The Eraser by Zeynep Sude Kısa

I was eleven when I was told to stop watching the news as a girl! To ignore is what we teach as a nation to young adults. In Turkey, it is not so easy for a girl to ask for help under the threat of violence because she will be the one to be blamed when a ‘he’ treats her fiercely. All that women can do is wait for their names to appear on television with their photos in black and white. That is why, I chose to draw attention to violence against women in Turkey, which has several different reasons that I will be presenting in the following essay. 

Firstly, the indoctrination based on false interpretation of religion plays a crucial role. When Turks proselytized to Islam, we could not escape the Arabic influence. Female babies were buried as soon as they were born in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Control was what women never had over their lives. They were “owned” by men. Turks thought that adapting to Arabic culture meant understanding Islam better. Men distorted the sayings to salve their consciences for treating women poorly. Despite the fact that wearing burqas is an Arabic tradition, creatures who lack self control believe that if we do not cover up they are allowed to vocally harass, hit or rape us for wearing a skirt “that short”. Thinking that clothing reform was made by Atatürk in 1934 , it is inevitable to feel like we only go backwards. Devastating that not only me but also millions of young women in the 21st century grew up thinking they would be to blame if they were to experience something monstrous. 

Secondly, gender roles are imposed from a very young age in my country. When a guest comes to visit, she is obliged to serve while he enjoys himself. When they begin to work, she worries whether her boss will promote her or not because he has found out she is pregnant. She might even experience mobbing to quit her job. Violence does not always have to be physical. As it is feminine to take care of the household, and a masculine act to earn money, men think they have the right to hit their wives as if they are superior, privileged by birth. 

The final one is that women lack the ability to identify violence tendency signs in men, which would be strenuous to ignore. On the other hand, it is not as easy as you think to speak up in Turkey. Women often stay quiet due to social restrictions. I cannot blame them since our president withdrew Turkey from the Istanbul Convention. Thus, we do not have any legal provision specifically to protect us from violence. Why would women get a restaining order when thousands of them get murdered by their ex husbands who already had one? Would you report your husband if you have watched tens of them kill their wives in front of their children just because of being furious about what she has said ? They teach us the quadratic formula but not how to protect ourselves mentally or physically against violence in my country! 

All in all, religious misbeliefs regarding gender roles of women taught by the society and the lack of cognizance of inclination of violence or inability to speak up are the main reasons why violence in any form is the greatest challenge women face on a daily basis in Turkey. 

To achieve equity and close the gender gap, we should start by accepting this is an actual issue women face everyday. Only %17 of our parliamentarians are women today. Government officials should make it compulsory to have at least %35 women members in every political party. That way, women would be encouraged to speak their truth fearlessly knowing there is somebody who can relate. Furthermore, we must stop good conduct abatement, especially in crimes of passion, just because he has worn a tie in court. Certain tests can be held to see people’s psychological status before marriage. Age limit has to be an obligation for news or psychological TV series which contain violence against females. Educating children from a young age must be more significant than making them remember trigonometric functions. Society has to learn not to be surprised when they see a female firefighter or a truck driver. As a young woman, crying I have written all these with a pencil, hoping someone would care and try to be the eraser of the violence against women!