I have been using this nickname online since November 2017: “Acı Matriyarka” So what it means? Why did I choose this nickname?
acı: bitter or pain or painful
matriyarka: matriarchy
You have often read the word “patriarchy” in feminist articles. Patriarchy means male domination. It is the social system in which men have primary power and dominate in their roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property.
Matriarchy is just the opposite. In other words, female domination. In the Cambridge Dictionary, it is defined as “a type of society in which women have most of the authority and power, or a society in which property belongs to women and is given to children by women rather than men.”
So, did I choose ideologically? So am I believe in matriarchal society? No. There are much simpler reasons.
- Saying the word “matriarchy” sounds very enjoyable. It’s like a rhyme. Its phonetic is nice.
- I use it in the sense of “strong woman” as a metonym.
So, “acı matriyarka” (painful matriarchy) means “strong woman in pain”.
I wanted to write a novel with that title before I chose it as a nickname. In fact, the full title of the novel would be Death of the Matriarchy, and it would deal with the gradual loss of women’s position in society and the rise of misogyny between ancient centuries and the Middle Ages. However, I couldn’t gather enough inspiration and gave up. At that time, something happened in the internet world that bothered me. I broke up with people I thought were my friends (virtually) and they talked behind me, so I obsessed about it and decided to change. I would no longer be easygoing as I used to be, I would stay strong. My old nickname was Gizolata (= my name Gizem + çikolata/chocolate) sounded very childish. Acı Matriyarka also fit me well.
There is also a motto “from stone-walled castles to neutron batteries”. You can read its meaning here.
❁
I came across a pleasant coincidence about this nick name in the past months.
Since my first book was Renaissance in the Daisy Field, my favorite flower is the daisy. So what is the scientific name of daisy?
I liked it incredibly.
In fact, there are many types of daisy, such as bellis perennis. Matricaria is also a daisy genus.