The Turkish Male and the Subservient Woman

The Mosque Across the Road

As I sit here in Turkey waiting for my ship to come in, I am asking myself some startling questions! I don’t normally get all ‘deep’ about religion but sitting here in Turkey it crops up again and again!

Last night for example I did not close my window so at four thirty I was violently woken up by a call-to-prayer from the mosque across the road! I didn’t go but I must admit, even with the window closed and the pillow over my head it was hard not to go rushing across to stick my bum in the air!

Earlier I had been flicking through the channels of the television in my hotel room whilst sipping a strange mixture of Burgaz Raki (In Turkey, Raki is the unofficial 'national drink') and orange juice when a channel popped up with a skinny white-haired German pounding away at the behind of a maid in some motel in Atlanta – a full blue movie to say the least! I didn’t stay to watch, to see if the maid got caught or if the manager joined in as punishment, but it all seemed so out of place here. If I look out of the window of my hotel room I see the mosque, I see ladies covered from head-to-foot seemingly oblivious to the blinding heat as they walk past the hotel yet here in this room is all that a Muslim would hate.

The View from the English Bar

This afternoon I popped into a bar along the main street, aptly named the English Bar! I sat there sipping the local Turkish beer (Efes) whilst watching the world churn outside! I watched Muslims walk past, I watched Christians walk past and I watched Christians and Muslims walk past together - life in normal motion. Yet inside the bar were men only! Bars in Turkey are not for women! No bar in Turkey has a woman inside as this is the man’s domain!

A Market in Istanbul - A womans domain I fear!

I was walking around town this morning and ended up in the market, a Saturday affair that puts the local Ali Baba’s or Aladdin’s cave shops back home to shame! This was the real McCoy of markets yet no men were present apart from those selling the wares. This was the domain of the women, Christian and Muslim, Atheist and undecided, this was where the men stayed away and the women played!

And then it dawned on me what this is all about! Turkey manages to live in seemingly religious harmony, with Christians, Muslims and extras both applying their trade alongside each other because of one simple fact, that religion is all so unimportant! There is a bigger issue here that receives scant attention, that women are lower class subjects regardless of religious affinity!

I was having the hotel breakfast this morning, a scant affair of olives and boiled eggs, whilst watching the other guests around me! There was a (scantily) well-dressed women sitting at one of the tables and when her husband walked in she jumped up like a jack-in-the-box! I was quite shocked as her movement seemed so out of place in this otherwise calm environment. Anyway, she jumped up and ran to get a plate for her husband and whilst he pointed she placed onto his plate whatever he desired! An olive here, a boiled egg there!

This Turkish cultural tolerance is not about religion at all!

Should a women ever step foot in bar, be seen drinking in public or telling her man “to go a jump into the river” then problems will arise but as long as they keep their place then it matters not one wit about religion at all! Just keep those women subservient guys!