Travelers in Turkey Come in Contact With A Few Followers of Islam

I have always suffered from wanderlust. Even as a child I recall my fascination with images of far-off places and strange people. I have also been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit in my youth and experience many such distant places and new people.

When I decided to leave the University of Texas and take time to travel in Europe, my focus was on the usual destinations - Italy, Germany, France, England, etc. I had no idea that the most incredible and memorable experiences that I was to have overseas would be during six weeks in Turkey.

Let me first say that I was not raised in a religious household. Weekly worship was not part of our routine. My parents left such decisions to me, to be made as a more informed adult. Though I consider myself an agnostic I respect others' choices and beliefs, even if they are not in keeping with my own (excluding, of course, those ideologies that fall into the categories of extremist or fundamentalist.)

That said, when I was talked into spending time in Turkey by a group of friends, I had no preconceived expectations of the Turkish people beyond a certain inescapable sexism to be expected from the men. And male chauvinism did abound. Even from the very first minute, when I was shocked to have a 70-year-old Turk repeatedly brushing intimately by me in a border-crossing line so that he could sniff my hair. The men on the streets of Istanbul trying to hawk their wares were constant sources of openly salacious looks and verbal "flattery" best not repeated. The most benign came from a boy who could not have been more than ten, encouraged by his older companions: "Lady! Lady! Lady, you are a dream, oh really!" Wherever we traveled in Turkey, the same archaic mindset toward women was apparent. Frequently women appeared in public literally covered from head to toe in shapeless black, the only part of them visible their eyes.