2017 Feminist Night March

İstanbul – Taksim

2017 in review

Meeting convened by
Feminists who organised the 2016 march
Banner slogan
No to interference in our lives + There is no turning back from our feminist struggle (a banner in two parts)
Route
French Cultural Centre - Tünel
Meeting point
French Cultural Centre, 7.30 pm

2017: No to interference in our lives + There is no turning back from our feminist struggle

Signed by: Feminists

Preparations for the 2017 March 8 Feminist Night March began under the state of emergency declared after the July 15, 2016 ‘coup attempt’. Dismissals and association closures through emergency decrees continued relentlessly. From September 11, 2016, municipalities won by the DBP began to be seized under these decrees. On November 4, eleven HDP MPs were arrested along with co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ; the HDP was parliament’s third-largest party. Trustees were appointed one after another to municipalities won by HDP candidates, and elected mayors, including Gültan Kışanak, were arrested. Women’s associations and centres in the region, where women sought help to escape male violence, were also closed after the trustees took over. Investigations were opened against the Academics for Peace who had signed ‘We Will Not Be a Party to This Crime’, and some were removed from academia.

As democratic rights were progressively dismantled under the state of emergency, the Parliamentary Divorce Commission report published on May 14, 2016 reinforced the AKP’s policies that centred the family rather than women. A referendum was scheduled for April 16, 2017 on constitutional changes introducing a presidential system that meant one-man rule.

A bill introduced in parliament in November 2016 that would have pardoned men convicted of sexually abusing children was withdrawn following women’s struggle. Minister of Family and Social Policies Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya tweeted: ‘The bill on early marriages, which has been publicly debated and aims to remedy the grievances of thousands of families, will be reconsidered.’

Events in 2016, including a man kicking a woman on a bus for wearing shorts and another man attacking a pregnant woman in a park, signalled a period in which attacks on particular ways of life, especially through women, were felt more intensely.

Despite this bleak picture, feminists and the women’s movement retained enormous energy and hope. The feminist strike movement that began in Poland and continued in Argentina was spreading in waves. By March 8, women from 55 countries had joined the strike call. Statements arrived from country after country, almost all linking their own central struggles to the broader shared context taking shape around the strike. The idea that women stopping their work, even for one day, would shake the world generated excitement. The women’s movement in Turkey shared it.

Alongside the feminist strike wave, the withdrawal of the amnesty for sexual abusers and the possibility that a ‘no’ vote in the coming referendum could change the oppressive, authoritarian regime provided motivation as preparations began. On January 28, independent feminists and women from dozens of women’s groups and political parties came together to articulate and amplify women’s reasons for voting ‘no’, around the words ‘Not alone; #no: Women Are Strong Together towards March 8’. The 2017 video invitation reflected this energy through the language and slogans of the global feminist strike movement.

After the Istanbul Feminist Collective (İFK) dissolved in 2016, its Twitter and Facebook accounts were transferred to the March 8 Feminist Night March. The İFK / Feminist Collective signature used for the march for ten years was dropped. Feminists who had attended the 2016 preparatory meetings called the organising meeting.

The Socialist Feminist Collective (SFK), which was discussing and deciding to end its activities around the same time, handed its premises over to feminists. İFK’s email address became feministler@gmail.com, and the SFK premises became Feminist Mekan.

This year, partly through Women Are Strong Together, preparations strengthened relations with women’s groups beyond the Istanbul Feminist Collective’s network. Feminists had already worked with groups outside that network through the 2012 Abortion Is a Right, Women Decide Platform, the July 2014 Emergency Action Group Against Femicide and, most recently, the referendum ‘no’ campaign. This helped bring many more feminists from mixed-gender groups who located themselves within the feminist movement into the organising work in 2017.

Discussions of the banner slogan considered whether saying ‘no’ in the referendum should be the march’s central message. Participants agreed to go beyond a simple ‘no’, addressing what the presidential system would mean for women’s lives: a message rejecting male domination, affirming that feminist struggle would continue and emphasising women standing together.

Preparations were intensive. At the call of Women Are Strong Together, people added the women’s strike logo to their social media profiles on March 6 and called an online action. The ‘no’ campaign was organised alongside stalls for the night march, and actions expressed support for the strike. Planning became more detailed: there were more stewards, new foam-board signs and many printed flags. Anticipating roadworks and a narrowed route, organisers made a banner that could split in two. Its two-part message was ‘No to interference in our lives; there is no turning back from our feminist struggle’. Social media invitations used #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz on March 5 and #FeministGeceYürüyüşü on March 7.

Alongside these developments, the leaflet and press statement stressed ‘we do not forget’, placing the bombings across the country, the war in Syria, the targeting of Academics for Peace, the Divorce Commission, the amnesty for child abusers and attacks on women’s ways of life on the March 8 agenda.

Organisers felt that Taksim, particularly after the changes following Gezi, was now mainly used by tourists and men and was a place women visited less in everyday life. They therefore distributed leaflets there without opening a stall. Stalls were set up in Beşiktaş and Kadıköy instead. Thus 2017 was the year organisers stopped setting up stalls in Taksim.

On March 8, at the call of Women Are Strong Together, feminists gathered in Cihangir Park. They read the call, laid fabric on the ground and painted a banner, and read the solidarity statement for the strike prepared by Women Are Strong Together. A long, narrow vinyl banner reading ‘Give Voice to the Strike’ was also printed and hung from the artwork in Tünel.

The 2017 march was the largest and most exuberant yet, with figures of 40,000 participants being discussed. There was barely room to walk on İstiklal Avenue. Despite the long-established tradition of a shared banner and unsigned placards, TJA, SKM, HDP Youth and Sosyalist İşçi arrived with placards bearing their names, prompting brief arguments with the organising team.

As in previous years, the organising team invited everyone to celebrate together afterwards. The party at The Mekan drew around a thousand people.

The previous year’s daytime rally in Kadıköy had been banned, and participants had tried to hold it by dispersing through the market area and marching. In 2017, applications were made for rallies in both Kadıköy and Bakırköy. Both were initially refused, but objections secured permission for Bakırköy. The daytime March 8 rally, held in Kadıköy for years, took place in Bakırköy for the first time in 2017.

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All yearly summaries

2017

Call to Action

On Tuesday, March 7 (today), at 21.00, we announce from our Facebook and Twitter accounts: #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Subject: 15th March 8 Feminist Night March Place: Taksim, in front of the French Cultural Center Date: March 8, 19.30 Who: Women, LGBTI+ people; closed to cis men #FeministGeceYürüyüşü #8M #KadınGrevi #Hayatıİstiyoruz We join the call for the International Women's Strike from Turkey #ParoInternacionalDeMujeres Call to the march and support for the strike: https://youtu.be/r4VFhjBisME   Every year, more and more women shout our rebellion against patriarchy, heterosexism and male violence at #FeministGeceYürüyüşü. Long live March 8! Long live March 8! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü There can be no justice without equality #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say we claim our lives #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Leave the housework, let the world stop #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We reject the sexist division of labor at home, at work, in the streets and in every area of life #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Abortion is a right, the decision is women's #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We've strayed from the straight and narrow, here we come #FeministGeceYürüyüşü There's nothing to eat in the fridge, there's rebellion in the streets #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We owe children neither to men nor to the state #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Prince on a white horse, don't bother coming! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Our bodies, our lives, our decisions belong to us! Keep your family! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We are women, not the family! We are in feminist rebellion! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Prevent murder, not divorce #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Women are women; your father is a flower #FeministGeceYürüyüşü March 8 is a day of rebellion, not flowers. Women are in feminist rebellion #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Who I have loved, who I have had sex with. What's it to anyone! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Not every woman becomes a mother. Certainly not by force #FeministGeceYürüyüşü If I say it's over, it's over. Get off my back #FeministGeceYürüyüşü I live with girls and boys, with other women. What's it to anyone! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We will build the future through our feminist rebellion and solidarity! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Once we've taken to the streets, we will not turn back. Women are in rebellion #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Whose morality is public morality #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Just when we're about to be chaste, we burst out laughing #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We are Lesbians, Bisexuals, Trans, Intersex, Feminists! We are everywhere! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Bombs are falling on our lives. Women want peace #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Security is no justification for war! Women want peace #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say our choices belong to us against those trying to take decisions about our lives out of our hands #FeministGeceYürüyüşü We abandon neither the nights nor the streets nor the squares! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Poland, Russia, El Salvador, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey! #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Against those who steal our hope for peace by threatening us with civil war and tell us to surrender our lives unquestioningly into the hands of a single man #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say no to fathers, husbands, lovers, bosses and state “elders” who mix lies with threats to force us to consent and depend on them #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say our bodies, our labor and our identities belong to us #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say no to femicides, male violence and rape in dormitories and foundations, harassment on buses and in the streets, stalking by ex-lovers and spouses, forced marriages and pressure to have children #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Against harassment and rape covered up in high schools, discrimination and dating violence at universities, and sexist treatment by academics and teachers #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say we do not want male violence in parliament, sexist MPs or bills legitimizing sexual abuse #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Against hate crimes, murders of trans people and homophobic discrimination at work, at school and in the streets, to say we are here, we are together, you cannot stop LGBTI+ people #FeministGeceYürüyüşü Against the unpaid domestic labor, childcare and housework loaded onto women; against discrimination in working life and the imposition of the “acceptable woman” at home and in the workplace #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say we do not let them interfere with our lives, we claim our lives #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say you cannot eliminate the women's associations and centers, closed by decree laws, that women seeking escape from male violence turn to #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say we stand with the workers of the freedom-minded press, academia and state institutions who have lost their jobs, been arrested or face attempts to strip them of their rights #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say that in a polarized world our greatest source of support is women's solidarity #FeministGeceYürüyüşü To say we will overcome our despair about the life ahead by growing stronger together #FeministGeceYürüyüşü @istanbulfeminist https://www.facebook.com/istanbulfeminist/

On Sunday, March 5 (today) at 21.00, we announce from our Facebook and Twitter accounts: #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Subject: 15th March 8 Feminist Night March Place: Taksim, in front of the French Cultural Center Date: March 8, 19.30 Who: Women, LGBTI+ people, (closed to cis men!) #FeministGeceYürüyüşü #8M #KadınGrevi #Hayatıİstiyoruz We join the call for the International Women's Strike from Turkey #ParoInternacionalDeMujeres https://youtu.be/r4VFhjBisME To say our choices belong to us against those trying to take decisions about our lives out of our hands #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Leave the housework, let the world stop #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz We abandon neither the nights nor the streets nor the squares! #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Poland, Russia, El Salvador, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey! #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Against those who steal our hope for peace by threatening us with civil war and tell us to surrender our lives unquestioningly into the hands of a single man #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say no to fathers, husbands, lovers, bosses and state “elders” who mix lies with threats to force us to consent and depend on them #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say our bodies, our labor and our identities belong to us #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say no to femicides, male violence and rape in dormitories and foundations, harassment on buses and in the streets, stalking by ex-lovers and spouses, forced marriages and pressure to have children #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Against harassment and rape covered up in high schools, discrimination and dating violence at universities, and sexist treatment by academics and teachers #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say we do not want male violence in parliament, sexist MPs or bills legitimizing sexual abuse #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Against hate crimes, murders of trans people and homophobic discrimination at work, at school and in the streets, to say we are here, we are together, you cannot stop LGBTI+ people #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Against the unpaid domestic labor, childcare and housework loaded onto women; against discrimination in working life and the imposition of the “acceptable woman” at home and in the workplace #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say we do not let them interfere with our lives, we claim our lives #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say you cannot eliminate the women's associations and centers, closed by decree laws, that women seeking escape from male violence turn to #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz To say we stand with the workers of the freedom-minded press, academia and state institutions who have lost their jobs, been arrested or face attempts to strip them of their rights #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz In a polarized world, to say our greatest source of support is women's solidarity #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz Facing the life ahead, we will overcome our despair by growing stronger together to say this #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz @istanbulfeminist https://www.facebook.com/istanbulfeminist/

2017

Press Statement

There Is No Turning Back from Our Feminist Struggle! No to Interference in Our Lives! This year, for the 15th time, as women and trans people at the Feminist Night March, here we are again, side by side in the streets, in the square, on İstiklal Caddesi, in the midst of life. Together we stand against the state that instills fear in us and tries to drive us women out of the streets, squares, nights, universities, public life, our workplaces and politics, and against men who attack our bodies every day. Even under the destructive conditions of the state of emergency, we do not hold back from doing what we know best; we are not going anywhere, we resist, because there is no turning back in either our lives or our struggle! We know every kind of conservatism and male domination best; we know best how they attack women. They want us to get scared and return home when we hear news of a kick aimed at a woman wearing shorts, an attack on a pregnant woman in a park, the rape of a woman returning home at night. We hear this news because, as we know, they are legitimizing existing male domination more and more each day. Not only do men go unpunished, they are rewarded; the law continues to work for them. Yet far from being afraid or retreating, we strengthen one another through women's solidarity and do not retreat from the streets. While the AKP government imposes the heterosexist, Turkish and Sunni family on all of us, trans people targeted by these policies are murdered by men in their homes and in the streets; their killers are protected and encouraged by the state itself. As the number of women and trans people taken from us by male violence increases every day, male justice lets women's killers benefit from every kind of sentence reduction granted to men and hands them sentences like rewards, while raining harsh punishments on women who defend their lives. With the nationalist security policies it has rallied behind it, the AKP increasingly narrows our living spaces. Bombs are falling on our lives. While leaving no incentive untried to make us start families, they want to shut us women inside the family, isolate us and weaken us. They want us to give birth, look after children, work flexibly, and, through laws on agency labor and childcare allowances for maternal grandmothers at home, be condemned to a lifetime of unskilled, insecure work. Marriage incentives and the divorce commission both lead to the same place: the family. We have been saying it for years; let us say it again: We owe children neither to the state nor to men. On the contrary, men are indebted to us! We have had our fill of marriage incentives, too. Do you know what the increase in divorces despite so many incentives says? Women have now taken to the streets, women are claiming their lives, and there is no turning back! Through the opportunism of the state of emergency, added to the destruction of war and the bombs falling on our lives, they close oppositional women's institutions while establishing women's institutions close to themselves, so they can say, “Look, we work with women's organizations too.” Women mayors and local administrators, and the women's counseling and solidarity centers created through their efforts, are being usurped by appointed trustees. The incoming trustees' first act is to close women's centers, even to say that women cannot be bus drivers. Women MPs who are our voice in parliament, who try to put equal representation into practice, who are our companions in feminist struggle, are arrested and attempts are made to silence them. They try to shove us out of parliament and social life. But if we are not in parliament, we are in the streets; if not in the municipality, we are in the squares, and under every condition, everywhere, we shout that another kind of world is possible through women's solidarity. With laws they pass through parliament at midnight without our knowledge, they try to pave the way for a child to marry her abuser and to usurp, one by one, the gains women have won through the civil code and international conventions. We won our rights; of course we will defend them. We laugh off those who think we will wait silently and bow to our “fate.” Better still, we send them our joyful laughter. This March 8 we are much stronger than ever. Because in different parts of the world, women are on strike, in the streets, in rebellion against similar conservative, racist, militarist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic state policies. This year March 8 is a March 8 when women everywhere in the world come together, object and say no to war, male domination and violence, heterosexism and every kind of discrimination. Women's solidarity crosses borders! We escape the loneliness and fear into which harsh times push us by once again drawing strength and courage from one another. Our night march is both an expression and a renewed declaration of this togetherness and determination. Today we are here together as women in a thousand and one forms, with a thousand and one methods of struggle. We grow stronger through our differences and struggle side by side, hand in hand, against the threats directed at our lives. We will continue until we have put an end to the breed of those who think they have the right to interfere with what we wear, whom we have sex with, our pleasure, when we go out, our abortions when we become pregnant, when, how much and in what tone we speak, and our laughter. We will build life anew, ourselves. From here we declare once again to men and the male state: No to anything less than one hundred percent equality! No to a life bounded by the family! No to equal labor for unequal pay and insecure work! No to war and cross-border operations! No to our rights and freedoms being trimmed and ground to dust! No to male justice and the male state! No to the head of the family and the head of the state alike! We abandon neither the nights nor the streets nor the squares! There is no turning back from our feminist struggle! Next year, too, we will meet in this space to raise the voice of feminist struggle. Long live our Feminist Struggle! Long live March 8! Feminists March 8, 2017

2017

Slogans

SLOGAN LIST – FEMINIST NIGHT MARCH 2017   Long live March 8! Long live our feminist struggle! Long live, long live March 8! Long live women's solidarity! Not alone, strong together! Women together, strong together! STRIKE Join the call for the international women's strike!!!!! Not one more of us will be lost, not one more of us will be lost! Long live our feminist struggle! Join the call, join the call, join the women's strike! Raise, raise, raise the voice of rebellion! Women, stop work on March 8! On strike for life, we are in rebellion! Men, go home to look after children Men, go home to cook Men, go home to iron Women, to the streets to be free! Cinderella, don't go to the ball; on March 8, come to the square! Men are indebted to us! Leave the housework, let the world stop! Let the house go to shit! There's nothing to eat in the fridge, there's rebellion in the streets! We are women, not the family; we are in feminist rebellion! Invisible labor, raise your voice! Laundry gets dirty, dishes get dirty; let him not think you're his slave: if he dirtied it, let him wash it! THE NO'S: To male violence (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To harassment, rape (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To sexual abuse (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those trying to legitimize abuse (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To war (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To lies (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To cross-border operations (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To death (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To decree laws (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To hatred (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To homophobia (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those turning a deaf ear to our voices and decisions (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those making us regret loving (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those making life unbearable for us (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those trying to shut us up at home (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those forcing us into new yeses every day (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those drawing the boundaries of our lives with the family (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) To those extracting consent through threats (chant leader) ----- NO (crowd) NO MEANS NO; NO MEANS NO Ha ha ha – NO! Ha ha ha NO! WHEN I SAY “NO,” IT MEANS NO; IN HARASSMENT CASES, THE WOMAN'S TESTIMONY IS THE BASIS   THE HERE'S: Pippa Bacca ------------------ here Serra Sierra ------------------ here Jesca Nankabirwa ------------------ here Fatmanur Çelik ------------------ here Çağla Joker ----------------------- here Sevim Başar ------------------------ here Değer Deniz ----------------------- here Hande Kader ---------------------- here Violet Nantaba ------------------- here NOT COINCIDENCE, BUT MALE VIOLENCE Sevim Zarif ------------------ here Ayşe Yılbaş ------------------ here Güldünya Tören ------------------ here Ayşe Paşalı ------------------ here Meryem Yılmaz ------------------ here NOT ISOLATED INCIDENTS, BUT MALE VIOLENCE GENERAL: Our bodies, ------ OURS! Our lives ----- OURS! Our decisions ----- OURS! The streets ----- OURS! The nights ----- OURS! The squares ----- OURS! Our lives are ours; keep your family! Women will no longer be silent, no longer be silent, no longer be silent We are not silent, we are not afraid, we do not obey! Woman, life, freedom Prevent murder, not divorce! We abandon neither the nights nor the streets nor the squares The world would shake if women were free; we will shake the world! Let the father come, let the husband come, let the state come, let the baton come; rebellion in defiance, rebellion in defiance, freedom in defiance! We Want a World Without Bosses, Pimps or Shelters Men----(crowd) We do not obey!! Patriarchy ----(crowd) We do not obey!! The AKP ---- (crowd) We do not obey!! Husbands, fathers, bosses---- (crowd) We do not obey!! WE ARE NOT SILENT, WE ARE NOT AFRAID, WE DO NOT OBEY! AKP, take your hands off my body! State, take your hands off my life Murders of trans people are political! Real justice, not male justice! The streets are ours (chant leader) ---- did you think they were yours? (crowd) The nights are ours (chant leader) ---- did you think they were yours? (crowd) The squares are ours (chant leader) ---- did you think they were yours? (crowd) Our lives are ours (chant leader) ---- did you think they were yours? (crowd) WE ABANDON NEITHER THE NIGHTS NOR THE STREETS NOR THE SQUARES! Prince on a white horse, don't bother coming! We will not be anyone's honor! Love, Love, Freedom; Keep Hatred Away! Women are resisting everywhere! Women's anger crosses borders! Don't give me roses, give me peace, Just stay out of my way! FOR PEACE: Women do not want war! We insist, insist on peace! Raise, raise, raise the voice of peace! No to war, peace right now! We stand for life, not death! End male and state violence Women's bodies are not battlefields! Let the guns fall silent, peace right now! Funds for sustaining life, not war! Funds for shelters, not war! Lend a hand to peace, stop war! No liberation alone: either all together or none of us! Women do not want war, they want peace! Long live women's unity. Long live women's struggle THE WHAT'S IT TO YOU'S: I come home whenever I want (chant leader) ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I wear a miniskirt ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I live with girls and boys ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I live with other women ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I get pregnant and do not give birth ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I get pregnant and have an abortion ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I cover my head or uncover it ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I don't marry, I get pregnant ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I do housework if I want to, or don't ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I have sex if I want to, and don't if I don't ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I wear shorts ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) I divorce ---- WHAT'S IT TO YOU (crowd) OUR LABOR, OUR BODIES, OUR IDENTITIES BELONG TO US! Get used to no, gentlemen, get used to no, gentlemen! MALE VIOLENCE: Don't watch violence, intervene! You spoke of laughter and chastity, you massacred women. You spoke of innate nature and fits of madness, you massacred women. Men hit, the state protects. Homophobic state, transphobic state, we will surely tear you down (sung) Men's love (chant leader)---- kills women (crowd) We don't want love that kills (crowd) Femicides Are Political Murders of Trans People Are Political Shout So Everyone Hears, Let Male Violence End Not coincidence, but male violence Not isolated incidents, but male violence Massacre everywhere, the killers are in our homes In marriage (chant leader) ---- there is murder (crowd) PREVENT MURDER, NOT DIVORCE! Men ------------- kill The judiciary ------------- protects The media ----------- whitewashes MEN, JUDICIARY, MEDIA: DO NOT FORM AN ALLIANCE! RAISE YOUR VOICE – REBELLION: Raise your voice against male domination Raise your voice against sexism Raise your voice against transphobia Raise your voice against homophobia Raise your voice against militarism Raise your voice against capitalism Raise your voice against patriarchy Raise your voice against labor exploitation Raise your voice against war Raise your voice against sexual abuse Raise your voice against violence, Raise your voice against harassment, Raise your voice against rape Raise your voice against the massacre of women (“rebellioooon” can also be said instead of “raise your voice”) Long live women's solidarity! LGBTI+: Don't be silent, shout out: lesbians exist Don't be silent, shout out: gay people exist Don't be silent, shout out: trans people exist Murders of trans people are political! Ayşe must be able to love Fatma, Emel to love Sibel / They must be able to love one another Whose morality is public morality Where are you, my love – I'm here, my love! In the streets, at home, in parliament, gay people are everywhere

2017

Calendar

This year too, with the 15th Feminist Night March, we are in Taksim on March 8 at 19.30! Our program: Friday, March 3, at 17.00we distribute leaflets on İstiklal Friday, March 3, at 19.00— the Night March's final planning meeting. Place: Feminist Mekan Saturday, March 4, from 15.00 to 18.00 Stalls/leafleting at the Beşiktaş Eagle Statue and Kadıköy's Khalkedon Square Sunday, March 5, at 13.00for the March 8 daytime rally we are in Bakırköy! Sunday, March 5, at 17.00at Feminist Mekan, we paint the night march banner together, and make preparations.. Sunday, March 5, at 21.00— #8MarttaTaksimdeyiz is the hashtag for our social media action! Monday, March 6, at 18.00we set up a stall at the Beşiktaş Eagle Statue Tuesday, March 7, at 18.00 we set up a stall at Khalkedon Square in Kadıköy Tuesday, March 7, at 21.00— #FeministGeceYürüyüşü is the hashtag for our social media action! Wednesday, March 8, All Day #8M and #Hayatıİstiyoruz are the hashtags with which we join the strike called by feminists across the world! Everywhere we wear black-purple ribbons, share photos/videos of ourselves reading the text prepared to join the strike from Turkey or holding its words, and carry out symbolic actions! Wednesday, March 8, at 14.00we meet at Feminist Mekan for preparations. We are at Feminist Mekan all day. At 15.00 we distribute leaflets on İstiklal Wednesday, March 8, at 19.30— our Night March starts in front of the French Cultural Center!! Wednesday, March 8, at 21.00after the Night March, as every year, we come together at The Mekanwhere Ritim Kolektif will also perform.. Come along too; let's do it all together!

2017

Declaration

Our call to women and trans people: The wave of actions that began on October 3 in Poland with women's one-day #SiyahProtesto, defending their bodies and choices against the abortion ban, reached Argentina and grew stronger as opposition to femicides mounted. In Argentina, Poland, Italy, Iceland and America, women poured into the streets saying #BirKişiDahaEksilmeyeceğiz. Women's rebellions sweeping the world, their determination to claim their lives and their firm stand against discrimination and inequality are spreading in waves. The women of Argentina are right: “This March 8, the earth will shake!” For us, since March 8, 2016, when we filled Taksim with 10,000 people, the earth has been shaking in many different ways: We rebel because we do not forget! We do not forget that while patriarchy grows by intensifying its violence, we are expected to shrink, to be erased from the streets and from life, to become cowed and isolated! Male violence continues in the streets, on public transport, at home, at work, in parliament and at school. While women are most often murdered when trying to divorce or separate, or because they do not want to reconcile, we do not forget that through the strength of our solidarity we blocked the Turkish parliament's Divorce Commission's attempts to prevent divorce and stigmatize relationships outside marriage! We do not forget the closure by decree laws of women's associations and centers to which women seeking escape from male violence turn, the attempt to lock up women's solidarity! We do not forget that in 2016 in Turkey they tried to whitewash sexual abuse through marriage, and that we stopped this through our organizing! We do not forget that women public-sector workers, academics and journalists who signed a text for peace, went on strike within their legal rights, or worked at press and publishing institutions that gave space to oppositional voices were dismissed overnight through arbitrary lists! This year we have seen what war means for us, how it recognizes no borders, how it infiltrates everywhere by circulating its own imagery too. We try to carry on our lives under the threat of bombs and the shadow of guns. We also know war through the experiences of Syrian women and all migrant women in this country; we do not forget! We are living through a period in which Turkey is becoming more conservative and there is no tolerance left for lives outside what those in power deem appropriate. We experience increasing hatred and discrimination against LGBTI+ people. We know our liberation lies in our own struggle, not in men who “presume to teach” us how to live, what to wear, where to be at what time, whom to love and whom to have sex with; not in those building their politics on this; not in those seeing us not as subjects but as symbols of their own battle! That is why we say no to fathers, husbands, lovers, bosses and state “elders” who believe men should make the decisions about our lives, steal our hope for peace by threatening us with civil war, tell us to surrender our lives unquestioningly into the hands of a single man, and mix lies with threats to force us to consent and depend on them! Against those trying to dominate us at home, at work and in the streets, to say our lives and our choices are ours and we will never give them up, we will be at the Feminist Night March in Taksim on March 8 at 19.30!

2017

Strike Statement

In 2017, as the referendum approached, the Women Are Strong Together campaign group was established to amplify the voice of “No.” That year, the group called for joining, from Turkey, the International Women's Strike organized on March 8 in Argentina, Italy, Spain, America and many other countries, and actions to join the call were organized in many provinces. In Istanbul, the Feminist Night March also participated in these actions by joining the call for the International Women's Strike on March 8.

2017

Press Coverage

22 articles

Women in Bakırköy on March 5 and Beyoğlu on March 8

2 March 2017 bianet.org

Feminist Night March at 19:30 in Beyoğlu

8 March 2017 bianet.org

Women Fill İstiklal Avenue at the March 8 Night March

9 March 2017 Haluk Kalafat bianet.org

I’m Not Crying, I’ve Got March 8 in My Eye

9 March 2017 Burcu Karakaş bianet.org

Women Fill İstiklal Avenue for March 8

9 March 2017 bianet.org

Podcast

First-hand Accounts of the Istanbul Feminist Night March: Selime Büyükgöze, Cemre Baytok

In this episode of Çatlak Zemin's archive project tracing the history of the Feminist Night March in Istanbul, Selime Büyükgöze and Cemre Baytok discuss how the marches have been organised since 2010, the growth in participation following Gezi, the diversity of the organising committee, the work involved in organising the march, the importance of maintaining its independent feminist politics, and the feminist messages that have come to the fore over the years.

Görüşme süresi:
44:06
Anlatıcı:
Selime Büyükgöze, Cemre Baytok
Zaman kapsamı:
2010–2023
Anahtar kelimeler:
Gezi, organizasyon komitesi, iş bölümü, bağımsız feminist örgütlenme, feminist söz

Diğer podcastler

2016 Feminist Gece Yürüyüşü Previous year 2016 2016 Feminist Night March 2018 Feminist Gece Yürüyüşü Next year 2018 2018 Feminist Night March
2017 · Çatlak Zemin

Tarihimizden

16 Ekim 2017: Maltalı gazeteci Daphné Caruana Galizia arabasına yerleştirilen bombayla katledildi

Hande Sakarya

Daphné Caruana Galizia yolsuzluk, devlet içi çıkar ilişkileri, kumar endüstrisi ile devlet yetkilileri arasındaki bağlar ve organize suç konularında çalışan bir araştırmacı gazeteciydi. Görevini suistimal eden politikacıların peşine düştü. Araştırmaları…