Tajik Expat Gender Relations #11
Gender Relations Part 2: Turkish Edition
1 November 2010
As I’ve mentioned, I can foretell the future. Not in a useful way, but in a “this is going to be awkward” kind of way. I had just enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Hyatt after my Monday class audit at Tajik National University. Amazingly, I had a successful and not stressful shopping trip, and I was feeling accomplished and exuding joy and enthusiasm. Well, you know who likes joy and enthusiasm? Well, everyone, including men*.1
As I’ve already explained, I have trouble hiding my joy and creating that instant 'Screw-Off Face' that is required to get men* to leave you alone. I want the freedom that they enjoy looking them in the face, really seeing them, and not staring at the sidewalk. But alas—they see an opening—and they jump on it. Tajik men generally are very polite because—well, I’m not sure why, perhaps because Dushanbe is actually a very small town and everyone knows everyone else, and if they misbehave, Bibi X will go report to Bibi Y about said man’s behavior.
The younger Tajik men are often less polite, never scary, but very annoying. They notice that you are a foreigner—more likely when you’re walking down the street talking—and they just interrupt you and start talking loudly at you.
Hallo, hallo! Where you country from? You married?
But ignoring them or laughing right at them usually does the trick. Besides, they mostly only do this when they’re with their buddies and wait until you’ve walked past them so as not to prolong the encounter.
Once, in a cab, the driver asked me if I had a husband, and I immediately said, Yes, I do. In the States. Feeling self-conscious for having just lied, I tried to make conversation and asked him if he was married. He said, no, I want to get an American wife. I didn’t quite know how to finish that conversation other than saying, here is my stop.
Another time, one of the boys who collect the fares in the minibuses just started speaking at my friend: “Please, Please.” It took us a moment to realize he was talking to us. Everyone in the minibus just sat and stared at this interaction. Where you from? Where you from? We tried to just ignore him. When we got out, he shouted a question at us as we hustled down the street: You married?!
Did he really think this conversation was going to lead somewhere?
Another time in the market, a man started talking to me and my friend in Tajik-British English. I tried to ignore him, but he kept going on, telling me his story about how he had just gotten back from a year in England, etc.
When I said I was not interested, he became more forceful and aggressive.
Is there a problem in talking to me? Can’t you just stop and talk to me? Am I being rude?
I finally turned and said: Yes, you are. It’s not like it’s appropriate to accost people in the street in England, either.
I really need to get a hideous, fake leather purse to blend in and get rid of my black and gray L.L. Bean backpack. It’s like a target on my back: Come annoy me on the street by trying to get my number to either marry me or be my English language partner! It screams. So, after looking at some purses from Turkey in a higher-end store ($70 in Tajikistan! Are you crazy!?) I decided to go to Café Segafreddo for the usual internet and tea.
Soon after I sat down with my tea, two (non-Tajik) men* came in. One of them immediately started eying me, and as I busily IM’ed with my friends back home and read the news, this guy kept ogling from across the room.
At some point, the waiter brought me a cappuccino. I didn’t order it—but I knew exactly where it came from. The man gestured magnanimously at this token of his affection—yes, I sent it for you. He asked where I was from, it turns out he and his buddy were Turkish, working as technicians for Turkish Airlines in Dushanbe for a month. Could he come sit next to me and talk? No, I said, I have a lot of work to do. Five minutes later, he comes over to offer me gum. I refuse.
Ten minutes later, he brings me a napkin with his number on it and the words, “Your eyes are beautiful.” Call me, he says. I laugh and tuck the napkin under my plate. I finally got sick of his ogling, the phrase eye-rape came to mind, so I gathered my stuff and left. I conspicuously leave the napkin, and as I pass, I say to him, I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested. I didn’t stop to see if he understood.
I hurried up the street with my headphones on, with the strange sensation that the story wasn’t over. I stopped at the dry cleaners to finally claim my winter coat and turned around: there he was, panting from having followed me three blocks.
“Why are you following me?” I said as if there were any mystery at this point.
“I’m sorry, but I’m really not interested,” I repeated.
“But I really like you.” He looked so pathetic.
“Well, that’s your problem.” I finally managed to say, still incredulous.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” He pressed on.
“Yes.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.” And he finally turned and left.
I was flattered (stalker?) and simultaneously really bothered and annoyed. He had completely ruined my plans to get work done at the café. I remembered then how when I was in Istanbul many years ago (2001)—the men* there harassed me to go have coffee with them, following me down the street and acting very hostile when I said no. The sad thing is that I know a lot of great Turks—literally some of my best friends back in the States, in fact! Yet, these are the ones who get blog entries about them.
Now, 14 years later and that much wiser, with #MeToo maybe slowly seeping into everyone’s consciousness more—including mine—I am appalled. Not just at these men but at how my first reaction was to think I should be feeling flattered when I was genuinely harassed and threatened. I learned so well how to apologize for my lack of interest, trying my best not to upset men as I reject them. It makes me cringe now.
The idea that a woman cannot exist without a man and must be partnered is as ancient as it is insidious. It assumes a woman is only to be taken seriously in relation to her relations with a man (partnered or not). I’ve been working overtime to extirpate this view from my soul; it’s an ongoing task.
Especially as I continue to exist, many years have passed—and I’m happier and freer than ever—without having remarried. Well, it’s not that quite that simple. I do have my issues, but none of them would be solved by getting married.
I want to take myself seriously as a writer, human, and woman. Writing about women’s issues has helped me accomplish that. Yet, I occasionally realize I’ve strayed back into the ‘partnership is the only thing that will complete me’ mindset. Less and less as I get older, but there’s still a part of me that can’t let go of my inner teenybopper, overly saturated with Disney and Rom-Coms ideals. I’m not ruling out the existence of Princes, but I’m not invisible or irrelevant because I don’t have a ring on my finger.
My Bibi would be so disappointed. 😂
And by men, I am speaking in general; not all men are pigs, as many of my stories would imply—but you know what I mean.