Language is unique in being a symbolic communication system that is learned instead of biologically inherited. Generally speaking genders refers to the culturally determined ways in which we perform or act our maleness and femaleness. We all know the famous book ‘man is from Mars nor woman is from Venus’. I think this book is the depiction of the distinction between men and women.
Men and women grow up in different cultures even if they’re both from Turkey. It looks a bit confusing but when we deal with the eastern part and western part of the Turkey, this sentence comes more meaningful to us. I want to discuss this by giving some examples from my life. I have a cleaning lady who is from the eastern part and she speaks less because she thinks that it’s sin so her speaking ability is very low. She was pregnant one year ago and when she learned the gender of her baby, she was crying. She had four children and the all is girl and she was pregnant again to a girl. She had a great ambition about giving birth to a boy so we can say that gender distinction starts even if in pregnancy.
I have two cousins; Hande and Can. In their childhood, they grow up concerning the gender distinction. We all see the gender superiority in Turkey by watching films, soup operas. When I play with Can, there is always an action in our games. He becomes Polat Alemdar and I become the thief and he arrest me and put into jail. On the other hand, when I play with Hande, it’s more different. She has a Barbie and Barbie’s boyfriend. We dress them, we marry the. It’s like more on speaking and calmer than the other one. But I can see that culture and media affect Hande too because she always says the importance of marriage.
I think misunderstandings occur because men and women grow up in different cultures. Women’s culture involves intimacy and connection. Whereas, men’s culture involves individual achievements. This affects the communication between men and women. The think that they are supported communicate and determine their topics of conversations, their conventional styles, their interpretation of one’s another meaning.
When I’m going out with my boyfriend, I always use ‘oh dear’, but he’s more formal. I want to talk about relationship, gossiping and clothing. But, he prefers to talk about task-oriented tasks such as sports, news, money. He always makes jokes and I laugh. I am more emotional than him. I can cry easily but he doesn’t cry because there is an ideology that men don’t cry. Who says this I don’t know but the media, the culture and the language we speak affect the way of our living. Language is no one’s private property so why my cleaning lady fears to speak? The answer is clear. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. We create gender identity through language. In most occupied titles, we say female doctor. It comes different. I had witnessed something that is horrible to tell. In hospital, there’s a woman who had to go to an operation but the doctor is woman and her family didn’t accept it, they wanted a male doctor. We see the male superiority in there, too. Women and men live in the same country but they’re from different cultures.
MERVE KARAKAYA
2005
