Turkey: The Return of the Women’s Matinee
“Even my husband doesn’t know what I wear here or how I dance here. This is my zone of liberation.”
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The heavy gates of a seemingly ordinary wedding hall close on a busy street in Istanbul. The city’s bustle is shut out, replaced by the throbbing bass indoors.
With her chic headscarf and sequin dress, Tuğba Dağlar stands at the DJ booth. To kick off the evening, she reads out a manifesto to the hundreds of women standing in the hall.
“Leave your identity, your motherhood, your career, your marital issues beyond those doors. Here we are just women – and we are going to have a raging good time!”
With that, the hall is turned into a temporary sovereign republic, one detached from the harsh realities of everyday life and where men are not admitted. The lights are dimmed, headscarves come off, mini-skirts and party dresses emerge from under long robes. As DJ Tuğba calls it, this is a “no-men-fly zone”.
The kadınlar matinesi (women’s matinee), once a staple of city life in Turkey, has revived in recent years. It’s not simply a matter of changing tastes. Women who can’t find space for themselves in public, discouraged by the lack of security in parks and high prices in cafes, are building their own “underground cities” in halls with no windows.
Today, events are attended by thousands of women ranging from bank executives to cleaners. For some, they’re a kind of mass therapy session – and business is booming.
Matinees date back to the great rural-to-urban migrations of the 1970s and 80s, and the slums that formed on the outskirts of Istanbul. Afternoon dance parties that played traditional Arabesque music were a safe haven for women who wanted to hold on to their roots.
Today, dance beats and up-tempo pop songs have replaced the anguished longing of Arabesque, but they serve the same purpose: to provide a space where women caught between modern urban life and traditional values can be themselves.
A housewife before starting her DJ career, Dağlar started organising all-female events with her friends nine years ago.
“I saw that women want a space without men, that belongs entirely to women,” she said, explaining that in times past most of the staff at the dance halls were men, which meant women found it difficult to let go.
The new wave of matinees reflects other changes in society, too.
“We used to hold matinees on weekdays and housewives would show up. Now we hold them at weekends, because 90 per cent of the attendees are working women,” said veteran organiser Kahraman Pehlivan. “Bank directors, top level executives, branch managers – everyone’s here.”
Selin K, a 34-year old banker, wears two-piece suits for her high-rise office job during the week. But on Saturdays, she dances her night away at the matinee.
“I have to be strong, serious and controlled at the office,” Selin says. “I’m always on edge when I go to mixed-gender venues, looking to see who’s staring, wondering what everyone is thinking. But I leave my corporate identity at the cloakroom here. Nobody judges me when I dance the Ankara beat here. This is my guilty pleasure.”
Organiser Pehlivan thinks growing interest in the matinees is linked to an interest in pavyon, - traditional local nightclubs serve almost only to men.
Pavyon culture, which is known by its eclectic music and dances between male clientele and women employees, has come into the mainstream following several recent documentaries and a popular TV drama.
Pehlivan thinks that women want to experience what they see on TV shows – but in a safe space.
“We offer them the ‘men’s entertainment’, the pavyon, in a safe environment without men,” Pehlivan said.
“Zone of Liberation”
Clinical psychologist Betül Aydınaydoğdu thinks matinees are becoming more popular due to fears of street harassment and sexual violence.
“Women can only drop their guards when they feel that they are away from the male gaze,” Aydınaydoğdu said.
Fatma Y, a 42-year-old housewife and matinee regular, confirms Aydınaydoğdu’s theory.
“Say I go to a wedding, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law will be there. They would bicker and say, ‘she’s dancing too much, look at what she’s wearing’. I couldn’t dance like I wanted to if my husband was around, he would tell me to sit down,” said Fatma.
“But here, I’m free. Even my husband doesn’t know what I wear here or how I dance. This is my zone of liberation.”
DJ Tuğba Dağlar sees women in her audience undergo a transformation during matinees. Some take off their chadors and robes to dance in cropped shirts.
“We turn off the lights for a reason,” Dağlar said. “We turn them off to allow the women to fully experience that psychological release.”
Modern matinees have their own anthems, too – including ones that DJ Tuğba says would “start a war” at more conventional events like weddings.
One popular matinee song,“Hap Koydum, has a chorus that goes, “I named my mother-in-law after a snake.”
“You couldn’t play that at a henna night [a pre-wedding gathering for women]. But the room goes crazy when I play it at the matinee. You can really tell who has a problematic mother-in-law,” Dağlar said.
“We start screaming in unison when the song comes on,” said 28-year-old Elif, one of the younger matinee-goers. “In that moment, you feel that you share the same troubles as the auntie on your right and the well-dressed lady on your left. We all crouch down when the DJ says, ‘drop it’. No concerns about compromising moves or harassment. Just pure fun.”
Psychologist Aydınaydoğdu says these moments are a humorous expression of sexuality and domestic problems, which are considered shameful topics in wider society.
“Women can’t even talk to their doctors about sexual problems, but they can express everything with songs and dance here,” Aydınaydoğdu said.
Small Luxuries
It might seem paradoxical for matinees to be selling out amid an economic crisis in Turkey. Organiser Pehlivan thinks that this is a manifestation of the lipstick effect, an economic theory that explains increased demand for small luxuries during crises.
“I cut back on food costs for months to save money for this,” said Meryem, a 50-year-old mother of three. “Because I will go crazy if I’m stuck at home. I can go for another three months if I can have three or four hours of dancing here. I can’t afford psychologist’s fees, so this is my therapy.”
The therapy session ends when DJ Tuğba plays the last song of the night. The lights are turned back on, the temporary republic is dispersed. Banker Selin switches her high heels for trainers and housewife Fatma puts her long robe back on.
Is this a revolution? Maybe not. But as Aydınaydoğdu puts it, it’s a “survival method”.
“Women are stuck between housework, their jobs, their children and husbands,” she said. “The matinee is an escapist space where they can say, ‘I’m not just a mother, I’m an individual who enjoys herself.”
