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Invisible Ties
Beeing a woman in Turkey is something different than in Europe. Luckly or unluckly, you are born in a society with so many invisible rules, lets say ties.
There are two main points in the life of a turkish woman: first marriage(means first sex, leaving family, becoming someone else that she is not), second having a child(means from now on she does not exust). Whatever success she gets at her school, in her personal relations, at her work what makes her “good†or “badâ€is the way she is as a wife and a mum. Society is so obsessed of the separation between good and bad ones. Of course there are not always blacks and whites in life. Mostly there are different colours between white and black. The women with different colours learn to act, act like somebody else but somebody totally white. They apply that to all their life if they are not strong enough to revel these ties. Most of the modern living women in Turkey, mostly living in big cities, have shortcut solutions for that style of life with hard rules: They cheat, lie , hide but always smile. So they become more and more mysterious ,diplomatic and smart as much as a fox in human relations.
The women in Turkey educated to become polite, sensitive, feminin enough but not vulgar or sexy. Every women was born into the fact of becoming a mother one day. Mothers are the holiest: beeing mother means that carrying the name of your husband, the future honour of your child and your family`s name also cooking good and beeing a perfect housewife. Exactly like in the model of a wife in USA. Untill you ‘ll become a mother, the society accepts you as a virgin. That means you ll become a mother one day, so you must take all the responsibilities of having the title “mother†one day. You should not be too clever, too talkative, crazy , childish ,you should not have a boy friend or sex, you should not have make up, you should not laugh laudly, you should not go parties or come home late after 6 pm and so on so on..Shortly, even you are still a teenager you should be neither a women or an adult nor a child or a teenager. In the rebellious ages of the teenage, times of a fight for existing as yourself and becoming a person in the society, that is a hard kick given to women on the ass. With so many dilemmas between her natural development and the family-society rules, how can we expect to create a heathy future mums,future generations. Before learning to be a person how can a woman learn to be a mum. These are the questions that my society forgets to ask himself. When the little girls in europe occuping their minds everything else but beeing a mum, the turkish girls are beeing kneaded with the rules of her future life. She has to deceide between the family love+rules she learned and her independancy. When she goes to another city to work, to study she lives abit her own life. However,it is very rare that a women leaves the house before she is married even she works and earns her own money, enough to pay for herself alone. She lives her own life according to her unapprouved choices secretly hiding from family and people arround.
Marriage is not so simple in Turkey, having a family is a kind of life’s aim, the most important decision of someone’s life which is supposed to last for ever. That means so many charges are overloaded to that word for both men and women. After passing from family’s lovefull arms to a totally new envirenment like marriage ,women have of course tramvas. Because the women had never learned to live on her own or with somebody else than her family and also becouse the life outside is quite different than the fairy tales realising with a marriage as she learned all her life, she got difficulties. Depending so much on the family is same for the men, that causes always problems between couples and their families. Some marriages ends becouse of that. Here another role waits for the women, outside the pressures she had in her life untill now,from marriage on comes an extra one: the respect she must give to the family of her husband. She must be ready to commit every service for her husband’s family. Sometimes that causes big tragedies for the couples. For exemple,if she is not good exercised of housework in her younghood, she’d surely have a pressure from the family of her husband or envirentment in her unsuccess on cooking and other house-works’ style. Funny but stil common even in the most * modern* families: A good wife is the wife who looks beautiful, cooks the best, who serves the best and who has the cleanest and tidies house. She must always smile when she is serving to the guest who is there also as a criticizer.
In the case of divorces or loosing the husbands, women becomes another status in the society. Now she has to be more restricted than she was already. She is a widow/divorced now, a horriable word which all the women in my land hate. Cause now on most men arround her, sees her like a hunt, she has no care of her virginity anymore and she has noone anymore to protect her ,so that makes her available for them! Going out, looking nice, flirting, having fun in life is again a big sin for such single women like in their teenage. She must forget about coming home late in midnight, wearing colourfull or decolty, laughing longly,chatting long with the male baker in her street that she used shop since long years. Like for the girls making friendships with several boys is isolated by the society, some of the people will cut their contact to her. Even some of her same sexuality will see her as a danger for their men. Some old women will try to find new husband candidates for her which are much more older or under her standard. Because she must not stay a widow/divorced!
When a married women is older than 50 in Turkey, if she had not any problem with the nature, she is already a mum. But an old one. She is probably a bit fat, she makes no sport. Her child/ren is/are probably grown up. If she was working, she is probably retired. Now starts the life for a turkish woman with coming heath problems of aging, abit late but better than never. She wears mostly darker colours (young colours are for young people in my
land), probably has not many hobies and not much to do out of house works. Some of them began to wear a hair scarf and becomes more religious because the breathe of death seems no far anymore. Some of them apply the pressures, sorry traditions, to their son’s wifes or daughters that they had partly in their first years of marriage from the family of the husband learned. Some of them are occupied to grow up their grandchil/ren. Yeah 50 ies are not old ages, life starts for them but ironically they have already deceided that the life is ended.
Having a child changes all the life of a mum. Mostly the women are disappointed and unhappy in their marriage , and the child sometimes becomes the only reason to go on to that marriage. Beeing a mother is a holy thing. She learned that all her life. Now she is a mum. It is time to apply what she had learned about sacrifising. And she does that. She can close her eyes for all the beauties and attractivities of the life: happiness, health, love, money, sex, success, hobies.. From now on, she does not exist but her child. She can easly give up from her carreer, her health, her pleasures and from herself. Because as she learned from the family, she got the aim of her life and nothing left. She gives up taking care of the life outside. She gives less impostance to her look, her job, her husband…This time it is not anymore a must from the society, it is coming from inside her. Now she is changed into a protector, a sacrifiser a logical adult from a women married into dreams. In that point appears problems in the marriage too for some couples who are even happily married untill having the baby. Then if a woman gets a boy as a child, she buys him an auto-toy, if she gets a girl ,she buys her dolls and all the pinky kitchen accessoires. Then she teaches her children what she had learned from her parents and society: she teachs her son how to be a *man * and her daughter how to be a future’s *mum *. So restarts another cycle for another turkish woman…
[Cigdem Savaseri-Brackmann]
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