A blessing in polygamy disguise
So, is Prime Minister Erdogan against adultery and polygamy or not? As far as I know, Erdogan hasn’t reacted yet to the debate that is going on. The subject: an advisor he appointed earlier this year, Ali Yuksel, who has three wives and intends to marry a fourth. It’s not possible to officially marry more than …
In Turkey, circumcision of women is not really an issue. It’s not even really a topic for women’s organisations, which are focussing on problems that are widespread here, like honour killings, domestic violence, girls not sent to school by their parents, and for example the position of women in the labour market and in politics. This is because female genital …
More than a year ago she told me she missed our appointment because she was in a car accident. I asked her how bad it was and if she was injured. Luckily, she said, she only got a black eye.
After that, she stopped lying about it. When we talk, eye to eye but increasingly just on msn or by phone, …
Next time I go to Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city situated on the Aegean coast, I have to take a short skirt. Or shoes with high heels. Or even better, both. I was in Izmir this week, and wearing jeans and sneakers made me feel totally inelegant. I didn’t only feel inelegant, I was. At least, compared to the girls …
While I’m typing this blog post, there is black dye in my hair. Twenty more minutes to go, then I can wash it out. The grey hairs that stick together in the front of my hairdo will be black again. And I wonder if in let’s say twenty years (I’ll be almost 60), I’ll be proudly grey like most Dutch …
A modern, non-Islamic Turkish woman usually doesn’t go shopping at Tekbir. Tekbir? That is the fashion brand of one of the most famous designers in Turkey, Mustafa Karaduman. He designs clothes for the upcoming devout Islamic middle class of Turkey – for example the wife of president Gül wears Tekbir. It offers modern clothes, stylish, but decent, very …
Now and then it happens to me: I end up in a living room full of women. Last night I found myself in such a situation again: eight women between the ages of 17 and 54, and they were doing all the women’s things you can think of. One was knitting something for a baby. Another asked the others which …
Yesterday I even saw it in my part of town, conservative Üsküdar: ultra sexy lingerie in bright red. Bras, panties, garters, all tiny and made of (often fake) lace and with small woolen balls on it here and there. I was with a Turkish friend and asked her in amazement: are these things really sold, or just meant to draw …
I went for drinks last night with the International Professional Women of Istanbul. I have never really wanted to join in these expat things, because I want to mingle in normal Turkish life and was afraid that getting too much into expat life would hinder that. But now after three years just one expat thing would be ok, …
She thought she was dreaming. But then it turned out to be really happening: the guy sitting behind her in the night bus from Istanbul to a city in central Anatolia was touching her all over her body and grabbing her breasts. She screamed, cried and trembled, and she told her friend, who called the bus conductor. The problem was …
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