The most powerful lols to date? [Twitter]
**In all of the ridiculous, sexist and down right dangerous things politicians have said, this one tops the charts.
In a bid to lecture the country on their ‘moral decline’ the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Bülent Arinc, declared that women should not laugh in public. He said:
‘A man should be moral but women should be moral as well, they should know what is decent and what is not decent’ adding that ‘She should not laugh loudly in front of all the world and should preserve her decency at all times.’
He went on to condemn the influence of soap operas, the excessive use of cars and the use of mobile phones (because women are spending ‘hours on the phone to swap recipes’ For shame!) If these were the words of your average man stuck in an archaic time warp, you could be forgiven for dismissing his comments as the nonsense it is. But this man is one of the most senior members of the Turkish government and one of the co-founders of the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party (AKP).
In response, Ekmeleddin Ä°hsanoglu, the main opposition candidate reacted by tweeting that Turkey ‘needs women and everyone's laughter more than anything’.
So how did the women of Turkey respond to Arinc’s ‘laughing ban’? Protests in the street? With anger and fury? Nope. By laughing.
Their response is truly a thing of wonder. Tweeting to the hashtags #kahkaha - which means "laughter" in Turkish they caused a social media avalanche of happiness by posting pictures of themselves lol’ing away.
Hurray for social media, hurray for laughing and hurray for you, the female population of Turkey!