I just saw myself in this little girl in webinar 2! I was always insisting on playing with my brother’s cars and thanks to my mother, she did not limit me with those babies that companies tried to sell. However, when I began to go to school, I saw all girls were playing with babies and it made me believe that I had to play with babies, as well. The society forced me to do the things that it wanted to do even in my early ages. When I began to question, gender equality became my favorite topic. I just became a feminist and here it can be added that feminism defends the gender equality, not just women rights when compared to all the misunderstandings. So, we can say that women are always born as feminists and the "real" men are also feminists.
We, people living in Turkey, need to broaden our understandings towards it. We should not be limited in gender equality, as well. We should exceed our understandings through the term “social inequality” at first. Even though this term is always associated with women, we should emphasis men who cannot do anything except for the behaviors that society forces them, just like a “manly man”.
“Men cannot cry, men cannot behave emotionally, men win the bread for family and come home. Women cannot have a mouth to talk onto men, women cannot go outside late, women cannot get dressed as they want, women stay at home and cook for their lovely men.” Anyone cannot judge me by my sentences here since they are used to hearing all these in their daily lives. What about the situation for working mothers? Do we really believe it is different? I say, no. In this country, a working mother comes home and takes the baby from the babysitter, the babysitter runs away, the husband comes home, turns on the television and does nothing except for lying and waiting for the mother to cook, feed themselves, do ironing, do cleaning, wash clothes, wash dishes and after all, die peacefully. We all have those types of families in our surroundings, do not try to search for miles away, they are just the closest to you. We have got accustomed to them so intensely that anymore we cannot see any wrong things. However, all of them are wrong. Babies are getting older without love, women are getting tired without help and men are getting lonely with family. It can be added that babies are growing up in families that indicates all types of gender inequality. Here, we, teachers, take the roles. But, how?
Education can put anything into right way. Teachers identify students’ preconceptions and go for them every time possible. Real teachers cannot accept the definite discrimination between boys and girls in the classes. Teaching the truth starts here. There can be some students who are forced to discriminate themselves from the opposite gender or even do not feel themselves relax with them. By conducting them together in an activity or opposite genders into one desk, teachers can make them avoid this discrimination inductively. In my practicum site, the students were so relaxed and comfortable that even though I did not say anything related, one fifth grade of boy acted like a girl in a drama activity. If I kept going with those children, I would insist on doing it each and every drama activity. By this, they would be more familiar with opposite gender. Therefore, they could be available to see the reality, there is no difference between genders. The important thing is to be human beings.