"Fragmented Equality" by Ali Alper Ataşoğlu

Albert Camus once said, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

Fraternal hegemony of our society has always been the most challenging concept to battle with because of this refusal. This fracturing war against ourselves had created aa life that is torturing for the “weak”. Even though Darwin has theorized natural selection where the “weak” eventually die out; our “fragile” personas have remained everlasting simply because they prevail to be better, to bring out their best.

It is not the fact that there are such contradictory beliefs that is worrisome, but it is the fact that eventually women are generalized to be serving just a simple function of giving birth that devalues women in our generation or even generations to come. According to this hegemony a woman is first and foremost a mother, then a wife, then a housewife. Whenever we asked a person to portray an image of a gender, the roles we encounter are not equal in basis.

A female who goes against the norms of the society would be faced with brute force, mostly verbal but sometimes physical as well. It is not that uncommon for women to face domestic violence just for being women in the first place. Just last year, four hundred of them were beaten to death due to “misunderstanding between couples”. They are expected to become mothers, be peer pressured into marrying at their climax where they could have progressed to become great leaders who would not even bear female as a prefix, only “leaders” to define them would have sufficed.

In a society where females struggle to even get into regular jobs as an employee, we expect them to have STEM-related jobs. It’s it still plausible that they would eventually get to that degree of excellence, but prior to their employment they are ultimately brain washed with our understanding of how life should be for them. In a society where they cannot even be properly admitted becoming a politician, we expect them to run for the office, assume the role of a politician. It is us that generate their labels for them to be encouraged to take STEM jobs in the first place, it is us that decide whether they are willing to have abortion, it is yet again us that set their first objective as being “mothers”. I ask, where is self-determination in this? Why should they need representation, labeling from another gender if they can absolutely present their own sex better than the opposite, at such an excellent level where people eventually took action all over the world to equalize the situation?

But no, they should cover some parts of their skin because men are predators. They must not wear skirts in school because “boys are distracted by their appearance”. They must look superb otherwise they would not be liked. They must not be too harsh, must act dumb, wait for approval whenever they need to conclude a vital process of their lives or they will be rejected by their employers, by their beloved, by their parents.

Notice how nothing in this mind set blames men for just being a man. None of the previous acts conveyed by men are penalized as they do to women in any way. This mindset does not penalize men for being predators but blames the victim for being a “too obvious target”. Again, the mindset does not criticize boys getting turned on, on the contrary, block their attraction by limiting freedom of expression, their comfort of the opposite sex. However, the mindset also expects women to “be beautiful” with the limitations already on them, be a soft ball who always waits for affirmation; but never gives them the chance to even decide whether they already find themselves beautiful, or even worse, give a chance to show their intelligence.

However, my words are not against men in general. They are dealt against the idea that was created by men in the first place wherein the idea still lingers in our progressive era. Protesting for rights, subsidizing for education, fight for the provision of sexual liberties, fight against female genital mutilation, for equality between all genders; all of those structures have broken down these norms to their simplicity. We only fight the remnants of greatly discriminatory ideals of the past thanks to predecessor heroes.

An egalitarian society would not even bear the word gender, it would only bear individuals. A society would let individuals choose their own ideals, do their own promotion. Such a society would let individuals self-govern themselves to ascend to an interdependent community where excellence is the deterrent of racism and sexism. Because one would know the best for themselves and none other. The simplicity is that: “I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley