Looking at Turkish girls, of course I shouldn’t be generalizing, but I know what I see. For years being an ex-pat to Turkey, I have found that Turkish girls are/were in a specific way. The way they dress, behave, walk/move, stand on their legs, their attitudes, their gazes and even the color grade of their teints and grimasses, facial traek are different (read=recognizable, for me). (Maybe I stare too much..)

In trying to unveil what has made up this Turkisness in Turkish grls and women, we should take the problematized modernization process of Turkey into account. Which of course includes obstacles such as religion, male-dominated culture, social class et.c.

This time (May 2013) coming to Turkey made me realize that for the newer generation of girls/women these things are different. Their content at least in certain parts of bigger cities such as Istanbul, Ankara or Izmir have changed. How did this develop??

Something has  indeed changed, as I do not see the same indicators as I used to in these newer generations. This is surely undeniably due to globalization, neo-liberalism and its consumerism. As well as a change in the way women see themselves in the eyes of men. It seems that the internalized gaze in women making them shameful towards men are fading within these newer generations. Shame is no longer controlling them. As shamefulness is also not a part of the emotions that neo-liberalism is tetikliyor.

These girls look like they are almanci or just plain Europeans. They even dress better than the almancis or Europeans even. Trying to fill in the gap, that their mothers could not fill in. The desire to be like a European.