There is a book by Mark Twain, “What is a man.” Also the book,” It is hard to find the man,” by some other author, but I haven’t yet encountered a book saying, ‘what is a woman’ or something with similar idea. But I would like to make possible scatches of a woman portrait, so that one may try to understand a modern woman, though it is not an easy job indeed. I believe it is important this time, and first of all for a woman to rethink about the role of a woman in modern society.
Kyrgyz people have its epic “Jangyl Myrza,” which can be translated as “worrior or sir by name ‘mistaken.’” “Jangyl Myrza” is wellknown among kyrgyz people as an epic but I think it is not much talked about, which would be appreciative if is. The nomad women nevertheless differed from the women from other oriental cultures by the necessity to be mobile and ability to ride a horse. Maybe that is why nowadays I see mostly women trying to feed their family.
I see women sitting at the counters of bazars, offices are generally full of them, at schools the subjects are taught mostly by them, the medical personell packed by them, then what are men busy with? The men are seen at taxi stations, parliament and some kind of hardly noticable places. Actually there is nothing bad in that, so women are much involved in different kinds of jobs, it seems as an indication of a democratic society but is it really so that kyrgyz women are happy?
It better depends on the social status since a woman living in a remote village can’t allow herself to be mobile while a city girl or woman have privillages to be a modern woman but the reality is strong that still keeps them imprisonned within the cultural borders. I mean kyrgyz women first of all oriental ones and try to be busy mostly with family ties. Even if they work at the offices they try to wrap up quickly at the end of a job rushing home since they have to prepare a good meal for their children and husband and it has to be done for the most of time as fatty as possible and delicious. Kyrgyz men look like live in paradise, so that they only have to sit in the cool places with sipping beer and saying as in soviet movie, “Caucusses Prisoner,” “to live in this world is good, then to live good life is even better.”
Kyrgyz women thus score for the traditionalizm then for a pace doing new world, which demands speed and more social sacrifice.