Women in Management – 1

I believe I first heard this song in the early 1990s. I was just a child; I didn’t know English, nor did I know who the singer was, yet it touched something deep within me. Years later, when I learned that the person singing the lyrics, he had written himself was James Brown, and when I finally understood their meaning, I loved the song even more. It became clear that this piece would accompany me in my thoughts for the rest of my life. Born in 1933 and raised under harsh circumstances, this Black artist, who himself experienced discrimination because of his ethnicity and skin color, delivered a powerful message to humanity with this song in 1966. Remarkably, the message was not only about people like himself, but about all women.

Like many men, the first woman I encountered in life, the one who had the greatest influence on me, was my mother. She knew me in every detail, loved me unconditionally despite my flaws and mistakes, cared for me for years and educated me. No matter what I do, I could never repay her. My father, on the other hand, was the pillar and authority of our family. I was not a particularly mischievous child; I listened to my elders and behaved respectfully. Even so, there were many moments when my innocent childhood requests were met with firm responses and I would feel intimidated by my father and seek refuge in my mother. Now, as I approach my mid-forties, recalling those years while writing these lines fills me with emotion. As siblings, we perceived our mother as more just and merciful; we could express ourselves more freely with her. Indeed, the roles parents take on with their children are naturally different; my father also represented “discipline” within the family structure. I’m at this age now, a father of four children, but as I recall myself and my family in the 90s and write these lines, believe me, I get emotional, my eyes well up involuntarily. How innocent, how small our world was back then! Looking back, I realize that throughout history humanity as children of “Mother Nature,” in a sense, has instinctively felt the same way. Mothers, who carry life within them and bring it into the world, have long been trusted with maintaining balance among their children. In Roman mythology Justitia, and even earlier in Greek mythology Themis, are female figures symbolizing justice, a symbol still used today. Throughout history, the female figure has often represented nature and balance. The idea that justice must be impartial aligns with qualities traditionally associated with women: ‘compassion, conscience and the ability to maintain fair equilibrium’ much like a mother striving to remain just among children despite different personalities and faults. One of the pivotal events that shaped Europe and Western civilization was the French Revolution of 1789. Nearly everyone is familiar with the painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ (La Liberté guidant le peuple). Although it is commonly associated with the revolution of 1789, the painting actually depicts the July Revolution of 1830 also known as the Second French Revolution. Painted in 1830 by French artist Eugène Delacroix, the artwork portrays a woman leading a group of men forward over a barricade. The tricolor French flag she carries symbolizes liberty, equality and fraternity. Delacroix intentionally portrayed the woman with exposed breasts to emphasize fertility and motherhood, highlighting the idea of the homeland as a mother. For many nations, including both the French and the Turks, the homeland is maternal. In this sense, the figure guiding the people in Delacroix’s painting represents the motherland itself, calling its people toward freedom. Similarly, the Statue of Liberty in New York is a female figure symbolizing freedom. However, fewer people may know the even taller and more dramatic monument in Volgograd, Russia: ‘The Motherland Calls’. Excluding their bases, the Statue of Liberty stands 46 meters tall, while The Motherland Calls reaches 83 meters. For comparison, the deck height of the Bosphorus Bridge is 64 meters above sea level. Across different eras and cultures, the symbols of justice, freedom, balance and homeland have consistently been represented by female figures.

In his legendary 1966 song It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World, James Brown deliberately repeated the word “man” three times in the title to portray a male-dominated world. Yet the lyrics pivot with a decisive “but,” emphasizing that women are indispensable, that without them, nothing would truly have meaning. My late grandmother, my mother, my sister and my life companion—the mother of my four children… When I try to imagine life without them, I realize that life would not merely be incomplete; it would be truly worthless to me. The Turkish poet Tevfik Fikret once wrote, “If woman is degraded, humanity declines,” expressing poetically that societies which fail to respect women inevitably lose their moral values. Civilization is, in many ways, the work of women. Cultures and societies that devalue women are destined first to decline and eventually to disappear. As a man who believes in gender equality, who recognizes women’s productive power in every field and who supports female entrepreneurship, greater female employment, women’s education and equal opportunities in society, in my next article I will focus on women in business leadership.