Woman

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

Anatolia! ("Anadolu" in Turkish, "ana" means mother).

We are living in a country which is beautiful but bears no feminine characteristic other than its name.

Everything on these lands—perhaps like in many other countries—is masculine. This is a masculinity marketed with a sauce of provincial and tribal culture and presented to us with the label of conservatism. This is a masculinity that values woman only in appearance, only in words: The woman is valuable only when she gives birth, becomes a mother.

Furthermore, from time to time we also hear certain people say that one birth is not enough, the number must increase. However, we know that a woman can be everyone's mother without giving birth as well. Actually even this argument is wrong: If you want to be valuable for the provincial, macho, patriarchal masculinity, you need something beyond giving birth, beyond being a mother: Belonging!

If the women who became mothers are not our mothers, they are not that valuable and supreme beings. Do not think that I am exaggerating. Rather than it being a proof of their generosity, all those virtues, noble epithets granted to women by a masculinity such as the one I tried to roughly frame, are nothing more than a privilege that these countrymen bestow only on the women in their own tribes, a privilege denied to the marginalized others...

At the mention of woman, the first thing that comes to mind, or is rather nailed in our heads, burned into eyes—more inflammable than its substance—is a concept that we come across, one which is used almost exclusively when looking at females. The name of this magical concept is morality, or rather women's morality.

If we take a closer look at this morality, whose social and conscience aspect is neglected and which serves to bridle women, we see that half of this concept is comprised of religious rules and customs and the other half of prohibitions.

Indeed, most of the bans—named as honor—are against women and this hypocritical concept actually forms a so-called moral basis for the provincial, masculine perspective that aims to own and subdue women.

Remember: murder is bad, but honor killings can be excused—let alone socially tolerated—even in the eyes of law. This thing we call honor is by and large a system of prohibitions imposed on women. Such that, the actions deemed "unvirtuous" for women are somehow seen as "virtues" in men.

Let us admit: There are things to be done by women as well to solve problems such as violence against women, honor killings, and economic inequality in our country: Yes, women breastfeed and love us but they do not touch our minds. Shaping our minds is a task that has always been left to our fathers. This must change.

Is it not one of the most dramatic, or even tragicomic, problems of women, namely that all behavioral norms and moral judgements about them are being established by men?

Since the beginning of monotheistic religions, both God and Allah and the Prophets are always fathers. Even if we accept that the conditioning against women has such a strong history that goes back thousands of years, it is obvious that women have to try to break this circle.

Yes, the left wall of the cell where the woman is being kept imprisoned is built by men, the right wall is built by religion, and the rear wall is built by morality, but we should keep in mind that the front wall is placed there by the woman's own consciousness.

Women should stop looking at themselves through the eyes and lenses of men.

While women are beings who breastfeed men, in the final analysis every man is a misogynist. I have observed this closely. This hostility does not always surface in the form of murder or violence. I am talking about men's prejudices against and disdain for women in every section of the society.

The societies that have failed to solve women's problems of freedom, equality and unfortunately survival cannot be expected to be democratic. If a country does not have freedom of expression, if that country is famous not for its achievements in fields of culture, science and sports, but for having the highest number of imprisoned journalists and politicians, then the women in that country are not free; their life is under constant threat.

What should be done? Even though the first step toward solving the women's problems is to raise awareness, at the end of the day this is a matter of being in power.

Everyone speaks about freedom but the number of those who internalize freedom rather than mime it is very few. Freedom is like water, it cannot be divided and it is won again every day.

In this regard, women have a much more difficult task. In addition to everyday challenges, they also have to struggle against men. Winning victory on two fronts! What a difficult but also noble fight this is. (ME/APA/TK/IG)

* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses

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