The village was in the middle of nowhere. The only way to have some sunlight was to have the mountains and the clouds agree to be merciful at the exact same time. The roads were blocked for a minimum of six months in a year; which was leaving the village habitants alone with their destiny. They could not get any food, anything to wear, nor any external people to visit them during the period of prison governed by nature. But they could deal with almost all of them. The only fear was to have someone who would need urgent medical attention. There was a single doctor in the whole village who was supposed to take care of all types of illnesses and emergencies. They had to find a new one every year since the doctors were escaping for freedom whenever the roads were cleared during summer time. The doctors were the minority who had at least a chance to escape from the nature-protected castle. 

 

It was the dark December winter of 1968 when all the males had gathered in a room in the village, having tea and chatting loudly. It was almost midnight. On a usual day, everyone would have left the place much earlier and would have locked themselves in their homes. The reason to stay there so late that day was to wait to get the good news for Ahmet. Ahmet was in his twenties. All the jokes and chats were not helping to lessen his excitement.  The tea pot boiling at full speed on top of the stove had put the mist on the window glasses, acting as a wall to the snowy and freezing outside. Whenever a new one came in from the door, Ahmet was jumping from his wooden chair, feeling his heart out of his chest; but sitting with disappointment after discovering that the new joiner was irrelevant to the reason for his wait. The old ones in the room had almost started to sleep on the chair being tired of waiting for news. The noise level went down and down every minute in the room. Just after midnight, a small boy rushed into the room leaving the door open. Ahmet was again off his chair. 

-Bro Ahmet! Bro! The baby is born! Baby is born!

Ahmet was breathing deeply. There were cheers in the room from all the other males of the village. Applauses, congrats, slaps on the shoulder followed each other sporadically. After the initial festival one of the old guys shouted loud towards Ahmet:

-What will you name your boy Ahmet?

Another old guy also shouted loud:

-Junior Ahmet!

One more cycle of laughs, applauses, slaps on shoulder were interrupted by the small boy messenger:

-Bro Ahmet! Bro!

-What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?

The room was set to silent mode. It was only the sound of the cold wind whistling. After a pause the messenger boy turned his eyes onto the floor and as if he was responsible for the “bad” news he let the words flow shy:

-It is a girl. Not a boy. It is a girl!

All the joy in the room left its turn to sorrow. Slap on the shoulder was not a celebration anymore but rather a consolation. Ahmet left the room fast with his eyes on the floor. 

It took him three days to get to his house and look at the new baby’s eyes. What made him get back to his normal life was not his love for the baby girl, but rather the possibility of having a baby boy at the next try.

 

The short story above may be very difficult for most of us to understand. How and why is having a baby boy a source of more joy than having a baby girl? However it is a concrete fact that each and every one of the women who make life better today has a similar story with their ancestors, where women were treated unfairly and had to overcome so many obstacles incomparable to that of men.

Women had to overcome being born as an undesired gender for centuries, should fight to get in love with their choice of man, wait for their parents and families to allow them to  get education, and even ask for the mercy of men to have a word to say in selecting the people to manage the society. The obstacles or unfair conditions for women do not exist only in villages; they are everywhere, everytime...

For instance, when you look at the statistics, even today the percentage of female managers in Turkey is only 21.9% of the whole set of managers. Among European Union countries the same statistics is around 37% on the average. If there was a fair world where man and woman had the same opportunities this would be 50% each with no doubt. It is clear that there is an unseen limit called “glass ceiling” for women in the business environment as well. Women are even paid less than men for exactly the same jobs. According to Bloomberg it will take 86 years to have equal payment among men and women from now on if the speed of improvement continues as is.

We are so proud to have a leader as Atatürk who granted women the right to vote in 1934. This was 11 years earlier than France, 14 years earlier than Belgium and 36 years earlier than Switzerland.

It is not only about business, education or voting. Even the very modern women today who are well educated, having an active role in the business world take care of most of the housework. They have to complete their work at business and start the second shift at home to take care of laundry, food, cleaning and many more. Most of the things related to kids most of the time are the sole and utmost responsibility of women. 

Now humankind should make a decision. Will we carry on having men steering the current world order dominantly or will we have women at the cockpit with absolutely equal rights? Men should admit that when we look at the current status it is completely a failure given the wars, ecology problems, poverty, unemployment and many more. Women are the only chance for the possibility of a much better world and are the ones who can turn this humanity failure into a hope.