Gendered Discourses of Politicians of the Party in Power

silence

When we were born, we were born into a language. The language we talk determines our meaning of the concepts, thoughts and point of views. We could not think without language. Our language is also an inseparable part of the culture that we belong to. Therefore, we cannot think language independent from the practices inside our culture. As language has a social and dynamic character, every language changes according to culture and social environment that it is in. We learn the language that we are exposed to. (McGinn, 1997)

Generally speaking, we can observe that sexism occurs in every language. Because, sexism is a global problem. If we look at French for example, we can see gender divisions in the words articles such as le (masculine) / la (feminine) or the same in German der/die. In English, the root of the words is mostly masculine and they become feminine by adding an affix: i.e. actor/actress. In this context, the question we have to ask is: “Does language only reflect gender divisions or are gender divisions created by language?” We are going to discuss this problematic with examples of gendered discourse of politicians of the party in power in Turkey.

We can observe many kinds of examples of traditional practices which reinforce gendered discourse in Turkey. Especially in Anatolia, these traditions can be stricter. In fact, this gender division starts when we were born. If a woman gives birth to a boy, the family is proud of her but if a woman gives birth to a girl, family accuses her for being weak and insufficient. If we are a baby girl, we are dressed up in pink and if we are a baby boy, we are dressed up in blue. As we grow, people encourages the boy to show people his genitalia whereas girls are taught to keep their maidenhood until they get married. If they have sex before getting married, they can be killed by their relatives. When a girl comes to marriage age (unfortunately often at a child age), families bargain through her as she is a commodity. With the custom “kız istemek”, girls are always asked for one's son while men are in the position that always ask. There are some sexist idioms in our culture that determine woman’s and man’s role in the family for example, “female bird makes home” and “man is the leader of home”. These idioms identify woman as passive, emotional, polite, needs to be protected while man is identified as active, self-confident, strong and rational. In our daily language, we can observe other gendered discourse examples; i.e. men are encouraged by the words “haydi aslanım, delikanlı, adam gibi adam”, but when a man is in a weak position people say “don’t whine like a girl”. Even when people talk about a woman’s power or abilities, they often say “woman like a man”. This is because we were born in this patriarchal culture and all of our perceptions and discourses were formed by it.

Consequently, if our culture is too much sexist, it reflects to the language. As language is our means of understanding and classifying the world, “having learnt the language of a patriarchal society we have also learnt to classify and manage the world in accordance with patriarchal order and to preclude many possibilities for alternative ways of making sense of the world.” (Spender, 1985: 3) In other words, language constructs and maintains gendered divisions. For instance, “the language used in the media shapes people’s perception of the male and female characteristics and determines the social roles expected from women and men.” (Moustafa, 2015: 50) We are taught how to be a woman or man unconsciously especially by subliminal messages of films, series and advertisements. (Elgün and Pira, 2004)

Through the mass media (with televisions and newspapers), politicians have more opportunities to spread hegemonic ideology of the power and shape public’s ideas and often control their values. (Moustafa, 2015: 71) In Turkey, there are lots of examples of gendered discourse in the language used by politicians of the party in power (AKP) which reproduces “ideal woman” model from the viewpoint of patriarchal ideology.

Since the political party AKP has come into power, especially in recent years, gendered divisions have been brought into question by the power more frequently. Likewise, during AKP period, gendered discourse has increased in the language of politics. According to the statistics, while AKP has been in power, in the last 7 years woman homicides have increased 1,4000 per cent. (Sarı, 2015) Far from preventing male violence, they lay claim to speak about women’s life and body. The power also intervenes in women’s clothes, laughs and existence in public life.

In last 14 years (during AKP period), there are some obvious examples of gendered discourses used by politicians of the party in power AKP. In 2008, Recep Tayyip Edoğan commanded women to have “At least three children” when he was the Prime Minister and in 2016, he said: “A woman who refuses motherhood is a half human” as the President of the Republic. Additionally, Mr. Erdoğan said: “Woman and man cannot be equal, it is against creation. You cannot explain it to feminists” in his speech in the 1st International Summit of Woman and Justice. Minister of Health, Mehmet Müezzinoğlu said: “The only career for women is motherhood.” Minister of Finance Mehmet Şimşek said: “Unemployment rate is high because women are looking for a job.” Minister of Forestry and Water Affairs, Veysel Mersinoğlu asked women who wanted a job: “Isn’t housework enough for you?” Nureddin Yıldız said: “If a woman choses to work, she provides a basis for prostitution.” (Sarı, 2015) All of these gendered discourses serve to hinder women from participating in public and professional life. This patriarchal ideology identifies woman in the house and identifies man outside the house. A woman can have more than one identity. In the house, she can be a mother and wife, in workplace she can be a co-worker and manager, in university she can be a student or lecturer, in the parliament she can be a minister etc. However, gendered discourse determines the role of woman who does housework, cooks, looks after her children all day and waits for her husband to come home. In this way, the party in power is trying to drive women to silence.

Moreover, in 2012, while abortion had been discussed, Mr. Erdoğan said: “Abortion is a homicide and every abortion is Uludere” and the mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökçek said: “If a woman is raped why would the child die? The mother should die.” Then, AKP deputy Sefer Üstün said: “The raper is more innocent than the raped woman who has an abortion.” (Öztürk, 2016) In democratic countries, abortion should be the decision of women and women should be the only authority to decide about their body. But, as politicians of AKP never hide their hate speech about women, they accuse woman again with their discourses; i.e. “If a woman wears low-cut dress or laughs in public it is very likely to be raped. If you turn men on, you should take the consequence.” (ibid.) These gendered discourses legitimate woman homicide and rapes and direct men to violence. Since, men can benefit from reduction due to based on sexual provocation in courts. (Kaptan, 2015)

Furthermore, in 2011, Mr. Erdoğan said “I don’t know if she is a girl or a woman.” (Sarı, 2015) This differentiation of girl and woman reflects society’s interest in the sexual life of women. In Turkish, the word “woman” has weight because when we say “woman”, it is understood that this woman had sex. However, men’s sexual life has never been a matter of debate. TRT presenter, Ömer Tuğrul İnançer said: “Pregnant women should not walk around on the street.” (ibid.) Again, this gendered discourse aims to make women invisible in public life and isolate from professional life. Because, hegemonic patriarchal ideology of the power cannot stand independent, well-educated and strong women who can stand on their own feet. Therefore, woman homicides and sexual abuses continue to increase through gendered discourses.

As we can see from the examples above, of course violence against women and gendered discourse which is the underlying cause of male violence did not occur only in the last 14 years. Our existing culture is based on gender inequality and it feeds conservative and sexist politics of the power.

In conclusion, I believe that language does not only reflect gender divisions but it also reproduces and sustains them. If we consider language as reflecting gender division (like a mirror), we will not be able to understand the importance of language. For example, to erase sexist language without stopping to behave in a sexist way is not sufficient. As long as society and power view women and men as different and unequal, gendered discourses in the language will persist. (Moustafa, 2015: 49) Although to change language may not be effective on social changes directly, it can contribute to consciousness-raising and draw public’s attention to the sexist and discriminatory language. Since, before a traditional practice can be changed, there should be a social awareness that accepts this problem exists. (ibid.: 51) For solution, we can start saying “woman” instead of “lady” to draw public’s attention to this matter and we may have a transforming effect on the perspective on woman’s sexuality. Nevertheless, forbidding this sexist language and insisting others not to say these sexist idioms without understanding the sexist logic behind, will be non-functional. Because, this means intervening in language in an unnatural way and it can cause a backlash. In my opinion, we can overcome the sexist language by struggling with traditional practices which reinforce gendered divisions and stopping to behave women differently both in social and professional life. After these sexist practices are removed from our culture, language will be purified from gendered discourses in natural process.

Bibliography

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McGinn, Marie. Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1997. Print.

Moustafa, Basant Sayed Mohamed. Linguistic Gender Identity Construction in Political Discourse: A Corpus-assisted Analysis of the Primary Speeches of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Egypt, 2015. PDF.

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