El âlem: Nameless Gangsters by Dilay Kalınoğlu

El âlem ne der? 

It may not make sense to you, but it is a common phrase that Turkish women have to endure every day. For which they even feel obliged to live by it. 

As a person who believes that the language we use is a reflection of the society we live in, let me explain the phrase etymologically for you. 

El âlem is a word derived from Arabic, where "el" means foreign and "âlem" means the universe. When these two words come together, it means everything or everyone except what we know. "El âlem ne der?" expresses, "What would people we know nothing about think of us?" It is the constant state of fear caused by the possible reactions of neighbors, strangers, passersby. It is the socially accepted form of self-censorship. 

Also called neighborhood pressure, it is not only applicable to women, but as usual women pay the heavy consequences by being judged by the nameless gangsters. Men do everything they can to protect their honor, which is based on "how much of a woman is a woman," or in other words, it is an "honor killing." 

Many dreams are buried alive in a graveyard, waiting to be reunited with their owner. 

Even in the simplest dilemmas of daily life, Turkish women must make choices for the sake of these strangers. "What I wear, where I go out, who I go out with...." Our lives are controlled by nameless gangsters. 

But where has this invisible pressure to be “socially-right” has taken us? It has taken us 72. 

“72 of what?” You may ask. 

For Turkey, 72 is both the number of women murdered and the days it happened. 72 women in the last 72 days… Murdered brutally by the men they deeply loved, by the men they highly respected, by the men they were afraid of, or by the men they have never even heard of. 

Instead of moving forward, looking for a solution, Turkey recently pulled out of Istanbul Convention which encompasses gender equality and fights for femicide. While dreaming of equality between men and women, now we are even under the limits of human rights regulations.

An ironic story of the woman bildungsroman character Tante Rosa written by Sevgi Soysal, the symbolic face of women’s rights equality in Turkey, is the best possible example of not setting her life on a bunch of rules for el âlem. She is the debatable protagonist-antagonist of her life. And yes, the debate is encouraged by el âlem. The book Tante Rosa was not even discussed publicly for a long time because of the lifestyle Rosa chose to live. 

When Rosa was six, she wanted to be a “horse-acrobat”, her step-father made her pick up manures of horses in a circus. 

When she was a lively, ambitious, passionate teenage girl, she was raped by her first boyfriend. “El âlem” forced her to marry him, live with him for nearly a decade because if she divorced her husband she would be coined as “dishonest, unloyal, rascal.” 

When Tante Rosa was a middle-aged woman, she was struggling to find a job for a living. She decided to work as the person in charge of a restaurant’s restroom section, she was supposed to collect money from the customers and direct them to the restrooms. But the first day of her job, a man tried to use the women’s restroom. Rosa told him it was for women, not for men. The man told him rudely: “Then prove me wrong. Use the restroom.” But after those words, she locked the man inside the toilet cabinet. Left him there, quitting her job. Without thinking of her financial need, compromising her womanhood. 

Tante Rosa was challenged by society and the ironic struggle of never giving up her dreams while constantly being ripped down. 

That’s her story but there are many others to be shared. Many others to be lived and many others knuckle under their stories, called destiny, the mere fright of this invisible but destructing social pressure. 

If you ask me, the biggest challenge facing women and girls in Turkey is the perpetual fear of not being accepted by the patriarchal norms. 

I visualize a world in which women live for themselves and only for themselves. It is not a fight between men and women. I am well aware that men also take their share of social pressure. The way to change passes from education, changing our mindset, teaching us the power of words, and sharing our stories.