Introduction
Simone de Beauvoir used the term “gender” in his work entitled “The Second Sex,” published in in 1949 and ever since it publication the literary work has provoked extreme responses due to the perceived sexual scandal that clung into the aura of the book. At the advent of the book’s release, it became a source of insight and inspiration to several women, but despite the positive acceptance from women feminists seemed to be rather ambivalent. The author exhibits womanhood in a different perspective in his writing that most of the people in the early seem to disagree. However, as contemporary culture started to emerge, the perception about gender appear to have changed over the past decades. The objective of this discussion is to explore de Beauvoir’s concepts about gender as it relates to gender in modern Turkey. This includes analysis of the contemporary issues discussed in the book and determines its relevance to the gender culture in modern Turkey.
It is apparent that women in the country experienced centuries of oppression from its society until its 1923 bid for acceptance as European state, which paved the way to its social modernization. However, the changes in gender perception in the country appeared to have caused more harm rather than beneficial due to the created illusion that the same level of recognition similar to Turkish women was given to women to other Islamic nation. On the contrary, despite the rights provided by the Turkish legal system to women in the country there are still portions of Turkish women that re deprived of liberation as described by de Beauvoir in his writings. The question of whether the gender concept described by de Beauvoir in his 1949 book is still prevalent in the modernized Turkish society and how the literary work relates to the social realities of women in Turkey.
De Beauvoir’s Definition of Second Sex
Everyone seeking for literary work that compels justice and freedom for women should look at the words from “The Second Sex”. According to de Beauvoir, depriving women of their right such political right to vote is the same depriving them of health, education, and money. The analysis was stemmed from the theoretical underpinnings of sexism, which is regarded as the most powerful contribution to feminism. She argues that in that the society in general view men as universal and women as the particular. Therefore, women are often placed in the position where they are given two choices one is to be left imprisoned in their own femininity while the other is be obliged to wear a mask of abstract genderless identity. As an example, within an abstract conversation, a man would say to his wife that she is stating arguments because she is a woman. However, if the wife would reply that she states her argument because it is true, then her own subjectivity is being eliminated, but if the wife replies that she is stating an argument because she is a woman, therefore, the wife is somewhat imprisoned in her gender. The first statement, the wife appears to give up her lived experience to state the truth, while in the second statement the wife appears to be renouncing her claim by stating something that is regarded of general validity.
The Context in Relation to Women in Modern Turkey
Putting that concept into the realities of contemporary Turkish women, it appears that the two sides of women gender drawn from the previous example encompass the notion of emancipation, but still not liberated. This is the case of Turkish women where the legal system emancipated them from oppression, but in reality the women are still oppressed by the patriarchal system of society. There appears to be a dichotomy between the two types of women in modern Turkish society, the first one is the emancipated-Western woman while the other one is described as the traditional or not liberated. De Beauvoir warns the reader of the belief that feminism should impose a choice between difference and equality. However, in relation to the modern Turkish women, there are dilemmas drawn from the divided picture of social equality and difference where one Turkish woman can be seen wearing a mini dress walking side-by-side with her sister on a veil. The term of equality can be observed in the way women in Turkey participates in the political environment through voting and offered the same economic opportunity as men. However, the problem of expressing feminine identity differs greatly on how they carry themselves in public that creates the contrast. One is highly liberated to wear and act as they please in public while the other is a picture of conservativeness in wearing a veil.
If de Beauvoir is right in stating that femininity is a choice between difference and equality, therefore, the big question is why Turkish women remains in the traditional while the other lives in contemporary. Provided that women in Turkey were freed from social oppression, it is still apparent that modernity has failed to generalize its imposed change on feminine views. This is because if modernity allowed women to wear clothes as short as they like, then there appears to be a problem that hinders other women to follow the trends of modernity and remain under the veil. It is apparent that Muslim women are highly conservative and a slightest hint of public misbehavior or even inside the household will lead to public condemnation, but none can be said for women wearing mini skirt when behaving similarly. The sense of equality was regarded as different among women wearing veil and those that are not. Going back to de Beauvoir’s arguments, she stated that identity is the effect of one’s choice and actions to particular situation. Furthermore, the book encompasses the idea that one becomes a woman and not merely born as one. Therefore, if women in Turkey is facing divided perception about rights and equality, but one woman cannot act the same as the other, then being deprived of social equality is a choice.
Realization and Discussion
De Beauvoir clearly emphasized disparities between genders in his writing, but at the same time advocates the feminist view of justice and equality to be upheld in male dominated society. After several decades and numerous campaigns to bring the advocacy into reality disparities still exists even in a former highly conservative Turkish society. The modernization of Turkey during the early 20th century led to legislations calling for equal social, political, and economic equality. Years after, the society started to adapt into the Western ideologies and cultural practices that often led many people to believe that the female sector was already emancipated from social oppression of the male dominant society. However, the reality behind the perceived freedom from oppression is speculated to have concealed only by the said legislation, but the former structure and perception towards women remains the same. This brings the relevance of de Beauvoir’s work to the context of gender issues in Turkey where legislations for equality was speculated to be constructed from conventional ideologies of bread-winner male and home-maker female.
It can be assumed from reading de Beauvoir’s texts that its context greatly contradicts with Turkey’s perception of women despite the aforementioned legislative imposition of equality. This is because the Turkish cultural view women to be good mothers and wives basically due to the common notion in the country that woman upholds the duty of protecting the boundaries of cultural mechanism that assures the Turkish community of its differentiation from other societies. In addition, the country is largely composed of Muslim communities that further increase women symbolism that differentiates Muslim culture from the rest. Given that the country has embraced the Western culture, Turkish women still shares the same ideology that women are second sex and that their existence depends on surviving the system constructed by men according to de Beauvoir. Furthermore, the usual gender role of women in the Turkish culture is geared towards the domestic purpose, which encompasses the reason that female gender is labeled as second sex.
The old Turkish tradition view woman as less competitive to men in terms of social, economic, and political capacity, which was apparently inherited by the succeeding generations up to the contemporaries despite even after social modernization was achieved. De Beauvoir described the same dilemma in her texts stating that one of the impediments of female liberation is mainly housework. There is an apparent belief that women were doomed to follow the continuation of species that are bound only within the confines if her home and does not have a place in the larger society. However, the contemporaries of Turkish culture believes that such perception has long been changed by embracing the Western ideologies where women are being given equal chance to excel in their own chosen field. At the surface, women in Turkey appears to have well-adopted to social modernity, but underneath the legislative reinforcement of equality patriarchal system still exists that impedes total liberation of women in the country.
Conclusion
De Beauvoir emphasized the need for social change in terms of perception towards women that traditional gender roles should not be an impediment to total liberation of women particularly in Turkey. The country seated between the boundaries of the two continents there is still an apparent gap between the conception of liberated women and conception of equality.
Works Cited
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. H M. Parshley. London, Great Britain: Jonathan Cape Thirty Bedford Square, 1953. Print.
