City of Men
Istanbul has the most wonderful street cats I have ever encountered. There are thousands of street cats all over Istanbul, sleek and well-fed, who will walk into stores to climb up on a ledge and nap in the sun, or crawl into your lap while you're sitting in a cafe. There are cats in the Hagia Sophia. In Istanbul, the cats love you so much, they purr like motors, they butt their heads up against your hand, they try to crawl into your lap while you're still standing up--if you stand still, they will crawl onto your shoulders and try to eat your hair.
Unfortunately, so will the men.
I am not a delicate flower. I am used to a certain level of street harassment. I am unfazed by hey babys and what's your numbers. I understand that not every city is like New York, where the only people who bother me on the street are gay men and women who admire my clothes and/or hair. In Istanbul, I am harassed by street vendors who want to sell me things. They call after me in Turkish, Russian, Arabic, and English. Miss, you dropped something! My heart! Men who do not want to sell me things follow me down the street, around corners, becoming increasingly offended in a variety of languages when I ignore them. The waiter asks for me number. The philosophy/political science student we pick up in Galata to go dancing in Taksim thinks I should go home with him. Some jerk pinches my ass on a crowded train and there are so many men pressed up against me that I cannot be absolutely certain I will hit the right one in the face. Some guy reaches out and strokes my hair in the middle of the Grand Bazaar, and by than time I am so fed up that I turn right around and yell at him, even though he does not understand a word of English.
In the United States, everything about my body language says, "Do not touch me, I am covered in poisonous barbs." In Turkey, this reads as, "Go ahead and touch my hair, I won't mind!"
The philosophy/political science student suggests that I have it worse than most because I am particularly Western-looking, with my strange clothes and funny hair. He also tries to sleep with me, so I take his opinion with a grain of salt.
I cling to E, who has come to Istanbul from London so that we may see each other. She is patient with my desire to see the Hagia Sophia (which she pans: "looks like it was designed by users"), the Blue Mosque, Galata Tower, and the Spice Bazaar. I am perhaps less patient with her trolling the drunk Bulgarian/Turkish frat boy into making increasingly racist and anti-Semitic statements. We do not manage to convince him that race is a social construct. We go to a Turkish bath. We sit in cafes with apple-flavored shisha at three in the morning. We drink too much and sleep too late. We walk across the Galata Bridge, where fishermen stand shoulder-to-shoulder, casting their lines into the bay. We take the ferry to the Asian side, accompanied by aggressively cawing seagulls. We take cartoonish touristy pictures in which we are dressed as sultans. We walk along the shore, over rocks and through a gap in a chain-link fence to get to the overwrought gothic train station.
We pet all of the cats and curse all of the men and I cry on her shoulder in a way that is mostly metaphorical. More than any place I have ever been, Istanbul makes me grateful that I have learned to be friends with women--that, and my lack of cat allergies.
Unfortunately, so will the men.
I am not a delicate flower. I am used to a certain level of street harassment. I am unfazed by hey babys and what's your numbers. I understand that not every city is like New York, where the only people who bother me on the street are gay men and women who admire my clothes and/or hair. In Istanbul, I am harassed by street vendors who want to sell me things. They call after me in Turkish, Russian, Arabic, and English. Miss, you dropped something! My heart! Men who do not want to sell me things follow me down the street, around corners, becoming increasingly offended in a variety of languages when I ignore them. The waiter asks for me number. The philosophy/political science student we pick up in Galata to go dancing in Taksim thinks I should go home with him. Some jerk pinches my ass on a crowded train and there are so many men pressed up against me that I cannot be absolutely certain I will hit the right one in the face. Some guy reaches out and strokes my hair in the middle of the Grand Bazaar, and by than time I am so fed up that I turn right around and yell at him, even though he does not understand a word of English.
In the United States, everything about my body language says, "Do not touch me, I am covered in poisonous barbs." In Turkey, this reads as, "Go ahead and touch my hair, I won't mind!"
The philosophy/political science student suggests that I have it worse than most because I am particularly Western-looking, with my strange clothes and funny hair. He also tries to sleep with me, so I take his opinion with a grain of salt.
I cling to E, who has come to Istanbul from London so that we may see each other. She is patient with my desire to see the Hagia Sophia (which she pans: "looks like it was designed by users"), the Blue Mosque, Galata Tower, and the Spice Bazaar. I am perhaps less patient with her trolling the drunk Bulgarian/Turkish frat boy into making increasingly racist and anti-Semitic statements. We do not manage to convince him that race is a social construct. We go to a Turkish bath. We sit in cafes with apple-flavored shisha at three in the morning. We drink too much and sleep too late. We walk across the Galata Bridge, where fishermen stand shoulder-to-shoulder, casting their lines into the bay. We take the ferry to the Asian side, accompanied by aggressively cawing seagulls. We take cartoonish touristy pictures in which we are dressed as sultans. We walk along the shore, over rocks and through a gap in a chain-link fence to get to the overwrought gothic train station.
We pet all of the cats and curse all of the men and I cry on her shoulder in a way that is mostly metaphorical. More than any place I have ever been, Istanbul makes me grateful that I have learned to be friends with women--that, and my lack of cat allergies.