Patriarchal domination from birth to death and increasing violence in Turkey

Two men sexually assaulted a woman on the street in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. Every moment is recorded, there are images: They pin the young woman against the wall, and they force her to the ground in the middle of the street. They take a horrible form of patriarchal violence, which takes place behind closed doors in countless examples every day, to the streets without blinking an eye. Because they can. They are well aware that they can get away with it.

The detained perpetrators, Semir Tarhan and Ömer Konu, were first released after the young woman did not file a complaint. Then they were detained again due to the outcry and their criminal records that would fill a page. The social media accounts of these perpetrators, who were previously involved in crimes such as extortion and sexual assault, prove that they are immoral people who show themselves as moral watchdogs. 

For example, Semir Tarhan's Facebook profile reads “In a society where morality is corrupt, ‘loneliness’ is a cure”. There is an allegation of substance abuse. But these men who dared to sexually assault a woman on the street are not psychopaths in the clinical sense, they look like people you can encounter anywhere at any time. “Ordinary criminals” who are empowered by the absence of preventive and punitive policies and whose examples are increasing every day!

On the same day, 19-year-old Semih Çelik died by suicide after brutally murdering two young women half an hour apart. He decapitated one of them and threw her head off the city walls. If he had given an “objectionable” street interview instead of murdering two women in two different neighborhoods within half an hour, he would have been locked up long ago and at least one of the women would have been saved. 

There are allegations that the murdered Ayşenur Halil was the “new girlfriend”, and that he had been obsessively following İkbal Uzuner for years, and that no action was taken against Çelik despite repeated complaints by the young woman and her family. As I write this column, these are just allegations. As soon as they spread on social media, there is an avalanche of disinformation about such news. Even if it turns out to be true, the fact that no action was taken despite repeated complaints does not “explain” the perpetrator's murder of two women his own age. He could have been obsessed with them separately, one of them could have been his girlfriend or just a schoolmate. The only thing that is important and obvious is that two young women could be so brutally murdered in broad daylight, in front of our eyes, in two different places.

Various news reports argue that Semih Çelik had severe psychological problems, that he had been treated several times in various hospitals, and that a prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into how he was discharged. It is clear that a 19-year-old would not have committed this massacre in a normal state of mind. Yet, how many discharged women with severe psychological problems have you come across news reports about their involvement in such a massacre, killing men? Why is it always men who suffer from what is called insanity? Substance abuse is of course a factor in the increase of all kinds of violence, but in a country where drugs can be cheaper than two cans of beer, where all kinds of gangs are becoming more and more widespread, the reasons why this is so common among young people are political in one way or another. Femicides, on the other hand, are undoubtedly political.

I have written before: It is not right to medicalize femicides and violence against women. Women are mostly killed not by “some sick men” but by ordinary patriarchy that is provoked and fed by impunity. Studies around the world show that the number of “psychopaths” who kill women is much smaller than the “familiar killers”, the “I know him, he won't do it” men at home or on the other end of the phone. Women and children are most often abused and murdered not by “external enemies” but by their relatives. Nevertheless, as in the case of the sexual assault in Beyoğlu, the increase in “random” violence and abuse is also attributable to the implementation and non-implementation of laws. After the draft law on stray animals was passed, violence on the streets visibly increased. If you feed violence against women, children, and animals with impunity to such an extent, “random crime” will also increase. Everywhere from homes to streets turns into crime scenes.

If Law No. 6284 to Protect Family and Prevent Violence Against Women were implemented, if the Istanbul Convention were not abolished, if all policies towards the family and women were not structured to withdraw women from the public sphere and condemn them to the home and sacred motherhood, femicides would not increase so brutally day by day.

While I was following these events with horror, I came across a public service announcement that I thought was an adaptation of “Rosemary's Baby” on a local digital platform. It depicts a fetus being carried on a stretcher in its mother's womb to the delivery room. “Where to, mommy, where to?” it cries out. The scalpel and the baby's cry of “Mommy, where is this place, I'm not ready yet!” as it is taken out into the world… It's bizarre.

It turns out that it was not a horror movie trailer, but a Health Ministry ad titled “Mommy, we did it!”, encouraging “normal birth” and highlighting the risks of c-section delivery. It's a mess. First of all, it's not “normal birth”, it's “vaginal delivery.” Of course, a state institution is not going to use vagina in a sentence, but the main motivation behind this wrong choice of words is to present it as the only natural, correct, and legitimate method of childbirth. In addition, the holy mother who gave birth to her child after hours of great pain and the baby who emerged from her mother's vagina are considered “successful”. In this case, the mother who gave birth by c-section and her baby are failures. According to national moral criteria, she is a bit more successful than the one who does not give birth despite having the opportunity, but this is not enough. 

Moreover, from the very beginning, the mother is accused of a number of things, from having a bad effect on the child's psychology to not being able to start breastfeeding right away. Of course, at the end of the ad and the post, the phrase “normal birth is natural and healthy unless medically necessary” is added as a precaution, but the whole narrative is about blaming the woman who gives birth by c-section. Moreover, it is a woman's right to choose the method of delivery for various reasons other than necessity.

The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) issued a statement on this issue today. Actress Demet Evgar also shared a beautiful post from her own account, below, describing her own experience.

While there is constant talk of protecting the family and strengthening family ties, laws and protective conventions that would protect women and children from patriarchal violence and abuse are not implemented. The only thing that is protected is the “honor” of the family and only men are protected.

After 24 hours of horrific events, social media was of course flooded with pontifications about women. They all lead to the same conclusion: “What was she doing there at that hour, why did she choose that guy, what was she wearing...”

Nothing substantial is done about the murder of women. The fact that she achieves the sacred status of motherhood by suffering the maximum possible pain is the subject of an encouraging public service announcement. The woman, who is supposed to be able to choose the man who will not murder her, is not asked to choose the method of childbirth.

Women are always guilty. While being subjected to violence, abused, murdered, and giving birth... It suits the system to make women give up the rights they have gained through years of struggle, to confine them to narrow spaces, to frighten and intimidate them. We will not be intimidated. We will not abandon the nights, the streets, the squares and we will not give up our rights over our own bodies.