Left-wing papers used the opportunity to demand improvements in working conditions for female workers and the declaration of March 8 as an official holiday and also underlined the gap between the educated lucky few and the undereducated farmers’ wives. Tabloids tried to dramatize both the successes and failures of women. The sole point in common shared and represented in all the newspapers was domestic violence. Only Today’s Zaman underlined the fact that reducing women’s problems in this country to domestic violence is not just. This is so not only because women have other problems, but also because domestic violence is a problem that affects the country as a whole, not just women.Whatever the problems, they come down to the issue of education, not only of the men who discriminate, but also of the women who are discriminated against. One particular daily lamented that 6 million Turkish women are still illiterate. Another publication featured a high-ranking female bureaucrat and a poor old woman from northeastern Turkey and criticized the gap between the standard of living of the two. The gap was related to the level of education the two women received.
Despite the fact that education makes a real difference in the living conditions of women -- of all people -- I detest seeing these news items appearing in papers that support a ban on the headscarf in educational and state institutions. Naturally, half of this country’s population is women, and surveys reveal that more than half of that population is veiled for religious or cultural reasons. Only a portion of that veiled female population is ready to unveil themselves just for the sake of an education or employment. This suggests that the headscarf ban is leaving a considerable number of women out of the educated and employable population.
Whose fault is this? What is the guilt of these women in being undereducated and unemployed?
Freedom is a complete package. The freedom of veiled women to receive an education and to be offered equal opportunities in the public sphere is part of freedom for all women and for all people. Those who restrict the freedoms of religious people restrict, knowingly or unknowingly, their own freedom also. Once a regime starts discriminating against a particular ethnic, religious or conscience-based group, it normalizes discrimination. Those who complain about domestic violence should ask themselves why the victims of domestic violence have a difficult time seeking help, why are they not able to communicate their problems. Can it be that the very people who complain about violence have pushed these people to the darkness of illiteracy?
“They should have listened to us and unveiled themselves!” is not a legitimate excuse. Veiled students are rebuked and harassed at the entrances of university campuses. Those who unveil themselves temporarily undergo serious psychological trauma. Some lose their self respect, some, their respect for human nature. This is violence by other means. Those who are victimized by the very authority that is supposed to embrace them will either internalize victimization and bow before any authority figure, including a husband or father, or they will escape from the public, “domesticate” themselves and become defenseless against any kind of domestic violence.
Some ill-mannered Republican People’s Party (CHP) women tore up black scarves in Mersin in a “secularist ritual.” They claim that this symbolized the liberation of women. No ladies! That act is violence against women. Tear down your mental barriers!
