The stolen life of the forced domestic woman

"Now the windows hold the night in its place."

(Virginia Woolf)

As the image of the outside world fades in the evening light and the landscape dissolves, rippling in the dark void, the objects remaining on the inside of the glass become more solid, clinging to the warm yellow lamps on the ceiling, and thus the world inside the house settles firmly into place. Burgundy velvet armchairs, floral curtains reaching from ceiling to floor, the emerald green carpet covering the room, cinnamon linden tea steaming with a murmur on the stove with its reddened iron lid. As the aroma of the tea mingles with the scent of pine trees crackling in the stove, the highland soup bubbling on the burner, the tomato-sauce potato dish in the oven, the seasonal winter salad—everything was ready. The master of the house could press the doorbell at any moment with hot bread in his hands. The children playing on the green carpet, the warm bread bought from the bakery on the corner, the curtains, the carpets—the whole world was in its place.

These are the most peaceful hours for a housewife. The curtains are drawn, and the restlessness of the daylight hours remains behind the black glass. In these hours, the woman becomes visible. Although these hours, with every detail carefully considered, may seem like an ordinary dinner, the situation is different for the lady of the house. No one else notices; the ironed curtains, the polished forks and spoons, the sparkling water glasses. In this palace, the title deed of which does not belong to her and the rent of which she could not pay on her own, she is a queen whose primary duty is slavery. In exchange for this position, the woman has given up her freedom and her soul.

Before dawn, the stove is lit. As the wood flames roar against the walls of the stove like a passing locomotive, the children wake up. Various jams, sauces, brined cheeses, and toasted breads that she boiled throughout the summer are laid out on the table. After breakfast, everyone is sent off to the outside world. The woman is left alone with her house; the rooms cleaned from top to bottom, the dishes washed and dried, the sheets boiled until they are white as gum, the clothes to be ironed, the rush of cooking, and the evening hours once again...

She must rebuild the world she has created every morning. The infinitely repeating rituals and the state of constant rushing are, in fact, her method of escaping her own consciousness. However, it is impossible not to see the veiled reflections of the desire for freedom, which she has imprisoned in her subconscious, in the woman's state of mind. Like every human being, the woman, who by nature wants to know, learn, travel, live, and be free, is aware that she is imprisoned within an endless and emotional slavery through the attributes of motherhood and wifehood.

As the possibility of being free moves further away from her, obsessive cracks begin to form between her own perception of reality and the perception of reality in the outside world. It becomes very important that there are no water spots left on the pot she washes. All the laundry hung on the line must be in a straight row, the spoons must not yellow, and the porcelain sets must never be ruined. If one of the porcelain plates breaks, her world falls apart, because there are 12 of those plates, and it is unacceptable for the number to drop to 11. She combs the fringes of the carpet and counts the pleats of the curtains. She never uses the expensive guest porcelain; the crystal glasses are merely ornaments for the display cabinet.

When the severe obstruction and pressure she experiences turn into obsessive fixations, everyone around her attributes these obsessive behaviors to being a good housewife. No one sees the screaming soul behind these obsessions and neurotic seizures. Or they do not want to see, because no slave owner wants to heal their loyal slave who dedicates her life to her master to an obsessive degree.

When the woman's ailments begin to disrupt her daily routines, she is taken to a psychologist as a last resort. The antidepressants she uses are not enough to save the housewife from slavery and turn her into a free person. In any case, the goal is never to heal the woman who has had to give up her name, her identity, and the possibility of being free, or to open the doors of a new life for her.

The main goal is to suppress the woman's delusions with antidepressants and ensure that she disturbs her masters, who expect service from her, less.

Since the seeds of slavery in the woman's mind were planted by her own family during early childhood, the delusions she experiences are condemned by her own family first and foremost. Thus, the character of the woman, who has nowhere to go and nowhere to return, is broken many times throughout her life's journey.

The world of the male child, on the other hand, is shaped outside from the very beginning. He can play soccer on the street for hours, he is applauded when he joins the soccer team in high school, and he is apprenticed to a pharmacy or a greengrocer during the summer vacation. The whole family mobilizes for him to acquire a profession or get an education. If his father is a tradesman, he definitely goes to his side after school, and they come home together in the evening. Being independent and standing on his own two feet is constantly praised.

The situation is different for the girl child. No girl child goes to her father, who is a furniture maker, after school to learn a trade; she does not apprentice at a repair shop or a greengrocer, she is not praised for playing soccer very well, and she is even shamed for it.

She is started on housework at a very young age, and she begins to be scolded at the age of 11, asking what she will do in her husband's house with such clumsiness.

A terrible place called the husband's house is constantly suggested as the final destination where the girl child will eventually go. The idea that it is the final destination is true, but after this point, it is very difficult for the woman to show any development regarding herself or to focus only on her own life. Because once she marries, she is expected to take on the role of a private servant to her husband, who is an adult like herself.

She cooks his meals, washes his dishes, cleans his house, washes his clothes, gives birth to his children, and serves the children she has given birth to for life. Meanwhile, the man is busy showing his presence in the outside world; if he has school, he studies, acquires a profession, becomes a member of clubs and associations, goes to soccer matches, goes out at night with his friends, has business trips, enters politics, and shows his presence in the public sphere. Therefore, the combing of carpet fringes, the water spot on the pot, and the pleats of the curtain never catch the man's eye.

Rainer Maria Rilke says the following about Rodin: 'I realized that his house was an absolute necessity for Rodin, a shelter to protect him from the cold, a roof under which to lie. He was completely indifferent to the house; the house did not affect his loneliness or his withdrawal into himself. His nest, his shadow, his refuge, his serenity were within himself; his sky, his forest, and the river that nothing could stop were himself.'

Because in order for a person to be able to create their home, which is their refuge, within themselves, they must have proven their existence in the outside world. In the world you try to create and transform with art, music, engineering, physics, mathematics, and chemistry, infinite possibilities arise before you. Curtains and crystal vases become unimportant; your life, your consciousness, and your existence do not get stuck between the stove in the kitchen and the dining table in the living room. You break the dark windows and flap your wings toward the limitless deep blue sky where there are infinite possibilities.

A person who is deprived of such a possibility of freedom and the possibility of changing the world and changing along with the world is considered null and void. And this is exactly what patriarchal practices expect from a woman; to live inside her house without showing her presence in the outside world and to disappear there without leaving any trace.

Arendt sees the destruction of human freedom as the humiliation of humanity by totalitarian regimes. In a very accurate term, this is a humiliation, yes, because the obstruction and disregard of a person's freedom is the greatest insult that can be done to them and the most severe punishment that can be given. This evil, which the masculine world has made ordinary and banal, is a grave crime that the patriarchal tradition has been committing against women all over the world for thousands of years and continues to insist on committing.