Illusory Escapades By Yaren Mistacoğlu

Imagine that you have to marry because all you desire in life is going to university. You’re the biggest child of five, dearth of mother, and of a father who is mentally absent. You’re caring, yet you also want to have a chance in life, enough to be independent of the shackles that enroot you at home. So you make the biggest bid of your life and you marry a man who assures you education in exchange for being a loyal “wife.” This is one of the instances, an innocuous one, of a girl from Turkey’s rural skirts, who exchanges her life for illusory escapades, one that bears beatings, insults, and invisible scars. 

In 2011, Turkey became the first country to sign the “Istanbul Convention,” in pursuit of legally forbading gender-based violence and the cosigners are under obligation to obviate violence against women. While this convention is a major accomplishment of the women’s movement in Turkey, it isn’t sufficient alone to eradicate the internalized patriarchal mentality of Turkish families. Opponents of the convention assert that implementations that promote gender equality and provide protection for women are a threat to the unity of the family. Determined to preserve traditional Turkish family structure, the conservative communities whereby girls are espoused at a very young age and debarred from education see the Convention as a homewrecker, enticing girls to rebel against their families and seek their rights in social, educational, and economic settings. 

Considering that education and financial independence mean opportunity and open-mindedness, it is not unforeseen that conservative families would want to deprive girls of these rights since they are passionate to ingrain the role of women as “housewives” and “mothers.” Nevertheless, the infuriating part is not the communities that are intimidated by girls who refuse the obsolete ideologies of their families, but child marriages which are one of the encumbering realities of Turkey. “With the highest rate in Europe, fifteen percent of girls married before the age of eighteen and two percent married before the age of fifteen.”1 From a young age, girls are inculcated with societal norms that demand girls be docile and subjugated so that stereotypical gender roles can be perpetuated. This phallocentric family structure causes women to be financially dependent on men. 

Some get to participate in economic life, yet the challenges that await women in the work environment are not much more pleasant than their confrontations within the household. According to the DISK-AR report, the annual labour income of men is 31.4 percent higher than that of women.2 The report demonstrating the pay gap between men and women underscores how grave, urgent, and ubiquitous this inequality problem is. Girls who are bred in patriarchal families may not know another way out of the oppression than the captivating idea of marriage which, so to say, will lead to their happily ever after. However, women who are offered education and a career, often suffer the same fate as child brides due to the 

1 (Girls Not Brides) 

2 (“INTERNATIONAL EQUAL PAY DAY: Gender Pay Gap in Turkey: Women Earn a Third Less than Men”).

gender-based discrimination in the workplace. This sexism manifests itself in various occasions such as the pay day where women are deemed worth earning much less salary than men do. This situation aggravates the segregation in society and seals the fate of women who are destined to be a nice wife to their beloved breadwinners. But at what cost? 

 In 2019, more than 470 women have lost their lives as a result of domestic violence in Turkey.3 In a patriarchal household, a boy is taught to be a dominant figure in society who is superior to his partner. This toxic masculinity, indoctrinated at an early age, can be subverted by programs such as the one initiated by “HasNa,” bringing turkish and americans together to educate both men and women about the ways of fighting against constructed gender roles and power dynamics. Doubtlessly, NGO organizations such as KADEM (Women and Democracy Association) should further be encouraged to receive more recognition and support by society as they aim to offer girls and women more than illusory escapades. 

This girl from Turkey’s rural skirt is now a thirty year old woman, still holding onto the innocence of that teenager who believed that fairy-tale endings were possible. The wounds on her body and soul, however, are not as bright as her tightly-kept beliefs. Her salvation lies in believing in herself and reclaiming her voice and agency.