being a woman

it's not easy being a woman, or becoming a woman. what does it take to be one has been on my mind for ages now. there is this underlying flow of consciousness that to be a mother is to be a woman, to be vulnerable is to be a woman. i have been juggling all these concepts for years now and all i can say is that roles exist but it does not define us.

i think i have learned more about how it feels to be a woman in turkey than in any other country probably because i started living here after the age of 26. set aside how women are treated in turkey from the stares on buses to rudeness in cues to how media portrays crying mothers and half naked models; we are living in an age of extremes. a woman with a consciousness of her self- worth to me is a woman. my mother is my role model in this case. she neither denies or accepts the roles that are pressed down upon us in our cultures, she defines her own rules of conduct and behaviour that do not offend or disturb anyone in her area of circumference. her independence is her own to take responsibility for and she compares herself not to others but whether she is living her own standards and the values she calls her own.

she is like spring water, she flows and makes an impression. and nothing stops her from doing anything she wants to do.