Going cold Turkey on women’s rights

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A powerful statement such as this makes one think about the power of laughter, and the gift of a smile; the feeling one gets when one is filled with joy and how laughter can suppress any feelings of hate, anger or pain.

However, there are some people who feel that laughter should only be allowed to be practiced by one group of the population, and that is – men.

Last week the Turkish deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinç said in a speech that when a woman laughs in public, it creates “moral corruption” in Turkey.

“Chastity is so important,” he said. “She will not laugh in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness.”

Idiotic indeed, yet he continued in his blunder that sparked outrage throughout Turkey.

“Where are our girls, who slightly blush, lower their heads and turn their eyes away when we look at their face, becoming the symbol of chastity?” he asked.

He further said that women talk about too many “unnecessary” things.

Social media exploded with hundreds of thousands of women posting pictures of themselves laughing in protest. Good on them I say!

However, the flailing man still received some support, with some saying that Arinç was simply trying to uphold “moral values”, even though stooping low by pulling the “culture” card.

“Oh God, let this be just a joke,” tweeted Fatih Portakal, a famous Turkish TV presenter.

“If women can’t laugh in public, then men should not cry in public,” he added, referring to the deputy Prime Minister’s tendency to shed tears while he listens to the Turkish Prime Minister speak.

However, this once again raises the alarm when it comes to women living in the free world, still fighting for their right to be equal to men, to be seen as someone who has skills, the ability to think, analyse, have logical ideas and, also, still be a woman who loves to chat with her friends, be beautiful, laugh and have a social life.

Why is the world slipping backwards? Why are men so scared to allow women the freedom of voice?

In almost every culture a woman, at some time, was thought of as the one who bakes and takes care of her man and little else. Women in South Africa are still being subjected to these issues on a daily basis in certain “cultures”.

This I call concealment created by tradition to keep women trapped from seeing outside of their circumstances.

Women are treated as lesser than men, and even though the international feminist legion was established by Socialist International in 1910, the struggle for women’s rights still remains a great effort to create change.

Women are used as sexual tools, to be taken advantage of, such as the poor little 14-year-old girl in Reiger Park who was recently raped.

Who will stand up for her when she fails in her life to overcome her struggle with what has happened? Sure, the man was caught, but that does not change the fact that she was brutally raped and taken advantage of.

South Africa is the rape capital of the world. Don’t be too shocked – there are more things we are first in, and they aren’t counting in our country’s favour.

A Medical Research Council study that was conducted among men originating from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, showed devastating results, with more than 25 per cent of men admitting to raping someone.

In a poll in 1999, 1 500 school children in Soweto thought “jackrolling” or gang rape was “fun”.

This is purely sickening.

This month is Women’s Month, but daily we bear witness to the physical and emotional mistreatment of women, while men of this world still want to keep their thumb on a woman’s head to showcase masculinity and power. This is not culture, but simply chauvinism.

Women should be free to laugh, be respected and not to be used and abused or told what they can and cannot do.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all. – Laura Ingalls Wilder