused Turkey, rather than a sign of emotional or financial delinquency as it is often considered in American culture. Her living arrangements didn?t stop her from cultivating a promising, high-powered career as a junior executive at an advertising firm. Lale was a breed of modern Turkish woman able to reconcile a mature feminine identity with her interdependent, duty-laden family role as obedient unmarried daughter ? an archetype so unfamiliar to me that it needed repeated explanation.
The WHO woman refusing Lale the free contraceptives sparked my internal debate about the constrictive role she so easily accepted. Later that evening I cornered her. ?I don?t understand how you can orchestrate a star-studded gala event one night, and the next be home serving tea to your mother?s visitors or fetching your father?s slippers.?
?Why, don?t you love your parents??
?Of course, but I?m not their servant.? I told her I had refused the constraints of my own family?s rules, moving out in my senior year of high school.
Lale felt no such need to rebel. ?What?s wrong with doing nice things for them? They deserve it.?
Her compassionate response stumped me. I had no retort, just a chip on my shoulder. Why do I think humble servitude is degrading? I asked myself. Looking at Lale in her silk halter top, delicate gold jewellery and perfectly manicured nails I felt sad and deflated. She wasn?t demeaned by exalting her parents, and dressing like a lady wasn?t a symptom of neurosis. Quite the opposite, she seemed to have a stronger character than I had, enhanced by her graceful style. My defiant boyishness suddenly seemed foolish.
This is the first of three installments. For part two, click here.
For part three, click here.
Tale Copyright 2005 by Erica Kaya, excerpted with permission from Tales From the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, copyright 2005 by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen. Published in English in Turkey (Dogan Kitap, 2005) and North America (Seal Press, 2006). This nonfiction anthology by expatriate women from five nations spans the entire country and the last four decades as scholars, artists, missionaries, journalists, entrepreneurs and Peace Corps volunteers assimilate into Turkish friendship, neighbourhood, wifehood, and motherhood. For additional information, reviews and worldwide purchasing details visit www.expatharem.com.
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