2011 Press Statement
Dear friends, dear women!
Today is March 8! Again another “March 8” when we cannot celebrate Women’s Day! Yet March 8 is celebrated everywhere by everyone. What an enormous effort to distance March 8 from the struggle against dominant men’s violence and exploitation and from feminism…
We have not forgotten that we inherited March 8 from working women’s struggle to the death demanding shorter working hours and better working conditions; moreover, we repeat once again to friend and foe that we inherited this day from those who fought the Mustafas who said a woman’s back should never be spared the stick.
Today, here, we openly shout our solidarity with those whose labor has been appropriated, condemned to slavery at home and lower wages at work, exploited in homes, workplaces and brothels, forced to endure beatings by their fathers and husbands, killed in honour killings, dying in clandestine abortions, sold by international gangs into the prostitution industry, and subjected to harassment and rape on the streets, at work, in war and in custody. LONG LIVE MARCH 8!
Rebellion Liberates! Women, Join the STRUGGLE for Our Liberation;
Our rebellion; is against men’s appropriation of women’s labor, bodies and identities.
Our rebellion; is against beatings by husbands, against our fathers and older brothers who consider themselves “guardians of our honour”.
Our rebellion; is against state violence, torture, harassment and rape by village guards, soldiers and police.
Our rebellion; is against men’s appropriation of our labor at home… Against doing housework and care work and working as unpaid family workers, while our labor is not seen.
Our rebellion; is against those who exploit us in the capitalist market, consider our labor cheap because we are women and do not want to be second-class, fail to give us equal wages for equal work, and divide work in a sexist way.
Our rebellion; is against bosses and male-dominated unions that fail to see capitalism’s assault on women workers, join arms with male domination and do not share their leadership with women.
Our rebellion; is against being unable to live our sexuality freely, against male domination imposing heterosexism on us. Also against the exclusion and disregard of lesbians, against violence directed at transvestite and transgender women and against hate crimes.
Our rebellion; is against leaving unhealed the wounds of Kurdish women whose language has been banned and whose identity has been denied. Our rebellion is against those who cannot say “Long Live the Sisterhood and Brotherhood of Peoples!”
Our rebellion is against MEN’S VIOLENCE, our rebellion is AGAINST THE KILLING OF WOMEN…
This year too; we were killed for not wanting to go to bed with men, for not passing the salt, for wanting a divorce.
This year too; our killers were husbands, former spouses, fathers, brothers and lovers. This year too, while men killed women, the male-dominated state protected male killers through all its institutions.
This year too; the police stations we asked to save us from our husbands’ beatings and implement “protective laws” sent us home. Prosecutors’ offices where we often went with blackened eyes and wounded lips to file criminal complaints decided to abandon prosecution without their hands trembling. The Institute of Forensic Medicine, which we waited for both hopelessly and angrily to give appointments in rape cases, continued to protect rapists through its decisions. Over the past year too, courts reduced killers’ sentences to next to nothing in the killing of women under the pretext of “unjust provocation”, in other words “sentence reductions for manhood”.
This year too; we continued the struggle against sexual violence, not only against those outside our circles but also against those beside us. Although we knew that men with whom we struggle in the same union and the same party are not free of male domination, we were still shaken and saddened by what happened around us. Most recently, a woman employee at KESK said an executive had harassed her. What happened afterwards openly showed how important it is to take women’s statements as the basis in harassment and rape cases, and that disregarding this principle or saying “women’s statements are important, but…” means disregarding the woman subjected to sexual harassment and the gains of women’s organising.
This year too; in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 report, Turkey fell from 121st to 126th among 134 countries in “gender equality”, but nothing changed for state institutions. The prime minister kept repeating to women “Have 3 children.” Yet this March 8 we would have liked to say that women no longer face violence. We would have liked to say that when women face violence, one shelter is available for every 7,500 women and children, and that this many shelters have been opened according to European Union standards. We would have liked no longer to repeat that the number of shelters has still not reached 100. We would have liked to announce that when women want to escape violence, their economic security is provided, that men’s violence is no longer legitimate, and that women going to court does not lead to their being killed.
Yet this year too, the state took no measures to eliminate the dominant male mentality, prevent the exploitation of women’s bodies and labor, or reduce physical, psychological and economic violence against women. Except for news of the draft law hastily announced before March 8, we have nothing in our hands. We demand urgent measures, not laws likely to remain on paper.
We call out to parliament, the government and judicial authorities: women are killed every day by their male relatives. What are you waiting for to stop them?
Today is March 8! The history of March 8 is the history of women’s resistance. We salute March 8 as women’s day of rebellion. Together we are strong; together, through rebellion, we will become stronger.
LONG LIVE MARCH 8, LONG LIVE OUR STRUGGLE!
Istanbul Feminist Collective