Response to President Erdogan of Turkey

Two days ago Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly announced that women are lesser than men and cannot be treated equally. He accused feminists of rejecting motherhood. He based his statement on the Muslim belief, according to him, that women are meant for motherhood and childbearing and outside of these roles, their subservience to men is mandatory. He claimed that western women, feminists, liberal thinkers, have no idea about the true role of women and that modern ideas are creeping in to corrupt women of the Islamic faith, distort their belief6, and weaken Islam.

Interesting comments from one whose own faith lauds and praises certain women of Islam who apparently didn’t follow the role of motherhood. Mohammed’s first wife, Khadija, was a merchant, the bread-winner, without whose support Mohammed may not have had the courage to continue his spiritual mission. She was also childless. One other of Mohammed’s wives, his last and historically considered his favourite wife was Ayesha. At age six she captivated the aging prophet, at age nine, she officially ‘married’ him. Did she ever bear children, experience motherhood? According to all known records this never happened. Rather, after the prophet’s death she focused her attentions in a decidedly ‘non-motherly’ direction, warfare, conquest, and the defeat of her declared Muslim enemies. Her most particular sworn enemy was Ali, son-in-law to Mohammed and last of the first four Caliphs after Mohammed.

Ayesha led her armies in battle, the most famous of which is remembered as The Battle of the Camel. Although she suffered defeat by Ali’s forces, this did not prevent her from continuing her campaigns against him. Today, the memories of both Ayesha and Khadija remain as icons of the Islamic faith; their names favoured among parents, yet both took leadership roles and remained childless.

The question now can be asked of men such as Mr Erdogan and others like him whose firmly entrenched beliefs that women are inferior creatures is what do they fear? Do they cringe at the thought of women with power outside of the home? For more than the 1500 or so years since Islam came into being and the over 2000 years of Christianity, men have taken complete control of politics, economics, and all other aspects that move civilization. We look around us to see nothing but horrific messes, murders, wars, economic failures, and crimes of unspeakable nature and still allow men to dictate that women should not have roles outside the home. Though this thought is now more cliché than original, would it not be more appropriate to incorporate the largest percentage of the world’s population into everyday running of international affairs. We couldn’t be worse off than we already are.

An interesting side note to Mr Erdogan’s diatribe. When I visited the capital city of Turkey Ankara and its wonderful Turkish National Museum, I enjoyed a particular interest of mine, the ancient Hittite civilization. The Hittites were a very influential ancient civilization and covered a large part of what is now Turkey, parts of Syria, and into Iraq. Mr Erdogan needs to revisit this exhibit as a majority of the artifacts from the Hittites were icons and images dedicated to the female image. The icon worshipped by ancient tribes, not just as mother and wife, but as goddess, leader, communicators with the gods, and decision makers for their peoples. If these ancient civilizations were matriarchal, it appears they recognized the importance of women not just as mothers, but as equals.