Equality for All by Ceren Uğur

Lincoln Steffens says that: “Morality is only moral when it is voluntary”. Morality and  moral laws are not always voluntary laws, especially in Turkey. Both women and men are  expected to obey the moral laws which are created a long time ago. The culture and the way  that our society has changed from when these moral laws have been created. Not only these  laws are being obeyed by social influence, but they are also restrictive, especially to women.  When we look at the western societies, women are not bound to act according to moral laws,  mostly they are given a choice to act traditionally or modern and society often respects each  other. On the other hand, in Turkey, moral laws restrict a woman’s clothing ethics, rights and  equality and her choice to go out at night. 

 Firstly, gender inequality is not just in Turkey. It is a global problem. Women are not treated  equal when compared to men. When a woman goes to shopping or to a café, they might be  treated harshly or get disregarded by the waiters or the personnel in the shop. When a woman  wants to have a job like being a bus driver, society responds with a rough answer like: “This  is a man’s job”. There are some women who can’t get employed to their dream job just  because the society deems the job as if it was specific to a gender. These are some of many  examples we see in our daily lives. Also, in work life, women are usually in lower positions  than men. According to Eurostat, 21,9% of all the managers in Turkey are women (2018).  That is the second lowest percentage among the European countries while Latvia has the  highest with 53,5%. 

 Secondly, clothing is highly restrictive by the moral laws in society. There are moral  boundaries to women’s clothing. Women are expected to wear clothes which fits to the moral  laws. The only problem is that choosing what to dress is personal and a person can’t decide  or criticize another person’s clothing. For example, there are men and women who publicly  criticize and sometimes mock another person’s clothing due to their upbringing. In my  opinion, the western moral laws are more independent. Everyone can dress whatever they  want, and everybody is responsible of their own clothing. They can either choose to dress  traditionally with a long skirt or dress more modern with a shorter skirt. This topic is also  popular in Turkey with the social characteristic judgement of women are given through the  length of their skirt. If a skirt is too short, the society deems that woman as unfaithful, while a  womanwith a long skirt is treated like a housewife. 

 Thirdly, night walks are highly uncomfortable to women in Turkey. Some women are also  afraid to enter side alleys when walking at night. This is because of the woman murders that we  see in the news. Therefore womens always have to carry pepper spray in their bags. When they  see women walking around the street late at night without a man with them, people  think that that woman is defenseless, but this structure of thought is quite wrong and  it is a very sad situation for women.

 All in all, the passage states  

that women's rights and women's experiences due to women's being seen as not equal  are exhibited . The equality of men and women is a question of the equality of human  existence discrimination between men and women is unacceptable . Every society, every  generation, every person must himself, with his own conscience, approve the humanistic  experience accumulated by mankind..