Women in Management – 1: This is a Man’s World

I believe I first heard this song in the early 1990s. I was just a child; I didn’t know any English, nor did I know who the singer was, but the song touched me deeply. Years later, when I learned that the lyrics had been written by James Brown himself and understood what those words truly meant, I came to love the song even more. It had become clear by then that this song would be one of those that would stay with me and accompany me in my mind for the rest of my life. Born in 1933 and raised under difficult circumstances, a Black man who had himself experienced discrimination because of his ethnicity and the color of his skin delivered a powerful message to humanity with this song, which he first performed in 1966—not only about people who looked like him and suffered discrimination, but about all women.

Like every man, the first woman I ever knew in my life, and the one who has made the greatest contribution to who I am, is my mother. My blessed mother, who knows me completely, who loves me unconditionally despite all my flaws and mistakes, who cared for me for years, raised me, and taught me, is the first woman whose kindness and sacrifices I will never be able to repay, no matter what I do throughout my life. My father was the pillar of our family and its authority figure. During my childhood and teenage years, I was not someone who got into much trouble or caused many mischief. I was a well-behaved child who never disrespected my elders. I was an obedient child who respected my elders and rarely disobeyed. Nevertheless, there were many times when I felt afraid and intimidated by my father because of his reactions to my completely innocent childhood wishes and insistences, and I sought refuge in my mother. Now, as I approach my mid-forties and look back on those years, what I remember most about my mother is that, for me and my siblings, she represented compassion, love, balance, and “freedom.” Indeed, the roles that parents assume in relation to their children are naturally different; my father, too, represented “discipline” within the structure of our family. I have reached this age and become a father of four children, yet as I write these lines while bringing back memories of myself and my family in the 1990s, I sincerely become emotional and, despite myself, my eyes fill with tears. How innocent we were, and how small our world was back then! As siblings, we saw our mother as more just and compassionate; we felt that we could turn to her with our wishes. Looking back now, I realize that throughout history, humanity has essentially always felt and accepted something similar: people have trusted the mother, a child of “Mother Nature,” because she is the one who knows best those she carried in her womb and brought into the world, and because she has the ability to maintain balance among her children. The figures of Justitia in Roman mythology and, even earlier, Themis in Greek mythology, are well-known symbols of justice that are still used today—and both are female figures. Throughout history, the female figure has often been regarded as a symbol of nature and balance. This quality aligns with the idea that justice must remain impartial, which is one of the reasons why female figures have been chosen to represent it. Even in ancient times, the female figure was associated with “compassion, conscience, and the ability to maintain a fair balance.” Just as a mother is expected to treat her children fairly despite their different personalities, traits, faults, and mistakes, justice has always been expected to be equal and impartial for everyone. One of the events that contributed to Europe and Western civilization reaching its present position is, as widely known, the French Revolution of 1789. There is a painting titled “Liberty Leading the People” (La Liberté guidant le peuple), which is widely considered to depict and symbolize this revolution, almost as if it summarizes its essence. This artwork, which is commonly associated with the French Revolution, does not actually depict the widely known Revolution of 1789, but rather the July Revolution of 1830 that followed it (also referred to as the Second French Revolution). Painted in 1830, the year of the July Revolution, by the French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), the painting portrays a woman leading the way in front of a large group of men advancing over a barricade! The tricolour French flag in the woman’s hand is the classic symbol of the Revolution; the colours of the flag represent the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. To emphasize that the leader guiding the people—holding a flag in one hand and a rifle in the other—is a woman, and to highlight “fertility, namely motherhood,” the painter deliberately depicted her with her breasts exposed. Because, as it is for many nations—including the Turks—the homeland is a mother to the French as well! The woman depicted by Delacroix, leading the people and seeking to liberate them, represents the homeland itself—the motherland! Everyone knows the Statue of Liberty in New York; and everyone also knows that it is a female figure. So, does everyone know about the statue in Volgograd, Russia, called “The Motherland Calls”—a female sculpture that is emotionally far more dramatic and powerful, and significantly taller than the Statue of Liberty? When comparing only the height of the figures themselves, without including the pedestals, the Statue of Liberty stands at 46 metres, while The Motherland Calls monument stands at 83 metres. To help you visualize the scale, consider this: the height of the Bosphorus Bridge above sea level is 64 metres! Throughout history and across cultures, it has always been women who have symbolized justice, freedom, balance, and the homeland!

In his legendary 1966 song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” James Brown deliberately used the word “Man” (meaning both “human being” and “man”) three times in the song’s title to portray a male-dominated world. However, as the lyrics continue with the word “but,” he emphasizes that women are in fact “essential to life” and that without them, nothing truly has meaning. My blessed grandmother, my mother, my sister, and my beloved wife—my life partner and the mother of my four children… I think about them, and I sincerely try to imagine it: if they had not been in my life, life would not merely have been incomplete; it would truly have been meaningless to me. Tevfik Fikret expressed this idea poetically with the words, “If woman is degraded, humanity itself is brought low!” conveying that societies and cultures in which women are not respected will inevitably lose their human values. Civilization is built through the contributions of women; cultures and societies that devalue women are undoubtedly destined to decline first and, eventually, disappear. As a man who believes in equality between women and men, recognizes women’s power of contribution and productivity in every field, and strives to support women’s entrepreneurship, greater female employment, women’s education, and equal opportunities in society, while aiming for greater participation of women in social life and the business world, I will focus in my next article on women in business leadership and management…