Misogyny - 1 The Umbilical Cord Between the Primitive Man and His Enemy

The Umbilical Cord Between the Primitive Man and His Enemy

The first and closest distinction encountered by Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the distinction of gender. Whether named or not, the name of this distinction is "woman and man." It did not take long for the hunter man, who viewed everything different from himself as a danger and positioned it as an enemy, to view the physical differences of the woman as a weakness and push her into the category of the 'other,' even though they were of the same species.

So, what is the reason behind the primitive man—who violently and cruelly destroyed every obstacle he encountered, burned forests, slaughtered humans and animals, and wiped out the lineage of many living things—not completely destroying the woman?

While searching for the answer to this question, man finds himself in the greatest paradoxical conflict of his life. He cannot destroy her because he is umbilical-bound to the woman in every sense. Destroying the woman, to whom he owes his existence, would mean destroying himself.

The Negative Effects of Settled Life on Women

However, the transition to a settled life 12,000 years ago, with the end of the Ice Age, made the differences between the positions of men and women even more pronounced to the detriment of women.

The most important effect of settled life on women was that babies could now also be fed with the milk of domesticated animals. Before settled life, the breastfeeding period protected women from pregnancy for a while, if not completely. The shortening of this period caused women to become pregnant at more frequent intervals; having to experience the pregnancy process for 9 months every year instead of once every 3-4 years, women fell far behind men in terms of physical resilience. So much so that within this system, the woman's position was reduced almost to the level of property.

The Industrial Revolution and Cheap Labor

However, the Industrial Revolution, which corresponds to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, would not fully accept the patriarchal structure's imprisonment of women in the status of second-class citizens, using them as domestic slaves and keeping them away from business life. With the spread of factories, the great need for labor would cause factory owners, who wanted to take advantage of the reduced social status of women, to include women and children in the business world at low wages.

For the woman who could not escape her secondary position even while entering the business world, this development is a lesser-of-two-evils beginning when compared to thousands of years of captivity.

Friedrich Engels defends exactly this idea in his work titled The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats), written in 1884. According to Engels, it is an obvious fact that women who participate in production are subjected to exploitation in the capitalist order. However, when this situation is handled as part of the class struggle, the fact that women can leave their homes and work can be seen as a development that paves the way for the emancipation of women along with social revolution.

The Comfortable Paradise of the Patriarchal Man

However, since civilization and modernity do not follow equal processes everywhere in the world, in places where women cannot take part in business life and cannot be emancipated, women still have to lead a life as domestic slaves, deprived of their human rights.

As of 2023, the labor force participation rate of women in Turkey has been recorded as approximately 36% according to TUIK data. This rate drops to 18% when looking at some provinces in Southeastern Anatolia; that is, in these provinces, approximately 82 out of every hundred women are still deprived of business life and, consequently, the right to make decisions about their own lives by becoming emancipated.

So what will save women from this position? It should not be forgotten that modernity and civilization is a process that a person must force upon themselves through basic education, laws, and law enforcement. In other words, it is a process that requires the patriarchal man to leave his comfort zone. In the area where the man in this position feels most comfortable, there are none of these kinds of pressures, because regardless of his position, just because he is a man, there are female servants around him called mother or sister who serve him from his early childhood. These women clean, wash his clothes, and prepare his food; when he becomes an adult, the wife takes the place of the mother. This woman both satisfies his sexual urges and performs his personal service by giving birth to his children for life. The man does not want to leave this comfort zone.

If Man is the Master and Woman is the Slave, What Becomes of Social Development?

However, what is known is that communities where the man is the master and the woman is the slave, and where she is not allowed to participate in education and working life, cannot make progress on the path of civilization and therefore cannot raise their living standards. If we consider that every male child born into society is educated by these “domestic slave women mothers,” the math we need to determine the level of the community simplifies rapidly. Expecting a human child born to a primitive master and a slave woman whose rights have been usurped to grow up as a free, productive, and healthy individual from the home they live in is an absurdity. Exceptions certainly exist, but lasting social development needs more than the exception.

At this point, the only element that can protect women from the hostility of men is the man himself. Even though he knows he is physically stronger, the man must choose not to intentionally harm a woman, a child, or any living thing, by internalizing the requirements of the modern society to which he belongs, and through a sense of morality and righteousness he creates within himself.

However, when we look at the number of femicides committed in the world, rapes, child brides, child mothers, the number of those forced into prostitution, and the number of women kept away from basic education and business life and forced to be domestic slaves, we conclude that the world cannot be perceived as a modern and civilized place for women. At this point, it is necessary to look at the work and solutions of civilized human communities that are struggling with their own weaknesses; in this vein, it is our duty to write and explain the definition and varieties of the concept of misogyny constantly and tirelessly. Because there is no other way to get out of this dark corridor where girl children are buried.

The continuation of the misogyny topic will be in the next article...