We're Stuck Between Genders!

We sacrifice women and men, who have different needs, talents, weaknesses, abilities, and even ways of worship, to our public transportation logic. Because what really matters to us is not how human we can be, but how much of our gender's characteristics we can embody!

Even if we weren't raised with the conscious logic of "the female part" and "the manly man," we would still find ourselves playing "role identities" whose authors are unknown for a certain period. We would continue to struggle in the meaningless battle that began before the millennium: "Is the mother superior or the father?" In this process, every sentence we start with "woman" would be labeled as "feminist," and every word we say in favor of men would be exposed to the label of "patriarchy." The gender holding the power would surrender itself to the intoxication of power without even questioning whether it has the right to do so.

Can Race be a Source of Pride? Today, any rational person who stands against racism acknowledges that the race and nationality one belongs to has no power beyond being an individual source of pride. But just as many people believe that their race, which they did not choose and were born into, is a "means of superiority." Moreover, knowing that they did not gain this feature through their personal abilities is not enough to break this misconception. Just like a stubborn child, mankind blesses his own race, religion, nationality, or sect as he blesses himself!

I think it might be useful to look at all kinds of sexist perceptions in our society and the concepts and actions that they lead to from this perspective. Let's accept that neither gender is superior, and that lineage only walks in the gender we favor. This is not our choice or achievement! Just as one does not boast about having two arms and legs, one should not boast about their sexual identity and its differences/similarities. Both genders, created to complement each other, have different strengths and weaknesses. Despite this, we are obsessed with nullifying this diversity between genders on an immeasurable scale. When we fail to nullify it, we turn the characteristics in our interlocutors that we don't possess into complexes and the qualities we possess that they don't into pride.

The Not Surprising Reality! It is not surprising to see how many intellectuals, who dazzle with their intellectual level, think at a vulgar level when it comes to the issue of gender. This so-called intellectual class, which finds the term "general" outdated and boasts of its differences from past generations, seems to enjoy being limited by unquestioned social taboos in certain matters. Although they may not care much about customary rules in their attire, career choices, and career advancement, they willingly surrender themselves only to the lap of tradition when it comes to family life and communication with spouses and children. Such a person can easily see a woman's active participation in the workforce as the sole cause of unrest at home. Forgetting that this could only be one of the reasons (if it really has an effect), they forget that the working conditions of women that are not liked by men and their roles at home are actually determined by men themselves. Or they can liken a woman's efforts to enter the workforce to the struggle of blacks against whites, saying, "When whites accepted the conditions of blacks, blacks didn't know what to do."

Which Gender is Superior? When I saw the mother goddess statues from before the Common Era in an art history class at university, I was amazed; I am equally amazed at those who have such a mindset in this century. Past societies that interpreted a woman's motherhood, i.e., giving birth to a baby, as a supernatural power deified her. To emphasize her fertility, i.e., her femininity, they produced mother goddess statues with disproportionately large breasts, hips, and abdomen where the baby develops, compared to normal.

Although these statues depict women as physically disproportionate and ugly, they are sanctified through motherhood. We may laugh at this mindset and its expression style now. Yet, it is entirely possible for those who boast about the power and role that their gender gives them to continue this understanding in a more modern style today. Therefore, even well-intentioned individuals among the dominant gender, that is, men, may approach the issue not from a human perspective but simply in terms of sharing what they have.

International Women's Day is either commemorated with incidents of violence or reduced to the goal of increasing women's employment in business and politics and increasing the number of women in leadership positions. However, as long as we approach the problem in terms of the numerical majority in the environment rather than which gender is superior or victimized, it doesn't seem possible to make progress in solving the problem of sexism.

Let Our Differences Not Be a Pretext for Conflict

Creating quotas for female members of parliament in election campaigns or encouraging female employment in the business world through regulations does not solve our problems. Discrimination only shifts from negative to positive with these well-intentioned initiatives if the mindset doesn't change. It doesn't turn into a societal understanding that comes from within and develops naturally. More importantly, it does not bring peace to our family life. Because fundamentally, we think that the problem lies in women working and men being old-fashioned, and we take the easy way out by blaming each other. However, we can only truly succeed in being human, see our differences as a means of complementing each other rather than making them a pretext for conflict, and correctly identify our essentials in reshaping the concept of gender in society.

Then, a woman's emotional nature or a man's straightforward gaze will not be perceived as a deficiency. Just as in a nest, where one complements the other where one is lacking, the same picture can be seen in family, society, and business life. We just need to trust not only one mind but both the female and male minds together. Like puzzle pieces, let's not forget that only our piece cannot complete the whole. Especially if we do not evaluate this understanding as a special situation only for our family life but also reflect it on our material and spiritual world; whether we are governed by men or women, our rights will not be violated, we will not be subject to violence, and our peace and prosperity will increase in all dimensions.

Being truly human protects us from the intoxication of power, turns the power that others boast of into a responsibility carried out consciously rather than willingly. This can only be achieved by examining the factors underlying sexism as much as possible from a human-centered and objective perspective. And of course, by increasing our mutual empathy ability.