"We All Here!" by Defne Tuncer

Throughout humanity, women have always been struggling with gender discrimination which has  been named sexism. She was sold, she was beaten, she was killed, ignored, tortured, she executed  (especially between 15.-18. centuries because of the thought of they are doing black magic), she was  blamed to be the bad luck of the ships, she was not allowed to use her voice; banned to sing and  talk...  Now, we all use this sentence; 'We're in the 21st century!' Meant to be that everything changed from  the past. Is it exactly as we think? There have been many murders in Turkey that are countless, happened because of the men's  violence. As an example, I would like to talk about a horrendous and inhumane murder in Turkey;  Özgecan Aslan.  

While she was returning to her home, the driver changed the rote and tried to sexually assault her in  his shuttle. Özgecan tried to fight with him; she dug her nails to his face and used pepper spray, but  the driver got angry and stabbed her many times, beating her to death with an iron stick. After her  murderer killed her, he went to his father and friend. They decided to cut her hands and burn the  corpse to hide this murder. This implausible murder was committed in 2015 and made a tremendous  impact all over the country. After six years of that murder, unfortunately, Turkey was also abolished  from the “Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and  Domestic Violence” (shorter name: İstanbul Convention) in 2021, which is for saving women and  their rights. While hundreds of millions of women are already victims of murder and violence, after  leaving this contract, also the numbers and the news of violations and murders increased that can't  be overlooked. Related to the statistics of 2021, 49% of the population is women in Turkey, which  means approximately 43 million women. In the same year, 367 women were slain by men, 217 were  found suspiciously dead, and 793 women have exposed to violence. It increased 20% compared to  2020. 

We encounter sexism as well as in the workplace. Generally, women employ much harder than men  in Turkey, its primary reason is the pressure and viewpoint of our society. Society approves taking  care of her children, looking after her husband, doing house chores for women. Thus, that viewpoint  of the community, that we have in our vessels, enforces many employers to choose male employees  in the workplace and also causes a significant difference in entertainment between men and women.  Additionally, there is a huge inequality between salaries belonging to gender. Even if she works the  same job with the same performance as her man colleague, she earns less than him. In 2018, the  inequality in the salaries of women and men is 20%, which means while a man is earning 100, women  earn 80, in the same job. It also mentioned that if we are going to dome something about that topic  with the exact speed, that equality in wage between men and women will happen later 250 years, in  those statistics. 

Last but not least, sexual harassment can be a woman's biggest fear. It happens while we are  walking, sleeping, looking at our phones, while we are living our daily lives! As it can be physical, it  has other varieties as verbal and psychological. According to the Turkish Ministry of Justice, there  were roughly 16 thousand sexual harassment cases in 2019, in Turkey. In addition, many women  chose to be quiet after having harassment but all of us should stop doing that. We should protect  women's rights as an entire world, we all shouldn't wait in silence, it's a problem and shame of  humanity. Women shouldn't be afraid of what to wear, how to behave, when to go out and come  back, where to go and not to go... 

Nevertheless, we should take an action as soon as possible. Siting with our phones and checking social media helps up to a point. We should listen to the voice of our heart, and make empathise  with these women, who are killed, beaten, abused, fought with discrimination, threatened; should  remember the women who tried to reach these days from history and do something like attending again to the Istanbul Contract, applying the laws, making protests for having better laws for women’s  rights, letting women be more educated, employed and have a voice in management... We have  many things to do to change something!