2016 TURKEY essay contest winner
ZULFINAZ
by Armanc Keser
“Zülfinaz? Only Zülfinaz, again? Fine, you can come and solve this question as well.” Zülfinaz, 15, best in her class of 60 (mostly filled with boys), their levels varying from 1st Grade to 8th Grade. She was going to the only school she could. A little, village school, with a faculty to student ratio of 1 to 60. Yet her teacher, saw something in her. He called her to talk about her future: “I want you to become a teacher. I think you would be a great one”, but her parents wouldn’t let her so she told this to her teacher, he responded “Let me talk to them, all right?”. She said “All right”.
Zülfinaz never became a teacher, and this was more than forty years ago. She could have been a professor by now, or anything really, that she dreamt to become. I used to tell her jokingly, “Well you got us now, we wouldn’t be here if you had become a teacher”. She would smile at me; I would smile back. Just around these times, I understood that all those smiles were nothing but lies just to rationalize my smile.
She had 8 siblings: 4 girls and 4 boys. She was the second eldest, yet her family made her marry someone 10 years older than her, while saying that her older sister was “too young” to marry. Her husband was a very well-known man, a politician supporting the left wing, carrying on what Atatürk left him and his fellow men; liberty, equality… and alcohol.
Zülfinaz has 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys, from a person she has no love to, someone who treated her and her children badly. Yet she put up with all of this; she lost her chance to become a teacher, she lost a man who would love her but never was able to, and most importantly she lost her life – well maybe it wasn’t given to her to begin with – yet she said nothing. But then, why did she endure all this pain, was it because she was afraid of what would come after, was it that she did not see a point in trying, or some other thing that made her stop talking before she even started, nevertheless the only truth about her was that she loved her children, so maybe this was the biggest reason. One of those children was my mother.
My mother, a working woman, her daily routine starts at 7 am and ends at 10 pm. She wakes up, makes something to eat for my brother, goes to work at 8am, comes back at 3pm, she cleans the house, makes tea and dinner for the family, brings fruits and nuts without us even asking. However, people who see her and my father together, think that the person who is responsible for the family is my father. Yet, she – like her mom – doesn’t say anything about this situation. But why? Why won’t women in my country talk about their problems? Why don’t they complain?
I believe the answer is simple: they are told that they are talking enough. They are shown women who succeeded on becoming rich on their own. They are shown movies that get nominated for Oscars, they read those movies’ reviews that tell how countries abroad are sorry about these women, how they pity them. Articles are written about their problems and they are written by both women and men. They have enough voice…Right?
I’m alive for 17 years, yet I just recently became aware of what Zülfinaz had gotten through. Zülfinaz has never been alive. How could she be expected to rise and defend herself… Right?
No, this doesn’t sound right. I do not have the right to tell that I know what they went through. Only the women who lived, and are living the same lives as Zülfinaz, or my mother can know what they are dealing with. Not this essay nor any essay can identify “the biggest challenge facing women and girls in my country today”. This will only create the challenge itself. The only way of learning the biggest challenge for the people who face it every day, is coming here and talking to the people who never had an opportunity to talk, not making us, people who have the chance of having part in such a contest, write about it. Zülfinaz may be old now, but there are many like her, and their memories will never get old.