Men Found the Hidden Toffees
Okay, in a few seconds the subway will stop; all you have to do is keep yourself away from that man on your right while getting out. Look at the way he stares at you, he is certainly aware of the female standing right next to him. Slowly move to the left. Hang on, are you blind or something? Didn’t you see that group of teenager boys, who are just looking at your tight pants? Why did I even wear something so tight that exposes all of my features? I wish my coat was long enough to cover my legs. Why are they still looking at me? Are they going to follow me when we get out of this subway? Oh no! The subway has stopped, you have to be fast. Button up your coat and throw yourself out, immediately. Get faster for God’s sake, someone is following you. I swear I can hear a man’s breathe after me. Now you will slowly turn your head and check if there is someone behind you. One-two-three. There is definitely someone behind, and he is following me. What should I do? Should I scream? Should I start running and beg for help? Oh, never mind, he just turned to the right…
What were your first thoughts when you read these sentences? Do I sound schizophrenic, or am I just pure lunatic? Although both of them make total sense, they are not the right answer. I am just a simple woman, a woman living in Turkey.
Living in Turkey trains women to be a fictional writer better than any other colleges. After all those articles about raped and killed women bodies-not necessarily about a whole body, sometimes our men like to cut off some of the parts of the bodies- Turkish women start to be a writer, a writer for themselves. Creating these paranoid fictional stories, just like mine on a subway, helps the women to be alerted and ready for any possible attacks. The stories are the self-made adrenaline hormone that Turkish women learnt how to synthesize.
Even though as Turkish women we do our best to protect ourselves, these solutions that we came up with are not enough; as violence against women continues to occupy the news every evening. With men having that “hungry” attitude towards women, the world will witness more news about rape and violence. Those ravenous thoughts that Turkish men have are the outcomes of the discrimination between Turkish men and women, which lasts since the Ottoman Empire. Forcing women to wear hijab and making them cover any “distractive” areas of their bodies, or staring at women like they are out of this world when they enter a Turkish coffee house, which is full of men, created this hungriness. Turkish men feel this deeply, because they are not accustomed to seeing women. They see women as how a child sees the “hidden toffees”, since it is forbidden and not common, when they find one, they want to benefit from it hundred percent.
To end these fictional stories that are being written everyday by thousands of Turkish women, this hungriness should stop. There are many things that feed this emotion, and misinterpreting religion is certainly one of them. Since Islam is used as a weapon in Turkey rather than a peacekeeper, Turkish society creates its own taboos and applies them on women. As seen in daily life, making women hide under that peace of clothing doesn’t inhibit men’s sexual thoughts, they actually exacerbate it. Holding off women from men never worked in this country, it just created a secret passion towards women. To stop this cycle, Turkish schools should have a proper religion and gender education, which should aim educating both young girls and boys. Turkish women should get tired while walking freely in their preferred outfit, not while creating a fictional paranoia story.