THE MUSTANG

 

                   THE MUSTANG AND FEMINISM

 

              Humanity has always produced some sciences from beginning of the life. People improve their abilities, skills with these year by year. One of the important sciences is social science and it try to learn in deep information about society, people and person. The most historical and significant one is Sociology. They have used the sociology in every time period. Because, humanity must be examined by someone for improving. Sociology exists with the people so there are lots of subtitles under the sociology; one of the important titles is Feminism. In this article, we will explain the Feminist theory and gender roles in the society. Also, we will analyze the film ‘’Mustang’’ based on the Feminist Theory.

               First of all, the main purpose is feminism is that men and women should be economically, culturally, socially and politically equal and organized (resistance movement activism) on behalf of this principle. Before the explain the theory, we should explain these key words;

·       Sex is biological difference between women and men. It is only about the biological difference between men and women.

·       Gender is behaviors or attitudes that a society consider what is proper for male or female. It differs from the sexes in this way, because of the biological difference, the society has idea about the sexes and what their stick roles in the society. The cultural norms already exist without any changing so this construct the society with unchangeable rules. Also, the media has important role for this constructing action. This is the easiest way to separate the gender roles.

In this theory, there are three waves which has historical and theoretical information in itself.

             The first wave focuses on that gain voting and property rights for women. This wave happened in the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries in US and western European countries. However, this wave did not accept the all women because only white upper-class women abled to use these rights. The first voting right occurred in New Zealand. After, this affected other countries and most of the countries joined the New Zealand in early 20^th century.

              The second wave gained momentum after the 1960s. It mainly focused on the broader inequalities and the struggle of the sexual freedom in terms of the differences between women sexuality and fertility. It aimed that gender roles be eliminated and gender superiority should not be discussed between men and women because they argued that women see as an object in public sphere and they dominated by the men in patriarchal system. There were four main feminist movement in the second wave, which are Liberal Feminism, Socialist Feminism, Marxist Feminism and Radical Feminism.

              Liberal Feminism is one of the important movements in second wave. The aim is that equality of men and women could be achieved by legal reforms. These reforms must be about the inequalities of sex which are gender pay gap, reproductive rights, abortion rights etc. They protest the idea of ‘’women are insufficient in politics, education etc.’’ and they tried to modify to this false information which spread all over society.

               Marxist Feminism emerged from the confluence of Marxism and Feminism.  The capitalist relationship and exploitations of the domestic labor is the big problem for this wave. They argue that the domestic labor is not a class and they are seeming source of free worker. In this system, they don’t have any capitalist class and they cannot earn anything from this system. Moreover, they have to free care to family member so they are most exploited ones in the society under the capitalism. For this reason, they think that if the capitalist system falls down, the class society will disappear so gender inequality will become equal and normal as it should be.                                                        

                Socialist Feminism has a role as a bridge between Marxist Feminism and Radical Feminism; Marxist Feminism focused on the capitalism and Radical one focused on the patriarchal society so the socialist feminism against to priority of the class pressure despite the patriarchal system. Moreover, it argues that there are lots of inequality in both public sphere and domestic sphere so this view showed that both of these ideas are true and we need to focus both them. This idea against the exploitation of women in patriarchal system as well as capitalist system.

                Radical Feminism argues that women is crushed under the patriarchal society so they think that the main problem is men has priority and power in the society more then women. The only difference between men and women is sex so they try to explain that gender is not important and that everyone is equal as a human being. Also, the whole women feel this pressure all over the society, despite their various races, classes. For this reason, the society must be change and arrange again in political, cultural for the establishing genderless society.

               The third wave started in the 1990s and continue today. This wave refuses the second wave and they occurred because there were lots of aimless organizations and movements about the white women rights in the 60-80s. The equality does not discriminate between any race, class or cultural background, and the equality must be valid for every woman all over the world. (The second wave only defended the white women rights) This wave aims to spread the idea of equality of women to all over the world and this can happen without any limitations. Every woman can find the feminism under their own conditions so there is no macro level conditions. So, this wave can be seen as an continue the second wave or opposite response of it. There are four movements which existed under the third wave feminism; Womenism, Intersectionality, Ecofeminism and Postmodernist Feminism.

            Feminism firstly existed for the property rights, then it turned to white women rights side so the Womenism argues that the Feminism is not only about the white (upper-class) women, this is the world-wide idea so the feminism must cover the all women.

            There is a connection between oppressive institution which are racism, islamophobia, homophobia, sex, class, ethnicity etc. These are intermingled each other and these cannot be examined one by one. The theory claims that every member of society should be equal chances to achieve politics or economic power.

             In the ecofeminism, women and nature cannot separate each other and they are close historically. So, they think that women can reach the freedom with the nature. It’s kind of mix of the nature and women because both of them are dominated by men.

             Postmodernist Feminism argues that the gender can change, it is not a static and unchanging structure. It always not constructs same as before and it change from society to society and time to time. Also, the geography affects this constructing.

              The Mustang which production of the French-Turkish-German and Qatar. It is drama movie and the director is Deniz Gamze Ergüven. It took lots of award from different Festival and countries. However, the most important awards are Best Director Nomination and five sisters won the best actress awards in the Label Europa Cinemas Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Also, represented the France in the Best Foreign Language Film category in the Oscar in 2016. The director’s camera shows well the oppression of the women in Turkey, especially rural areas. It tries to explain the gender roles in the Turkish society and these roles happens as mass action which already takes place in the mind of the people. The society already took these roles and the changing cannot happen because there is a patriarchy hegemony. The movie look with Lale eye’s which the youngest sibling and the story happens in the Black Sea region. The Lale told the story from the future and we cannot say for sure that she is neutral, because a lot of things happen to her at a young age. The siblings lost their parents ten years ago so they live with their grandmother and uncle in the village which far from the city center. First of all, the movie name is come from the horse name, this horse cannot train, it is free so these siblings’ picture as this horse. In this first scene, school closed because of the summer holiday and the Lale who loves teacher so much. Moreover, the teacher gave news about her is going to İstanbul so the Lale feels upset. Especially, the İstanbul and Cihangir symbol of the freedom and modernity so when the last castle of the Lale is her teacher and the teacher is going, the siblings story start, when the last castle of their source of resistance. The story will end in the teacher house in Cihangir. So, it shows us that the normalization of these gender roles in society can be achieved with development and modernity. In addition, all these restrictions, suicides, sexual abuse and early marriages are not shown directly to the cameras, thus reminding the audience that these are not illegitimate. After the introduction, they turn from their schools, they choose the walk to their home with male friends but this event is the starting point of the everything. When they arrived their homes, they found their grandmother angry because the gossip reached the home before they arrived. The gossip is that the siblings acted wrong behavior with their male friends at the beach. So, the grandmother can not be confident and she looked two oldest one sibling’s genitals for the learning their virginity. The virginity is called in Turkish word ‘’Namuslu’’ in the society and the marriage with women which lose virginity is seem so bad in the cultural context because the Turkish culture has Islamic religion and the pressure on the women is the highest level in the rural areas. Also, the culture has patriarchal eye so the virginity control by the families because of the conservative society.  She still can’t be confident so the girls send to hospital to check their virginity with their uncle. Although they prove that they did not lose their virginity, the uncle and the grandmother locked down the girls, they control the girls and block the gossip in the society, they try to win their respects in the society in this way. Moreover, they aim to impose the gender roles to the girls, it is kind of prison for refreshing from bad behaviors but there is no bad action for joining this prison, the only reason is being women.

              After this lock down, the girls came across requirements of their roles in the society; what they do, how should behave, what they wear and so on. They learnt answers all these questions and they were educated by the other old women for how to be ‘’normal’’ girl. The being ‘’normal’’ happens like that women should respect and serve the men and every domestic works should done by the women. The all distractor things eliminated and the girls have only themselves for sociality because they see same people, rules, behaviors etc. They have a little bit freedom in their room, they can behave without seeing any pression in their room. Also, the Lale wanted to watch critique football match because he loves the football. However, she asked uncle to watch the match at the stadium with him but there is no permission for this action because the watching football game is seeming as a men job in the society. At the same time, the women only watch the marriage programs, cooking programs and these are not watch by the men. One day, the match blocked for the men audience and only women and children can go to watch the match at the stadium. The blocking reason was using bad words and collective violence so the women got chance to watch football. The watching action can happen under the patriarchy because when they men cannot go to stadium; the women could be going. One woman said on the television ‘’Thank to our men for this action’’ It is kind of speech act because the ideas can say easily with speaking. It showed us that when the men acted in a bad way, the women continue to support them and the pressure of patriarchy can feel more and more with this sentence. Then, the grandmother saw them on the television, suddenly the women come together and acted as a one and they cut off the electric because the girls should not seem by the men. This shows us that the women have collaboration each other. After that, the real prison started for the girls and the grandmother took a decision which about the marriage. Therefore, the grandmother took away the girls to center of the village; seeming by the men and mothers because this action means that we have girls, they arrived the marriage age so you can come and want them from us to your men. This is kind of bazaar; this is sad but the girls will marriage without any pleasure their partners. This is cultural action and it can be seeming harmless but the women requests are ignored. Also, they wear the same clots which hide all their bodies. It kind of fabrication of the women in village and made to cover their sexual attraction.

                Additionally, the girls lived ten years in the village but they don’t have any idea about the village life in cultural context. They knew that they should not fun with guys but they had fun and they don’t have any idea about domestic works until the lock down. This causes the problem in the mind to understand the movie. It feels as if the girls did not stay in the village for ten years and were left in the village at the beginning of the movie. Moreover, the men come their home and anybody can not saw them, it is a little bit confused the audiences. Also, this lock down can seem as a prison but this is kind of imposing the ideas to the children. Namely, the children got family ideas which political, religion, character etc. This lock down shows this idea, child become like mother/father. The chancing is so least.

               After that, the girls married one by one. The oldest one found a way to protect the virginity, its kind of resistance of the culture. The happiest one can be her because only she marriage with the man she loves. Especially the second one is critique because when she slept with her husband, the parents were waiting in front of the door for take the sheet. However, there is no blood after the sex so the virginity lost before or is still remain. This is the controlling of the virginity. If she doesn’t have the virginity problem which hymen does not open, maybe she will be killed by the husband because the respect is important issue in the society as a patriarchy, how men control and manage to own women. Also, there is problematic uncle in the story because he is incest and he abuse the girls at nights when they sleep. He abuses the nieces but there is no speech about this abuse because this kind of conservation should not be happening in the house among family members.  The grandmother knows this problem and she try to block this action. Actually, she only talked about this action is problem and it must be happening in this house but he knows that he will maintain this action because he is man. He doesn’t have any pressure from the society and people can not learn this action because the girl’s words don’t have any value against men. We see the patriarchy between mother and son. For this reason, the third sibling committed suicide because her uncle affects her life and she doesn’t have any help from society, grandmother or others about the sexual harassment. After that, the youngest two siblings escaped from the house and they went İstanbul. The Lale had address which belongs to her teacher and the teacher is the sing of the we should learn and we must change with education, modernity. The Lale showed a stand against the system, we see in this movie. She and her sibling escaped this system but the gender roles continue in this system. Also, there is character which the has a red car and called as Yasin in the movie and this guy seem homosexual person in the society because of him long hair. The long hair belongs to women in cultural context so this guy can’t find job easily, respect from the society.

              In conclusion, we see the effects of gender roles in the all society; from football to politics, media to daily life every part of the society. The conservative society has so many blocks for the feminism and it start to change one by one. If we want to equal and normal society, there must be political change. The media should stop to show the women as a community crushed under patriarchy and the culture can not change suddenly but the changing come with the education. The girls don’t have education so they learn to survive in this cultural context with the gender roles given to them. Of course, the culture is unique context but the modern world produced the feminism for the all different cultures. It must be and It will be. Also, the women which help to patriarchic system must be stopped by the others because if they continue to help this system, the world can not be change and the feminism cannot be separate the all societies. The correct language and movements in political area will bring to equal society.