On yet another 8 March Women’s Day, we will utter great words and make great promises in our most enthusiastic and audacious state. Voices will rise from every medium in the face of the irreplaceable and undeniable reality of the place our women hold in our lives. We will publish advertisements. We will put up posters and organize panels. On 8 March, the “International Women’s Day”, we will glorify her as though it were a rank bestowed upon woman, and thus we will wake up on the morning of 9 March with the supposed peace of mind of having fulfilled our duty. So, will anything really change afterwards? On the morning of 9 March, will our women be able to attain the care, sincerity and respect they deserve, the determining position within society, relationships free of danger and violence, positions equal to men in working life, and the jobs they would obtain in keeping with their talents and their education?

On the morning of 9 March, will the depression they fall into in the face of the mobbing they experience while struggling for their careers in the environments where they work, and the difficult, sleepless nights they endure without letting it be felt in their home life, have come to an end? Will the struggle they wage to protect their children in the face of the violence they suffer from their husbands, merely so that their family life is not disrupted, come to an end?

On the morning of 9 March, will we begin to see woman not as a sexual object but as a being and as a sacred trust where life begins? Not as base desire, but as breath — when will we begin to value her?

How much longer will we turn a blind eye to a decayed mentality that, by distancing woman from her own identity and nature and depriving her of the attribute of mother and of being the cornerstone of the family, presents itself as if it had taken her under a shield of protection against the dangers listed above, while it tears apart both them and our family lives?

In Islamic culture the notion of woman is at the forefront, just as it is in Turkish culture. We also see the best example of this in the era of our Prophet (pbuh). Likewise, our holy book the Qur’an is adorned with verses that always watch over woman, that make her the cornerstone of society and give her precedence. Struggling against the views that argue the opposite of this must be our social obligation.

Woman and man are not two separate beings but two parts of a whole. They are our companions on the road. They are our mothers, our wives, our sisters and our children, with whom we walk together in every field and at every level of society, and with whom we face life together. Who said that a woman cannot handle more than one task at the same time; at home they are our mother or the mother of our children, our friend, our confidante, our sister. In working life they are our colleague, our superior or our employer. They are our other half, with whom we build life together and repair it together in every field, from art to culture, from science to trade, from politics to diplomacy. Just as we accept the truth of the proverb “it is the female bird that makes the nest” when we found our families, we must also see how every place touched by “a woman’s hand” becomes a means of success when we found, repair and renew our institutions.

If one of the parts that complete a whole is missing, it is not possible to complete the road and we always remain incomplete. For this reason we must read well the perspective of Turkish and Islamic civilization on woman and on her social role. We must know the Turkish woman and her strength well. We must see woman not as a flower but as the soil itself. After all, it is again the women of a society who raise its men. The more knowledgeable, self-confident, inwardly calm and at peace with themselves we leave them, the more liveable the world of the future will be. Otherwise, “every tear that falls from women’s eyes flows into the soil as poison”. Our women seek not an owner but a companion on the road. As long as we stand by them and value their words, we take pride in the magnificent works that will emerge from the complementary qualities of both sexes, and we pass these on to the next generation with pride. Their productivity is like the fertility of soil. Giving such a value the care and the respect it deserves saves a society in the future from being tested with social and cultural hunger. Otherwise we will have failed to keep the promise we made to our women. And the ornate sentences we utter on 8 March lose their validity. Let us allow our women to speak, to tell and to have something to say. “Because whenever a woman falls silent although she has much to say, the man has already lost all his chances”.

With our wish that 8 March International Women’s Day becomes a milestone for the emergence of the conditions our women deserve, we say WE ARE HERE to stand by them and to support them all the way.