I am a proud and fervent feminist. But I have done some things that would go against the more traditional grains of feminism and I am about to explain how and why.
I live in a traditional remote Anatolian town called Kars. It is a town that was featured in Orhan Pamuk’s novel SNOW, in which a writer (KA) visits Kars in winter to report on women committing suicides because they are not allowed to wear headscarves in school. This story is fictional. Kars is actually not that conservative. But I am more reserved here than I am in most places. I wear baggy clothes. I keep my eyes averted when I walk the streets. I flaunt a wedding ring. I am cautious about male guests. In public I am remarkably guarded for the spirit-exploding-from-the-inside-kind-of-person that I feel I am.
But behind closed doors my world, my body, my thoughts are ripe for the picking: by women. I recently saw the full potential of this when I uttered the following four words: My. Lover. Is. Visiting. (more…)
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