Most alienated I have ever felt was in Turkey. I was in my early twenties and had never been further East than Slovakia. My then-partner and I travelled around by coach (the Turks have an excellent coach system that rivals Greyhound in the US) for two weeks, seeing most corners of Turkey except the tourist-crime-ridden and malarial South East.
We were treated amazingly well by everyone - Turks are incredibly hospitable. In spite of this, I felt lost and angry a lot of the time because they would principally talk to my partner and not to me (it being disrespectful to look directly at me). I loved Turkey but I never wholly got my head around women's place in it - Erzurum, in the East, for example, is a university town, so there are very westernised looking women wandering around, but also women dressed head to toe in black and with just a slit in their veils to see through (I think of this as in purdah but this may be inaccurate, inappropriate, or possibly politically incorrect. Would welcome instruction). I didn't show a lot of flesh on the holiday (not a beach babe in any case) and tried to be respectful. It was just quite different, and it made me think a lot about my rights. On the one hand, women are treated well and for the most part with extreme respect - but it's a big change for a woman reared in a Western society.
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Most alienated I have ever felt was in Turkey. I was in my early twenties and had never been further East than Slovakia. My then-partner and I travelled around by coach (the Turks have an excellent coach system that rivals Greyhound in the US) for two weeks, seeing most corners of Turkey except the tourist-crime-ridden and malarial South East.
We were treated amazingly well by everyone - Turks are incredibly hospitable. In spite of this, I felt lost and angry a lot of the time because they would principally talk to my partner and not to me (it being disrespectful to look directly at me). I loved Turkey but I never wholly got my head around women's place in it - Erzurum, in the East, for example, is a university town, so there are very westernised looking women wandering around, but also women dressed head to toe in black and with just a slit in their veils to see through (I think of this as in purdah but this may be inaccurate, inappropriate, or possibly politically incorrect. Would welcome instruction). I didn't show a lot of flesh on the holiday (not a beach babe in any case) and tried to be respectful. It was just quite different, and it made me think a lot about my rights. On the one hand, women are treated well and for the most part with extreme respect - but it's a big change for a woman reared in a Western society.