Turkiye is actually a patriarchal society, and you can see the clearest proof of this in the proverbs and idioms we have in Turkish. Sayings like ‘He who does not beat his daughter will beat his own knees’ or ‘Look at the mother before you marry the daughter’ used to be super common in Turkiye. You don’t really see nearly as many proverbs or idioms targeted at men; even when they exist, people don’t use them that much. I mean, sure, there are idioms like ‘You couldn’t even become a handle for an axe’—which basically means being unsuccessful—but they aren’t as harsh or mean as the ones aimed at women. Even though these sayings are pretty negative, they aren’t used as often as they once were, at least not among the younger generations.
The thing is, there are just so many problems regarding gender in Turkiye. In Turkiye, people think they have total freedom, but that’s not really how reality works. Men carry a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders, and these duties cause serious problems in daily life, like constant stress, exhaustion, and basically missing out on life. However, women also suffer from this whole situation. Women have made a significant entry into the workforce recently, and it looks like this trend will continue for a while. Yet this has only meant that women now face the same career struggles men usually do. Domestic chores, which used to be strictly assigned to women, are no longer solely their responsibility; thanks to the new generation, these responsibilities are now shared between both partners. The old mindset of ‘men bring home the bacon while women do the housework’ is slowly fading away. People are becoming much more conscious, and it looks like this shift will keep going. This is great because women really need to have their own careers and financial independence. In today’s capitalist system, women have just as much right to survive and thrive as men do.
Alongside these changes, we can see a transformation in the figure of fatherhood. Modern fathers no longer act with strict authority over their kids; instead, they raise them to be more independent and capable of making their own decisions. This is because the new generation of fathers has realized that imposing high levels of authority isn’t an effective way to teach a child. Consequently, they encourage their children to make their own choices to get them ready for the future. Since kids who make their own decisions also have to take responsibility for them, they can better understand and analyze the consequences of their mistakes. Furthermore, fathers being actively involved in this upbringing process lightens the childcare burden on mothers, giving them the chance to devote time to their own careers and personal lives.
But still, let’s be real, childcare is mostly the mother’s job, at least for the first 2 or 3 years. The mother plays such a huge role here. Let’s face it, fathers aren’t as lucky as mothers when it comes to taking care of a baby; they just don’t have those same parental instincts. A big reason for this is that men simply don’t have those ‘motherhood hormones.’ But this also brings some responsibilities. Mothers should breastfeed and raise their kids for at least two years. Since the baby and the mother really need each other, she shouldn’t skip out on care and should stay with the baby as much as possible. Turkiye has been working on this lately, too. There’s a new thing for female civil servants: a total of 24 weeks of maternity leave—8 weeks before and 16 weeks after the birth. It’s the same for dads too; their leave is being increased from 5 days to 10 days.
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