‘State policies deepen violence against women’

 

Rabia Önver

 

NEWS CENTRE - Pointing out that the state deepens violence against women and social degeneration with its family policies, Sociologist Pınar Şen Zengin said, ‘Women pay the biggest price in the family structure where masculine ideologies are imposed’ and pointed to the increase in domestic violence and similar problems.

 

While drawing attention to 25 November, the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, it is necessary to mention the problems caused by the effects of state policies on the family structure on women. Domestic violence, child marriages, gender inequality and the increase in sexist pressures within the family are among the main difficulties faced by women in society. There is increasing evidence that this distortion in the family structure increases the oppression against women. While these data point to the seriousness of the problem, raising social awareness against all forms of violence against women and developing structural solutions is one of the important steps to be taken.

 

In this section of our dossier, we draw attention to how the state's family policies deepen gender inequality and social decay by causing violence and oppression against women within the family.

 

Familism and the effects of state policies

 

Although the family is seen as a stabilising element of society, political interventions through familism can lead to serious pressures in the lives of individuals. These policies, while presenting the family as an area of ‘protection’, limit the social roles of women and deepen gender inequality within the family. As the ties between families weaken under the influence of capitalist modernity and special war policies, the family structure is both degenerating and disintegrating. The preservation of traditional gender roles in the family structure, especially in small settlements, condemns women to a male-dominated structure.

 

Domestic violence

 

The policies developed by the state under the discourse of ‘protecting the family’ leave women unprotected within the family rather than preventing domestic violence. According to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), 4 out of every 10 women in Turkey have been subjected to physical or sexual violence at least once in their lives. This rate is higher especially in small settlements. Violence is not only physical, but also psychological and economic pressures. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data, 30 percent of women worldwide have been subjected to violence at some point in their lives. In Turkey, this rate is even higher than the WHO average. This reveals the impact of gender inequality.

 

Child marriages and gender inequality

 

Child marriage is an important problem that limits women's participation in social life. According to UNICEF reports, 650 million women worldwide are married as children. In Turkey, approximately 150 thousand child marriages take place every year. 97 per cent of these marriages are with girls. According to TurkStat data, approximately 11 out of every thousand people married in Turkey in 2022 were married as children. Child marriages, which are also common in Kurdistan cities, cause girls to be cut off from education and their lives to be limited at an early age.

 

Women's social roles and the impact of state policy

 

The policies developed by the government against women under the name of protecting the family structure reinforce gender inequality and limit women's place in society. According to the Global Gender Gap Report, Turkey ranks 124th among 146 countries in terms of gender equality. Women's participation rates in economic and political life are quite low and this situation makes women more dependent within the family. According to TurkStat Employment Data, while the labour force participation rate of women in Turkey is 32 percent, this rate is over 70 percent for men. Women's inability to gain economic independence causes them to be subjected to more pressure within the family and to be unable to control their own lives.

 

Sociologist Pınar Şen Zengin made evaluations on the deepening moral corruption and social decay and the effects of the family profile constructed by the government on them.

 

‘States aim to make the family a part of their ideology’

 

Stating that the family is an important factor in social corruption and decay, Pınar Şen noted that the family is also important in the reconstruction of society. Pointing out that states or governments with a masculine mentality or governed by a uniform ideology have some policies on families, Pınar Şen said, ‘These policies and ideologies aim to index family members and make the family a part of their ideology. The perspective of families that have been deprived of their own cultural dynamics, beliefs, moral values, lifestyles or have been subjected to corruption in some way is an indicator of the cold war that states and powers are actually trying to show under the name of reconstruction and modernity. Therefore, while the concept of degeneration is called degeneration within communities that have lost their own values, it can be evaluated under the name of reconstruction and ‘unity, loyalty’ for the unions that are the masculine prototype of the power and power's own ideologies.’ 

 

‘Social values should be transmitted through the family’

 

Pointing out that corruption is increasing especially in Kurdistan and Central Anatolia, Pınar Şen said, ‘This lifestyle, which is shown and promised by social media, technology and western life, actually aims to encourage a little more. At this point, one of the most important values that families should do is to transfer social values through the family. We can see very well that education, morality and the first form of learning comes from the family and the effects of the family institution on children and its members. These values, our daily behaviours, practices, traditions and customs and perhaps one of the most important things is our mother tongue. Along with our mother tongue, keeping our cultural symbols alive, our reading of history and our beliefs are very important. We do not have a problem with the area of our beliefs. Here, we think that how beliefs are taught and what the real beliefs and the way of believing are should be conveyed against the policies carried out on beliefs.

 

 The protection of cultural existence and identity is actually a phenomenon that is transferred to family members through families. Therefore, we think that families have great duties in the context of being educators, gaining identity and protecting cultural identity. Cultural values and identities are attributed an alienation with degeneration. Karl Marx's ‘alienation’ (According to Marx, if workers are alienated from the products of their labour, the reason lies in the alienation in the production process, that is, in the act of production itself. The product is in reality a continuation of the act of production. In other words, if the product of labour is alienated, production itself must be an active process of alienation). As Marx mentioned in the concept of alienation, we can talk about two kinds of alienation’.

 

‘Tribes reflect the ideologies of the state’

 

Speaking about the family and tribal structures intertwined with the state, Pınar Şen pointed out that if the tribes are in relation with the states, the state reflects its ideologies and paradigms to the families through the tribes. Emphasising that this is mostly tried to be built through women, Pınar Şen said, ‘It starts to build through the roles of men. It tries to express it through Islam (political Islam), the religious belief of the region. This can be seen as one of the most important factors in the decay of the moral values of societies and their coming under the domination of the current power. However, the way to refute these methods is for the family to enter into atmospheres that can improve its cultural dynamics. In other words, I think that it will improve with the institutions and organisations that will do this and the intermediaries that can serve its cultural values and nature.’  

 

‘Pushing women to a subordinate position shows deepening corruption’

 

Noting that certain ideologies that try to be constructed with the members of the family but which are also executed and legitimised by capitalism are placed in the family, Pınar Şen said that these started to emerge especially with male figures in authoritarian and hierarchical structures. Pınar Şen said, ‘This authority actually starts with pushing women and women and children into the background and grounding its own hierarchy within the family unit. As a result of this grounding, all concepts or cultural values, which we call tradition and custom, began to be reinforced with the concept we call masculine cultural pressure. Cultural decay also came into question. The fact that women are pushed to a subordinate position shows how deep social decay and degeneration have become.

 

Hüda-Par, Hezbollah and family... 

 

Pınar Şen exemplified the Narin Güran massacre in terms of the extent of social decay and degeneration and said: ‘A girl disappeared in Diyarbakır from 21 August to 8 September and family dynamics were incredibly fragmented. Many factors are thought to underlie this. In particular, the uncle's current position as mukhtar shows his relations with the dynamics of the state or the government. There is the influence of Hüda-Par and Hezbollah, which are trying to show themselves incredibly in the region. Although this situation appears before us as a planned scenario, we think that it may be a theatre arranged in order to silence this dirty policy made by the real people involved in this incident. Therefore, there may be the influence of Hüda-Par, which continues to dominate the region, or the influence of the understanding of Islam that Hezbollah, which is its product, is trying to create. What they want to create are family proto-types, especially in these regions. Why are they trying to create family proto-types in this way? How do they position families? The way they position families, the roles they attribute to families, regulate the possibilities in the functioning of the mechanisms they call the deep state. Narin's murder shows how the current flow of information is tried to be concealed rather than the issue of her murder. This is also related to existing family structures.’  

 

‘The family must build self-representative cultural institutions’

 

Stating that one of the factors to prevent the decay in the family structure is to build cultural institutions that represent the family's own dynamics, Pınar Şen underlined that state institutions will not exhibit a curative norm in this sense. Pınar Şen concluded her words as follows: ‘Because we think that there is no phenomenon that can be brought to the family structures by a Ministry that depends on the ideas of masculine power and comes from a masculine formation. When we look at the structure of families in Turkey, we see that each family structure has its own cultural dynamics, beliefs and values. Especially the Kurds, who are seen as a separated ethnic group or minority group, on the contrary, the Turks want to be brought closer to their own structural units, drawn to their own cultural dynamics and made dependent on their cultural values. In order to prevent this, ideological constructions in the region need to be reproduced. Especially in recent times, the fact that our children do not know their mother tongue, are unaware of their culture, are not aware of their moral values, and exhibit themselves mostly through Turkish identity, Turkish culture and Turkish language shows how double consciousness has actually developed in this society.’