An(other) Outrageous Civil War in Turkey

Male perpetrators killed 257 women in Turkey according to the data compiled by bianet in 2011. We could summarize the report to save up some time, but we won’t. You should read this article (signed Çiçek Tahaoğlu) together with all the previous reports in bianet that are labeled violence against women and then this report to get even more horrified by the data on rapes, harassments, the portion of girls to adult women, excuses of men etc. There is no such thing as spending more-than-enough time for this subject.

Our calculators tell that the above number means some 21 murders a month. Now, compare this number with any other civil war you are aware of, just to see how they fit together. While a civil war is of course a more complicated political phenomenon, we propose that the social outrage and indignation towards the patriarchal system should be equivalent to one in case of a civil war.

The war against women is all over the country. From streets to homes, from strangers to family members, from television channels to courts, from pornography to parliamentarians… it comprises all the life. Therefore the defense line must be the whole country as well. And as the attack is a very well organized one (from the declarations of government leaders – especially the current ones – to the capillary vessels of the social fabric), the response must be well-organized too.

This is a call for unity and solidarity against the patriarchal system and the social mechanisms that reproduce it.

Note: We follow the activities of the platform named “We will stop the murdering of women”, that organizes demonstrations in Istanbul every other week. This commentary should also be interpreted as an invitation to participate in their events or, more generally, to join any of the many political organizations that aims at systemic solutions to patriarchy.


Ege M. Diren