When it comes to gender equality…
Abdullah Çakıroğlu, who kicked Ayşegül Terzi on a public bus because she was wearing shorts, was released in the first hearing of the trial on Oct. 26. It is not possible not to protest against this decision. In fact, anybody with a conscience reacted and voiced their protests.
What Çakıroğlu said in his “defense” lacked all intelligence. There is no need to repeat it.
It is also meaningless to try to search for something that resembles Çakıroğlu, because such a comparison would be an insult to that thing.
So much has been written about gender equality. The first form of inequality in human history has started with settled life and the advent of property. Then, the physical strength of men started to see women as something that could be owned, which constituted the start of gender inequality. Until this day, this inequality has continued in various doses as the effort of men to dominate woman.
Because of this “domination” of men - moving from physical power to economic power, from economic power to social and political power - humanity has never been able to reach the natural equality between women and men.
This natural equality is best defined in the words of the scientist Dorothy Lee, who said equality is not a principle to be applied, but rather it is in the very nature of things, as a product of the democratic structure of culture itself. In such societies there is no effort to achieve equality; actually there is not even the concept of equality, Lee wrote. Most of the time there is not even a linguistic mechanism to make a comparison. Rather, there is already absolute respect for all humans and all individuals, regardless of age.
Because there is no inequality, there is also no “equality” issue. Thus there is no such concept. The community that Lee refers to is the one that has not met the concept of property or ownership, and which has therefore been looked down upon by future communities as “primitive.”
Now, humanity is trying to find this equality through the legal system and the concept of “justice.”
In the example of Ayşegül Terzi, it cannot find it.
As Thomas Jefferson said, justice must be “equal and exact,” otherwise there is no justice at all. For it to be equal and exact, justice has to equalize all those who are “unequal,” not those who are already “equal.”
Natural equality is in the equal role of every creature that lives as a part of the diversity of nature. It sustains the balance of the whole.
Gender equality, just like other natural needs of humanity, is an absolute need to be met. It is, as thinkers call it, an “indispensable minimum” just like bread, water and air.
It is indispensable because it is only possible to be a free individual in a society where equality among the “unequal ones” has been achieved. This equality has been destroyed by men.
Reaching this ideal, regardless of what level of development a society has, is very difficult for all societies today. But this difficulty should not stop the striving to reach it.
In those societies we define as “contemporary,” equality in this field, as in other fields, is searched for through law. This effort, including those who create law and who practice law, should start with education in the family.
In order to create a society that does not create an “Abdullah Çakıroğlu,” the first step is starting with education within the family. We should together raise awareness of natural equality through truly deterrent punishments, not the ineffective ones we have today.