Why I take pictures of ‘kitchy’ like places:

“What/who I was supposed to be!!” (somewhere along the road something fortunately went wrong!!)

This shop window and the photo of it reminded me of something I thought I had long forgotten..
This is the picture of a child dressing up as a little bride, which is a normal thing at Turkish weddings. This is something we as grown ups adore..But child brides are still not uncommon. So we should be wary about this whenever we are part of a Turkish wedding.
What struck me was not just the fact that we as young girls were/are encouraged to strive for marriage in order to:
A) become like everyone else around us so we cannot change our misogynist societies
(B) to escape from our own families and this pattern.) But more the reality of a woman (a yenge=an aunt) always standing close to brides, helping them/us/the little girl (see the woman’s hand next to the child bride in the first picture) into the bed of some unknown man one day.
What I hated most about my first marriage was this woman telling me how to behave the very first night of matrimony!! The awful thing is that we are taught how to be shameful of everything using ‘ayip’ as a tool to shape and silence us. So no one would openly tell what this ‘yenge’ really is about and what she directly tells us to do!

When marrying of a child bride there is always a “yenge” (an aunt) involved.
This is an idealized situation for ethnic girls learning from a very young age that marriage is
A)something to spend your entire childhood and teenage years dreaming about and wanting to achieve since it is the only right thing to do in life
Or
B) Learn to question and be brave enough to leave these imprisoning patterns. the only way out (of the family of course and such oldfashioned norms!!)
By the way this little bride is situated in a shop window next to a real marrying couple.But the (in my opinion disgusting) yenge is always there to “help” the little girl into marriage!
This is Dalston anno 2013 (last night!!)