2007 Press Statement
Dear friends, my dear sisters
We know, and we repeat for those who do not know… The history of March 8 is the history of women’s resistance. We do not whine on March 8. We salute March 8 as women’s day of struggle. As women, we address men and those who rule… We say: fear us… As Feminists, we address clerics, husbands, fathers, ministers, those who raise their voices and wield batons. Fear us, because we will not be silent… We will not be silent about our oppression and exploitation… We say: do not stand in our way, do not steal our words… Our liberation is in our own hands, and we women have no option but to struggle together to escape the male-dominated order…
Today March 8 is celebrated everywhere, by everyone. Today the big media, parliament and companies work with all their might to strip March 8 of its character as a day of struggle against the violence and exploitation of male rulers… What an enormous effort to distance March 8 from feminism… Just as we do not forget that we inherited March 8 from women workers’ struggle to the death in the eighteen hundreds for shorter working hours and better working conditions, we repeat once again to friend and foe that we also inherited it from those who fought the Mustafas who said a woman’s back should never be without a beating.
Today, here, we shout our solidarity with those whose labor is appropriated, those condemned to slavery at home and low pay at work, those exploited in factories, brothels, homes, wherever they may be, those forced to endure beatings by fathers, husbands and men, those murdered in honour killings, those who die in clandestine abortions, those sold into the prostitution industry by international gangs, those subjected to harassment and rape on the streets, at work, in war and in custody…
LONG LIVE MARCH 8
LONG LIVE MARCH 8
Rebellion Liberates!
Women, INTO THE STRUGGLE for Our Liberation;
Our rebellion; is against men’s appropriation of women’s labor, bodies and identities; our rebellion is against the PATRIARCHAL ORDER
Our rebellion is against men’s appropriation of our labor at home… Against the exploitation of our invisible labor
Our rebellion; is against beatings by husbands, against men’s sexual aggression behind closed doors that can target their daughters and even their sons…
Our rebellion; is against the guardianship of our “honour” not being left to us, against our bodies being surrendered to the male state and to men whose own honour and integrity should be questioned
Our rebellion; is against being the “good woman/lady/honourable woman/virgin/slave/wife” expected of us
Our rebellion; is against state violence, torture, harassment and rape by village guards, soldiers and police
Our rebellion; is against exploitation in the capitalist market, and additionally being cheap labor and secondary because we are women, against those who do not pay equal wages for work of equal value, against the sexist division of labor
Our rebellion; is against bosses, against male unions that fail to see capitalism’s assault on women workers as it joins arms with patriarchy, that do not share their leadership with women
Our rebellion; is against patriarchy’s lies… against lesbians sometimes being excluded even by gay men… against prostitution being offered to transvestite and transsexual women as their only option for living, against male hypocrisy that both pours money into homosexual prostitution and casts homosexuals outside humanity…
Our rebellion; is against fascism nourished by militarism, strengthened by armies, military tutelage regimes and war policies… against those who see our sisters Zozan, Silva and Karin as enemies and deny their existence
Our rebellion; is against leaving unhealed the wounds of Kurdish women whose identities are denied and whose language is banned, against those who cannot say long live the siblinghood of peoples…
Our rebellion; is against our bodies being spoils of war across the world. Against every kind of assault and violence against women in wars leaving less of a mark than even a bombed ammunition depot
Our rebellion; is against imperialist attacks and occupations continuing under the lie of liberating women. Against America, which has turned Iraq into hell, against the supposed enemies of America who silently await the execution on March 20 of three women resisters, Wassan, Zeynep and Liqa
Our rebellion; is against proponents of sharia, against women being held in prisons in Iran for struggling against male-dominated sharia and discriminatory laws…
Our rebellion; is against our textile-worker sisters being burned alive in Bursa… Against women drowning in Ceylanpınar while travelling atop a truck to do cheap subcontracted work… Against women workers at Novamed being fired for unionising…
OUR
Rebellion;
Is against those who deny the history of our struggle, who try to make it forgotten;
But we know we are strong together; rebelling together, we will be stronger!
LONG LIVE MARCH 8
LONG LIVE OUR STRUGGLE
LONG LIVE MARCH 8
WOMAN, LIFE, FREEDOM
FEMINISTS
WOMEN EXIST
TO STAY SILENT, TO SIT STILL
ALWAYS TO SUBMIT
TO WATCH LIFE PASS US BY
WE HAVE BEEN EXPECTED UNTIL NOW
WOMEN EXIST
WOMEN EXIST
WOMEN ARE EVERYWHERE
WE WERE SILENT AND WE WAITED
LIFE WENT ON AND WE WATCHED
AT LAST WE SAID ENOUGH
WE WILL NEVER BE SILENT AGAIN
WOMEN EXIST
WOMEN EXIST
WOMEN ARE EVERYWHERE