Where have all the little girls gone?

One of the things I have found most interesting/bizarre/unnerving whilst we have been in Turkey is the female presence (or at times the lack of) on the street.

To start with on entering Turkey I found myself a lot more bothered by the covering up of women than I thought I would. Perhaps its because I felt little prepared coming from Bulgaria where, as you approach the border, its difficult to imagine the skirts could get any shorter, especially as we arrived in Edirne (rather than Marmaris) where the thought of wearing any skirt approaching knee level (from the ground up), even with tights, felt deeply inappropriate. But I think its more than that. Before arriving I thought I would feel fine about it all, treat it as a cultural experience, cover up, observe, learn and move on. I did in the end but initially it was a total culture shock. I felt seriously unsettled possibly feeling nervous about offending someone and not fully understanding the cause of any offence but also in partial rebellion. Anyway suffice to say I was more affected than I expected and had a days battle with myself which saw me refusing to visit any mosques etc as I would need to cover up and just couldn't bring myself to despite having stern words with myself about missing out.

boys with guns - Sıverek - Turkey
Originally uploaded by t wi an e

Anyway back to the title. In large cities, many towns and touristy areas women are to be seen out and about and apart from being modestly dressed with an obvious increase in headscarves than elsewhere in Europe the female presence doesn't seem much different. But as we travelled through rural areas, small villages and towns (or generally heading east through conservative Kurdish areas) it was a different story and I frequently found myself thinking 'Where have all the little girls gone?' More often than not we would ride into town and I would be the only visible female, no local women, no little girls playing. This is particularly strange as its not like the streets are empty. They are teeming with men, men drinking tea, men baking bread, men behind cash registers in shops, men driving cars, boys carrying school books or playing but NO WOMEN OR GIRLS AT ALL (actually I once saw a little girl chopping wood in a garden with an axe almost as big as her so I'm exaggerating a little).

I've been reading lost heart of Asia and a quote from that says that 'women need only leave the home twice in their lives once to get married the other to get buried.' Hmmmmm. This total separation of the sexes leads to a very bizarre feeling in towns as the public areas are totally male dominated, so where are all the girls...

...where all the little girls have gone
Originally uploaded by t wi an e

As you would imagine apart from the ones which are chopping wood or working in the fields sowing, growing and harvesting, they are generally to be found at home, caring for the family and raising children if all has gone well.

Literacy rates in Turkey are apparently pretty good. We've had the good fortune to stay in a couple of peoples homes and speaking to a group of Kurdish young women it turns out that they go to school for only one month of the year. So they can read and write but beyond that describe themselves as uneducated (which they clearly would like to be but accept that this is the way). Its not that they don't have the opportunity, education is freely available, its just that their father's won't permit it. The rest of the time they are at home looking after the family, growing food for the table (they put my old allotment to shame) or helping bring in much needed money, which in the case of Suna and her friends will include picking walnuts during the season (the men cut, the women pick them from the ground if you look closely you can see their hands are stained with tannin). I have also spoken to a university student who plans to become a teacher and he reckoned it was quite common for children of rural families (particularly girls) not to complete school though the shepherds, always male, are often pretty darned young too. I'm not syaing that hthere is anything wrong at all about being at home and raising or caring for your family, it is one of the finest things you can do and everyone of the homes we were invited into were clearly very loving respectful places. But if that's not the road you want to go down, or actually even have the opprotunity to go down if you don't get married, and you've no education then opportunities for improving your lot seem fairly limited.