Velvet and braids

This week I was fortunate enough to witness a “Yas” (“Youth”), a beauty pageant of sorts for soon-to-be marriageable-age girls (presently 14-16 years old). A yearly event, the most talented and intelligent girls from the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade are chosen to perform skits, recite Turkmenistan-glorifying poetry, act out music videos, and compete in academic and culinary competitions.

I could describe this event in two different ways. I could be a cynical American pseudo-feminist and talk about how the eighth and ninth grade boys stood in a corner staring at the girls like they were amusing pieces of meat and how every event emphasized the Turkmen feminine values of subservience, discipline, appearance overriding character, and conformity. I could speak at length about how each girl, 15 or 16 years old, is indoctrinated into believing that her only worthwhile skills are cooking, flirting (with class), and dressing fashionably. I could point out that there was no original material: the speeches were copied from a book and recited and the girls were judged by their ability to memorize and repeat; the skits were judged by how closely they imitated the original music videos; and the cooking competition was to see who could make the exact same dish fastest.

But I would not do the event or the girls justice. Like every event I have witnessed in Baharly, the Yas was gender segregated. Yes, may be ten boys showed up and stood in a corner looking like they knew they didn’t belong, but the 30 or so other guests were all women and younger siblings who arrived to see the dresses, hear the speeches, and see the performances. Although the undertones of “impress the future husband” were present, the event was for and about women trying to impress other women. The competition judges were not future husbands or even older men, they were older female teachers who judged the girls by the standards they would be judged as adults. Although the rules’ constraints meant there was little structural originality, the girls found ways to show off their individuality in the personally designed embroidery of their dresses, the patterns of their fabrics, their choices of costumes in the skits, and the garnishes on the food of the culinary competition. But what matters most is how the girls themselves saw the Yas. While I sat back in my chair taking pictures with a steady cynical monologue going quietly through my head (“yes, she is actually cooking in black velvet, pearls, high-heals, and a ‘Hello Kitty’ apron”), the girls were having a great time. Usually stuck in the kitchen or sweeping the yard, the girls for once were center stage, their skills and abilities as home-makers and seamstresses applauded as accomplishments rather than easy house work. At the end of the event the DJ blasted a Turkmen-translated Beyonce song and all the girls, participants and guests alike, got up and danced for the joy of movement and having a day all about them. I danced too.