Pub 3 - Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is the idea that all people should be treated equally in social life. Egalitarianism, however, isn’t always portrayed in certain aspects of life. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”, King makes the point that a lot of the time people must fight for the freedom they want and are never handed freedom and equality without a fight. Freedom and equality, as we have seen in history, is never easy to gain. The oppressed have to put up their strongest fights to receive what they know they deserve. The idea of egalitarianism is very strong and effective, but, also very difficult to execute in society. As Dr. King said in his quote, an oppressor, or someone in power, will not give away equality to everyone. The oppressed have always gave their fight against the oppressor in order to gain their rights.

            Egalitarianism and Dr. King’s quote relates to the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the short story, the narrator is the oppressed and her husband John is the oppressor. The narrator is a woman in the late 1800’s who got oppressed by her husband, John. Although the narrator was getting oppressed, this wasn’t uncommon in the time period that she was living in. The fact that John was a doctor also gave him even more authority over his wife and everyone believed everything he said was accurate. “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house” (The Yellow Wallpaper). The narrator talks about her dilemma but she realizes, even in her own thoughts, what her husband has told her and that she should always obey his instructions. John is not giving freedom to his wife and she doesn’t have much choice on what to do about it.

            Dr. King’s quote and egalitarianism also relates to a Turkish show series that I watch named “Sen Anlat Karadeniz”. This show is about a woman who was given from her father to a man who was “in love” with her. She was forced to live with him at the young age of 16. She was oppressed by him in a numerous amount of ways. He would abuse her, yell at her, even raped her because he claimed to be in love with her. Although the girl, who’s name is Nefes, went through all of this hardship and oppression, she always tried to escape at every single chance that she had. She tried to escape so many times that the man forced her to stay inside their mansion at all times and even put security to make sure she would not try to run away. Nefes tried countless amount of times to demand her freedom, but the man would always find a way to deny her freedom. Nefes never gave up and, eventually, found a way to escape after years of torture. She always told herself that she was a strong woman and will one day leave her nightmare behind.