Volkan Yolcu wrote: Handsome women

Your eyebrows have been drawn and you are more beautiful than the mihr-i Süleyman, beautiful... -Sıdkı

The one who is beyond handsome, who has an indescribable handsomeness, is called “beautiful man”. The most well-known name that is agreed upon as beautiful man is the Prophet Yusuf, whose beauty has been the subject of hymns, folk songs, songs, poems as well as verses of the Quran, and who eventually earned the term “Hüsn-ü Yusuf” (the beauty of Joseph) in three different languages. The poem of Sıdkı, which is said to be a nat-ı şerif, in which he describes the prophet of Islam, includes the lines “ You are more beautiful than Yusuf-u Kenan, beautiful ”. The Prophet is more beautiful than Yusuf-u Kenan (even!!!) .

In other words, "male beauty" does not correspond to an effeminate situation. Just like the phrase "handsome woman" does not contain a masculine meaning. These are women who are first (and definitely) "beautiful" and then "handsome" with an existence that goes beyond that.

I first came across different uses of the adjective handsome in Sırrı. " So what, what happens if a girl covers her head of her own free will and goes to university? We would be a very beautiful, very democratic country where different colors live, and very handsome, " he said, while discussing rights and freedoms with someone remembered for his Jacobin-Fascist (who is not actually remembered, has long been forgotten).

Etymological comparisons can also be useful. It is known that “handsome”, which is usually used for men in English literature, was frequently used for women in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, in Jane Austen’s works , women who have a magnificent and commanding appearance and are also very beautiful are described as handsome . Britannica (Dictionary) says that “ when a woman is described as handsome, it is implied that she looks very beautiful and is also healthy and strong .”

After thinking so much, the conclusion I reached is this; when a beautiful woman puts on a deep experience that also includes a lot of pain , a charismatic, self-confident and trustworthy aura is formed around her, this suits them very well and they become handsome. This feature allows them to be recognized and distinguished at a glance.

Although any woman can be blessed with God-given beauty , being a handsome woman in these lands is not an innate characteristic (and is a painful, troubled state that is reached after a thousand pains and difficulties), so the miracle of " you recognize them from their faces, they resemble each other " gains meaning with and on the faces of these women. You see that pain deep in their eyes, in every curve of their face, despite their careful efforts to hide it.

A Laz folk song, with its beautiful inverted sentences, says, " If the troubles I have were yours, I would be half of them ", meaning "you can't stand it, you can't endure it". Does a woman never say "oh", does she never get fed up with herself, with what strength does she say "I drank cranberry sherbet" every time she vomits blood for years? For example, in 1942 (even though we don't agree, when all kinds of effects of World War II were being felt painfully), in the small and conservative town of Diyadin in Ağrı, when the burden of her eight siblings, one of whom was only 40 days old, and her mother fell on her shoulders after her father died, she put her wedding dress in her chest never to take it off, cut her hair short at the age of 17, took over the shop she inherited from her father and raised her 8 siblings. Diyadin's "Abla Naime" is a handsome woman (in Turkish, which is a part of the Ural-Altaic language family, this name is "Naime abla", but in Kurdish, which is a part of the Indo-European language family, "abla" comes to the fore, just like "Mother Mary" is said instead of "Meryem Ana" - who was also a handsome woman with the hardships she had endured.) Whether she was that beautiful before is beside the point, but with this pain and burden, she becomes handsome.

Each one of them (even their enemies) has at least one great pain that will make them say, “May God give them patience, this is a great problem.” That wound darkens inside them, darkens, and gets darker as it darkens. They themselves darken it, because the only color that does not reflect light is black, and when nothing is reflected from their wounded “inside,” no one understands how much they suffered in the past. For example, “Nazmiye Aunt,” who raised her 3 children on a teacher’s salary after her husband was killed in the darkness of September 12th, and despite this, she lived a bright and exemplary life without ever showing that she was a woman who was constantly sobbing inside, and was sent off with thousands of prayers after her, is a handsome woman, too.

They don't care much about the trouble that comes their way, they are softer than a rose, what have they seen? But injustice, any kind of contempt and violence towards the defenseless, wakes up their anger, someone else comes out of them, you don't recognize them. For example, the “Hanım Ağa” (her name in the census is also “Hanım”) of the Mırêngi Tribe, the patron of all troubles, the “aeğğlimm” who debate “ should a woman be beaten little or a lot, should a stick be broken on her back? ” are still respected and admired in these lands in 2025, but in 1950, in a place like Ağrı, the “Hanım Aunt” (later known as “Efe Aunt” with her husband’s surname) who caused trouble to men who raised their hands on their wives with an axe in their hands, who opened her house to any woman in trouble with a total of 16 children, 8 of whom were her own children and 8 of whom were her nephews who were entrusted to her by her deceased brother, is also handsome. As if her own troubles were not enough, these women “become handsome” as they share the troubles of others.

In the popular jargon of “illegitimate”, there is a single word that represents all the words courthouse, police, prosecutor (even law) (it has nothing to do with the meaning of “party in power”): Hökümat. “Hökümat is looking for you, my dear, will you go? Or not?” says a Diyarbakır scoundrel, for example, or an Antep bullfighter says “Go tell your troubles to Hökümat, my dear.”

They are “government women”, that’s the way it is anyway, but I will put this Government issue in another way: Sometimes they don’t care about Government either . When you are with these handsome women next to a judge, prosecutor or police officer (even if they have the title of “lawyer sir”), with the respect they show to that position (they know that too, they are so dignified) and the moment they catch even a hint of injustice while the conversation continues, you get scared, saying “Oh my God, please don’t let her answer so we can get out of here safely”, but how is that possible! In the movie Vizontele Tuuba, when the Library Director is arguing with the regimental commander in a sarcastic tone, you turn to the Chief Bey who intervenes and tries to soften the atmosphere by saying “ the tea is very nice too ”, and you neither have a lawyer nor a principality left. They start talking in the middle of the book, and they won't stop talking until they get that truth accepted, by God. (By the way, another handsome woman is Vizontele's "Sıtî ana".) Their feet are very firmly planted on the ground, the area they cover in space is not "blurry" or anything, it is very clear and that existence gives people confidence.

But they laugh. They laugh out of spite. Not just like that, they laugh heartily . There is not a single laugh of these women that does not capture everyone around them, does not cheer them all up, does not make life beautiful for a moment, whether you know what you are laughing at or not . For example, my late mother, who always balanced the distance she should keep between the person or group she is in front of and the sincerity she should show at every moment of her life, was such a handsome woman. I always said to myself, "One day when she laughs heartily, I will look at the clock, when she laughs so hard, do time, life, the world really stop or does it just seem that way to me?" But with every laugh she made, the world became so beautiful that I always forgot to look at the second hand of the clock because of the drunkenness caused by that beauty, I could never look.

We thank you millions of times for the struggle you have been carrying out on dozens of issues (especially women's rights) for as long as you can remember, for your signature and effort in almost every gain made in the name of women's rights and freedoms in these lands, but history has already written these, what business do I have ?

But also and particularly and repeatedly and emphatically

As we already know from that miracle that you resemble each other.

On my behalf , I would like to thank you for reminding me of my mother every time I see you with your surprising similarity in demeanor, attitude, facial expressions and gestures (and even every time I hear you because sometimes you say the 'a's' with a closed tone, despite your perfect Turkish, just like yours),

In this prison of Capitalism, the regime of animals we live in, in this spectre of modernist civilization whose suffering we endure, every time we look at you, you make us remember all those handsome women, so I say on behalf of all of us :

Thank goodness you exist, Meral Danış Beştaş .