Two wrongs don’t make a right, right? Yet in Turkey, a close shave with a controversial motion dubbed by many the “child rape bill” proves that quite the opposite is considered true when talking about the abuse of women.
Under the proposal put forward last week, men convicted of sex with an underage girl before 11 November this year would be pardoned if they married their victim, as long as the act was committed without “force, threat or any other restriction on consent”.
The shocking bill met with support in parliament last Thursday but failed to reach the necessary majority and was later withdrawn for review ahead of a final parliamentary vote. Thankfully, there are now reports that it has been dropped entirely, but it has highlighted once again a worrying side to Turkish culture, where the rights of the family and the importance of men within it are placed before the protection of the basic rights of women and girls. [146 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 64 votes] The author writes: "Both moves expose the extent of Turkey’s retreat into what was already a toxically male-skewed culture."
It might be male skewed, but there is a central ideology used to justify it.
The author links to the 2015 global gender gap study and points out that Turkey is in 130th. The bottom 10 is Egypt, Mali, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan, Iran, Chad, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen. They are all Muslim majority countries yet the author makes little reference at all to religion at all in the article. If you care about women's rights then you have to confront patriarchal religions.
[2ND 53] We can say "toxic male culture"
but no critical mention of the march towards Sharia Law and authoritarian Islam.
Furthermore for Europe, if these toxic men are to blame, why would it be classed as xenophobic to not want Turkey to be able to have freedom of movement. It would increase the number of these sexist men in western societies, putting women and vulnerable people in Europe at risk.
[3RD 51] .... By framing this a "toxic male" problem, all you do is reveal ideologically driven bias and alienate half of the audience, who might otherwise constructively engage with this problem instead of feeling themselves under attack for... a bill in front of the Turkish parliament which has now been withdrawn.
You're also wrong. Women are not passive vessels who have no role or voice in upholding societal norms. In fact, more Turkish women voted for Erdogan than did Turkish men: ....
[4TH 47] Woman and the vulnerable always suffer in Islamic cultures. I hope that this makes people who believe Islam is harmless reconsider this view. [Guardian Cif] Read more
