10.Masculinity in Turkey

Polat Alemdar(Necati Şaşmaz)-KURTLAR VADİSİ(this man is a symbol for masculinity among Turkish men)

If you live in Turkey it is an usual thing to feel male domination in many parts of your life. Masculinity is essential for men to prove theirselves. But main question is that a man how can be a "man"? Power, violence, domination, jealousy etc. these are the things which increases masculinity among Turkish men. If you have a gun and a strong structure it means most of the people would afraid of you and many women would respect you.(ex: Polat Alemdar). Also Turkish people assume that being macho is the golden rule in order to be a real man! Macho man is rude,strong,courageous, lack of emotion and intensive. If you carry some of the features of a macho man it is not so dangerous but if you try to be much more macho and contrubite it with more violence you won't increase your masculinity,you would just become more wild! But this fact is not important for Turkish men they use violence even againist women who are defenceless in order to prove their masculinity(what a pity!). The other important point is they try to show theirselves as emotionless in order to protect their manhood. "Boys don't cry!" this world view is very common among Turkish men. Killing,fighting won't humiliate you conversely it would exalt you in manhood concept! Thus they don't hesitate to use violence. Moreover, jealousy is very common for Turkish men,they try to limit their girlfriends',wifes' or sisters' rights. For example, if you are a macho you won't let your girlfriend to wear mini skirt or you won't let her go out with her friends. These are very usual for Turkish men in order to prove his authority and show masculinity. Most of the Turkish women are obedient and lets the men to dominate their lives and limit their freedom. Jealousy looks like an innocent thing and a consequence of love but it is not so pure. It can cause many bad results. For example, Münevver Karabulut & Cem Garipoğlu. Here girl is the victim and the boy is macho(jealous! and murderer)! This boy kills her girlfriend because of his jealousy and as a result of his MANHOOD(violence!) There are many similar examples like this! All in all, i think men should be more kind and not to act in a wild way. Instead of using his power they should impress women and increase their manhood by their admirable kindness.