What's really wrong with Pavey's speech

It arguably had a patronizing tone towards the religious, who ripped it apart in tweets, articles, columns and statements. Her speech implied that she associates headscarf wearing with child brides, the lower representation rate of women in politics and the general patriarchal ills that plague our society. I think it is highly problematic to suggest that wearing the headscarf has to be the opposite of women's empowerment, but Pavey did seem to do just that. Does this make Pavey a bigot? Possibly.

But she also raised some valid points. She criticized the government's increasing tendency to bully the irreligious, or deny Alevis or other minorities some of their rights, and increasingly move away from science and reason. She pointed out to a general hypocrisy in the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) indifference to the freedoms of others. For example, she said she did not see the same enthusiasm for freedoms when her wish to wear pants to Parliament to cover her prosthetic leg was denied. It is only fair she should say that.

The parts of her speech less flattering for religion angered many people, and that is fine. Not everybody has to agree with what everyone else says. But she did manage to offend me with at least one bit of her speech for reasons beyond the secular/religious divide: Pavey said somewhere in her speech that “the girl wearing a headscarf with a floral pattern and in a pair of tight jeans making out with her boyfriend in the park owes her freedom to do so to Atatürk.” The overly patronizing tone is surely maddening -- especially if one is a headscarf-wearer I imagine -- and the meaning is polarizing, as it assumes that headscarf-wearing people cannot possibly appreciate Atatürk. But there are other problems with this hypothetical woman in Pavey's speech.

If we are really going to be objective about this, teenagers do kiss in parks and in other places, mostly owing to their hormones and not to any historical figure. What would Turkey be like if Atatürk had never come into existence is just historic speculation. We can't really know. Suggesting that we owe any freedom to him is cheap rhetoric. It is a vapid argument that cannot be proven or refuted. That is not my essential problem with the speech though.

This young woman might think it is horribly wrong to be displaying intimate affection to a boyfriend in public, particularly due to her religious beliefs. And she might still be doing it. Who can say anything? Contradicting in deed what you think/believe is the definition of being human. It doesn't always have to amount to hypocrisy. Pavey's description ignores this point.

Secondly -- and I'm not even starting on the floral pattern and the tight jeans -- this kind of slut-shaming is an extremely male thing to do. I don't see how it is very different from what Hüseyin Çelik did when he criticized the cleavage-showing of a TV-hostess (although admittedly, his complaint was against a real person and it did cost her her job). It is perhaps closer to what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly said about his personal disapproval of the “scantily clad women of Kadıköy.” In both cases, hypothetical women are judged as having “loose morals” based on their -- yes this is what it is -- sexuality.

A woman should never do that. Why is it that nobody ever talks about the boyfriend (assuming that's what Pavey had in mind) who is at the receiving end of this hypothetical kiss? Isn't he to blame for having a girlfriend who wears a headscarf, but still not having any qualms about kissing her in parks? Why does it always have to be the woman -- headscarved, in a miniskirt, in a niqab or bikini, doesn't matter -- that has to take “the shame”? Why can't men -- secular or religious -- be considered “loose” in their sexual behavior, or at least hypocritical and acting against their own religious beliefs?

Name it positive discrimination, or affirmative action, or just making things even, but given the state of things concerning women's rights both in Turkey and the world and considering the distance that has yet to be covered still, nobody should ever say anything about any woman kissing in any park. Ever. People should just shut up about women kissing in parks.

Pavey's intention could have been to criticize what she -- possibly wrongly -- believes are the convictions of the religious about women, but in doing so, she reproduced ages-old stereotypes about “loose behavior.” Chastising the headscarf-wearing girl for kissing her boyfriend is inherently misogynistic, patriarchy-affirming and anti-woman.