Leader’s comment on women’s laughter borders on gender bias

Turkish women laugh during a yoga session in a public garden in protest against Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, in Ankara, on August 2, 2014. PHOTO | ADEM ALTAN  AFP

In Summary

• Mr Arinc jointly founded with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan the ruling Justice and Development Party.
• He’s running for president and expected to win.

By CHEGE MBITIRU
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In a recent rant, Turkey’s Vice-Prime Minister Bulent Arinc might appear to be just a male chauvinist.

 

A second thought, though, would show the outburst is a smokescreen for a wish to reverse the role of Turkish women to the days prior to the Ottoman Empire as men’s chattels. The bones of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, must be rattling.

The AFP news agency reported Mr Arinc on Thursday, saying of a woman: “She should not laugh loudly in front of all the world and should preserve her dignity.”

Additionally, “A man should be moral but women should be moral as well, they should know what is decent and what is not decent.”

He didn’t elaborate on what is indecent about a woman’s laughter. Nor did he explain how a loud laughter relates to his next comment. “We have to rediscover the Koran. We have gone backward morally.”

Turkish women ridiculed him on Twitter by posting photographs of themselves laughing hilariously. Two hash tags, “#laughter” and “#resistlaughter” went viral, a reminiscent of Turkish women twitter campaign in April.

Then, it was “Close Your Legs,” and “Don’t Occupy My Space,” to highlight harassment of women by men. The women shared photos of leg-spreading offenders on buses and trains.

Record of Arinc supporting women by telling Turkish men—actually men worldwide—it’s obscene for men to, let’s say, display their real or imagined virility.

'OWN ALL PUBLIC SPACES'

But then, as an Istanbul Feminists Collective activist noted in the website Bianet, “This situation is just men ignoring women and believing they own all public spaces. Trying to have the majority space is completely related to desire for power.”

Mr Arinc jointly founded with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan the ruling Justice and Development Party. He’s running for president and expected to win. Critics, though point that the party has been amplifying the country’s Islamic heritage, including, as Ataturk put it, “rules that don’t exist.” Women roles would face threat.

Mr Edorgan’s party has roots in Islam. There’s nothing wrong with that. Religions are an integral part of human life. They influence the way societies manage individuals’ interactions.

However, the element of belief differs among humans. That’s what brought about the principle of separation of religion and state. Religions are exclusive; states inclusive. Different religions have myriad beliefs on roles of men and women. States stick to roles of individuals and balance all interests.

In short, states need to harness, for the good of all, all resources available. Ataturk knew that and, on taking power, legally tried to ensure women got individual rights then in 1930s women in the so-called developed nations lacked.

Did that hurt Islam? A recent survey by Washington-based Pew Research Centre showed 69 per cent of Turks say Islam plays a large role in the political life of Turkey.

Arinc needs know something Ataturk knew: “A careful examination of Islamic and Turkish history would show that the rules we feel we have to obey actually do not exist. In Turkish social life, women have never been any less than men in science, knowledge or in any other field,” Ataturk declared in 1923. That’s food for thought for males like Arinc. Laugh ladies!