Here is something about us “Oriental” women writers and poets that often goes unnoticed. Using our pens as our laser swords we have to fight on multiple fronts at the same time, fight for our most fundamental human right to breathe, to exist, to write, to imagine. We need to survive against the deeply-rooted patriarchy and sexism and misogyny and homophobia of the cultures we are born into. Patriarchy so pervasive and widespread but also subtle at times that it even shapes the supposedly more “liberal” literary circles, in which we are treated very differently than male writers. In the eyes of mainstream critics a stubborn binary continues to persist: Women write sentimental, feminine stories, typically about marriage, love, divorce, children etc. Whereas men write serious, heavyweight, literary fiction. This artificial dichotomy faces us wherever we turn. Until a woman novelist gets old (and therefore is de-feminized and de-sexualized in the eyes of the society) she will not be recognised properly by these gatekeepers of the old, patriarchal establishment. This is the hard truth we have to understand.
Simultaneously, we need to survive against the endless Eurocentricism of numerous Western onlookers and mainstream critics who continue to regard us as “poor little things.” In their eyes, though they may not say this out loud, we are ‘the Other’. Our vast artistic imagination and inner multiplicity is narrowed down a single thread of identity. If you are an Afghan woman writer, for instance, you are expected to mainly, if not only, write about the problems of women in Afghanistan. But never science-fiction! Can an Afghan female novelist not possibly publish avant-garde experimental fiction? Why not? What happens if she pens a novel about the lives of women in Afghanistan but in her next book she wants to fly further away and write something entirely different in a completely separate genre? A techno-fantasy perhaps? Can she? Non-Western women authors are confined by glass walls of identity drawn by the publishing industry, walls that one might not notice from afar but continue to create deep divisions.
“Writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that.
Not to write, for many of us, is to die.”
These words are from a brilliant essay — Zen in the Art of Writing— by the American science fiction author Ray Bradbury. His work was influenced by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Edgar Allen Poe. In his unforgettable dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (written in 1953) he imagined and feared a future America where books would be banned and burned in plain sight by patrolling “firemen”.
Bradbury’s words about the art of storytelling have echoed in my heart ever since I read them many moons ago in Turkey. I was young then and I often felt suffocated, longing for a freedom that appeared to be out of reach. It seemed an impossible task, an unattainable wish, the dream of becoming a novelist. Still I kept writing. Each time my spirits flailed or dipped, I had to return to Bradbury’s advice:
‘You must stay drunk on writing so reality can’t destroy you.’
Words have power. When we feel down or lonely, they can gently hold our hands and lead us towards elsewhere, showing us that there are other places, other worlds, other possibilities. Words are our magic carpets. They will fly us high and above all kinds of identity politics, taking us out of our own limited and limiting boxes of predetermined ‘Self’.
Stories connect us beyond all borders—physical and mental. Through them I can grasp, both intellectually and emotionally, that the person I have been told to see as ‘the Other’, is actually my brother, my sister.
Words dismantle the arrogant duality of “us” versus “them”.
This is why, at the end of the day, storytellers and poets and bards cannot be reduced to a single identity. We are, and we must continue to be, citizens of humankind.
Yet as much as I love words, and believe in their healing power, I also know that words can hurt. They can be used to deepen the unjust treatment of a group of people—tools for inequality and discrimination. Words can be weaponised by racism, sexism and all forms of prejudice and bigotry.
Here is a personal example:
At the age of ten, I left my Grandma’s house in Ankara to join my mother who was working in Madrid, Spain. It had been only a couple of years since I had moved from France, Strasbourg to Turkey, after my parents had separated. Now I was migrating, again. West to East, East to West.
I thus found myself in a British school with an international student body where I was the only Turkish child. No one spoke my language, so I had to learn theirs, and I had to do it fast. I started studying Spanish and English with a manic energy, which I today briefly identify as the ISI: “immigrant survival instinct”.
After years, when I returned to Turkey, I had not forgotten my mother tongue, of course not, but I realised I was unable to comprehend some of the jokes—the nuances, the idioms, in particular. While I was abroad, Turkish, like any other language, had moved on, evolved and grown. I could not take it for granted, even if it were my mother tongue. So I started to study Turkish. Once again, that manic energy, the immigrant survival instinct. Once again, the feeling of “not quite belonging” was plaguing me, except this time it was happening in my own country.
This is how it became a habit of mine to read dictionaries. Ottoman-Turkish, Turkish, Spanish, English, very limited French…. Give me a dictionary in a language I can follow and I will happily spend hours lost inside its pages.
Imagine me, then. A sultry, muggy afternoon in Ankara, back in Grandma’s house from Madrid. The smell of dried red peppers on a string hanging from a hook, potted herbs in the windowsill... I am 15 years old, a green apple in my hand, a dictionary on my lap. I am reading, scratching the mosquito bites on my arms, finding solace amidst words. And then my eyes land on an entry that makes me gasp.
I learn that day that the word “dirty” in the Turkish dictionary has two meanings:
First: unclean.
Second: a woman who is menstruating.
I close the dictionary. I open it again, as though to check it is still there, that awful definition. It is. Then I feel anger—a slow-burning surge of anger.
There is a powerful and unforgettable line Simone de Beauvoir expresses when she writes about the detrimental effects of patriarchy on women’s creativity and confidence. She says,
“Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.”
Patriarchy clips women’s wings from an early age onwards.
Patriarchy is at its strongest not when it is imposed from above by some brute force or raw coercion, but when it is absorbed and normalised through subtle teachings and everyday language, thus brainwashing us, little by little, into thinking that we are less “pure”, less “perfect”, less “clean”, less “ideal”, always less.
We need to heal our wounds and grow back our wings. We need to reclaim our words so that they will never again be used to discriminate against anyone.
For us, writers and poets and bards walking this tired, troubled but deeply beautiful earth, words are about one thing only: Love.
So we stay in the zone of love.
Dear Elif,
Thank you for your beautiful words, sending echoes of feeling around the world. I am writing from Romania, where I am running for mayor as an independent candidate and I am spending my days reaching out to people, asking them to share with me what they think will make our city better. It is a crazy thing for me to do, as I am just entering politics and I don't have a party supporting me and helping out, just a young team of volunteers and family & friends. And I can tell you that I've never felt so strongly the power of words as I feel it these days.
Meeting optimistic people who encourage me, who sign to be my supporters or who simply offer me a smile is giving me the power and strength to do the hard work. Because on the other hand, I meet a lot of people whose words hurt deeply, they assume I want to get rich out of politics, that I am looking to deceive them and that I have no chance, everything is already decided in their opinion.
So, thank you for speaking so beautifully and clearly about complicated issues that make our life harder. I appreciate and admire you!
Thank you . Your letter today has provided me with a much deeper understanding of the phenomenon of patriarchy. I thought I was above all that.
When I looked at the picture in your post, I scoffed - thinking that there is nothing wrong about celebrating female beauty.
Now, I see that your arguement is even more effective than the film Barbie.
How slowly we (me for sure) learn.
Thank you.