This thread may be getting a bit off the list topic but re the recent
discussions about gender attitudes in Turkey/the Islamic world generally, my
experiences (as a 5 ft 1 in European woman) when I was travelling (not as
hippy back in the old days of the hippy trail but on sabbatical leave from my
then job to look at various archives) in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in
the late 70s in 3 different countries may be of some interest.
In Afghanistan, at least in Kabul, I was largely ignored. One rather elderly
man in Herat was, I think in retrospect, trying to pick me up, but was not
aggressive about it. There was a spooky moment or two in Kandahar when the
coach deposited me and the Indian woman with whom I was travelling in the main
square after curfew, and we were escorted to the archaeologists' dig house
where we were staying by the military, but our treatment was impeccably
courteous.
In Pakistan, where I was travelling alone although I had official contacts in
all places I went, a lot of calling out in the streets (and in one case at an
airport where I was trying to check in, but was rescued by a Pakistani
matriarch who gave them whatfor very loudly herself and escorted me to the
purdah waiting area), but the only serious hands-on sexual harassment I
experienced was in fact from one of my official contacts! It was a time
(during the military regime) when buses, trains, etc all had special purdah
seats (and even some university libraries), and women were only seen in public
in groups.
In India (I can only really speak for New Delhi) there was not the sense of
purdah which there had been in Pakistan (and which had been much less in
evidence in Afghanistan, at least in Kabul), but much more specific and hard
to repel pick-up attempts in the streets. Not of course an Islamic culture,
though perhaps more influenced by it than South India?
----------
From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf
of emrah goker
Sent: 18 September 1997 12:15
To: FEMINISTSF@listserv.uic.edu
Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] On Femininity and SF -Reply
OFF-THE-RECORD: Recently I have announced that I would not be able to
answer anyone till next week. Fortunately, course registration dates were
postponed.
On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Debra Euler wrote:
> I've spent some time working in the Middle East myself, in Syria
> though, not Turkey, and I definitely found all that to be true. As a
> Western woman, I was generally treated well by most everyone, except
> for those who assumed I was a prostitute from the former Soviet Union
> (for example, I once had to punch out an overly "friendly" teenager
> while touring Aleppo's Citadel), but I always got the impression that
> I was being treated as an honorary man, rather than as a working
> woman. The fact that I'm six feet tall may have helped in this
> (which is related to the size/dominace thread going on).
I wondered what your mission was in Syria.
Now, of course it is wrong to rectify a nasty stereotype of Muslim
males: Dirty, ignorant, sexist, cruel, etc. etc. No. That's racism. And
attacking Islam from the Western, capitalist, New-World-Orderist front is
also not my way (it is the Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, etc. way). That
attack, although it is not a directly feminist criticism (but may well use
it) only leads to form exclusionary policies, that is, "Let them starve"
kind of discourse.
I hate to see, from an atheist eye, what a male God's (Allah's) religion
has done to my country for long centuries. Women's subordination is
one of the major maladies inflicted by Islam. But is westernization of
Turkey, or of Middle East the UNIVERSAL solution?
True, most of us, Turkish (or Muslim, though I exclude myself from the
Muslim set) males (and please do not read that _I_ also think so) have
solidified stereotypes of foreign women. Let me give an example, after the
fall of Societ Union, thousands of Russian and Romanian women migrated to
Turkey not to die of hunger, to feed their families, to find refuge. My
people have labeled ALL of them "Natashas", believing they are all
prostitutes... And we do not have any stereotype of a working woman who is
not dependent on any male, and is successful. Now of course Turkey is the
most westernized of all Middle Eastern Muslim countries (*very* unlike
Syria), we have the yuppie culture, we have our pop-metal-rock-rap
listening, McDonald's loving, depoliticized "Generation Lost". But those
belong to the minority: To the upper and middle-upper classes.
Hungry, poor masses, the proletariat and lumpenproletariat, after the
defeat of revolutionary left in the fascist coup d'etat of 1980, rely on
political Islamic movements. So all traditional creations of men about
women are mostly reproduced, seldom reformed.
That's a very long story. And I am aware the subject is getting away
from SF. A last thing: Your being independent, working, six-feet-tall, and
foreigner makes you a creature from outer space in the eyes of the average
Muslim. Not a woman (of course, you may still be found sexually
attractive), not a man. Can't be a woman ("Real women are slaves"), isn't
sure a man.
EMRAH ("Back to the topic," I hear you say)
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