2005 Press Statement
WE DO NOT OBEY THE MALE-DOMINATED ORDER
We do not obey, because we reject this order’s demand that we be “good/a lady/a virgin/a wife”.
We have grown tired of our “unhappy duties”: whether or not we work outside, fulfilling the “duties” taught to us as women and men; shouldering all household tasks such as preparing food, washing dishes and clothes, caring for children and older people; continuing our duty of “sacred motherhood”; not bringing disgrace upon our “honour”, which belongs not to us but to our husband or father; living according to the sexual roles expected of us. But our rebellion is not born of weariness. Our rebellion is born of this male-dominated order’s lies/hypocrisy. Because this order’s guiding principle is built on taking possession of women’s labor, bodies and identities. That is why our honour is protected with our blood by the “state” in schools and by “tradition” within families (!). That is why our sexuality, beyond being suppressed and prohibited, has become an object of amusement, pleasure, assault and humiliation for men. That is why women’s bodies are spoils of war everywhere in the world. That is why every kind of violence and assault against women during war fails to provoke as much reaction as the bombing of an ammunition depot. That is why we face men’s sexual assaults, harassment and rape not only at home/in the family, but in workplaces, on the streets, in police stations, in wars… in every sphere of life. That is why the extent, systematic nature and institutionalisation of violence against us are still disregarded, and our lives are lined up as numbers as though they were ordinary statistics coldly compiled. That is why we are the poorest in this world. That is why all the property we have earned together is in men’s names. That is why we are not sent to school and are deprived of every opportunity for education. The shortest education and the lowest wages are the share of us women.
In short, we women, we “broken branches”, whose place at the table is not even worth an ox’s; even when we fulfil every role of womanhood without fail and constitute half this world, we are still the people no one wants to see, still the people whose speech is interrupted. We are the ones expected to believe all those lies and falsehoods, like the “freedom and democracy” America brought to the Middle East.
Yes, we are oppressed by men. Sometimes through beatings and violence, and sometimes through the requirements of “devotion” and “self-sacrifice” placed upon us, sometimes through the endlessly repeated songs of the family’s sanctity and innocence. But the truth is that the “violence” used everywhere as a tool to oppress, silence and disregard us is one of the most important instruments of this male-dominated order, which holds our lives hostage and counts them as nothing, sometimes through “honour”, sometimes through “spoils of war”, sometimes through “trafficking in women’s bodies”, not merely the “official status of numbers”. Not only violence: law, the family, the state and religion also pave the way for women’s oppression. All social gender values are built on the oppression of us women and the perception of that oppression as “fate”, to secure women’s obedience to male domination. We are suffocating amid these lies that force us to accept this oppression.
WE DO NOT OBEY PATRIARCHY!
Today imperialism, in the name of globalisation and “structural adjustment”, imposes the policy of cheaply exploiting the labor of women and children. The worst paid jobs and most unpaid and informal work fall to us women. The devaluation of housework, and the devaluation of other domestic work when it is paid, make us women the poorest of the poor in this world. (Invisible labor, raise your voice!) We claim our invisible labor. Meanwhile, homosexuals are also treated as sexual objects, and the selling of young gay boys in prostitution markets after women and transvestites continues! We will not remain silent about prostitution and trafficking in women’s bodies, which have become an industry in the capitalist system.
WE DO NOT OBEY AMERICA!
Militarism, as old as the history of this land, has intensified beside us through the years-long war. Each of us knows through our own life the damage militarism does to the whole of society, the anger and hostility it causes. Militarism also nourishes and increases every kind of violence, particularly violence against women. We cry out together with our Kurdish sisters, who are themselves the primary victims of this violence both during war and after it.
WE DO NOT OBEY MILITARISM!
The order of male domination also makes sexuality absolute on the basis that a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man. Heterosexism, opposite-sex attraction, is accepted/imposed as a necessity and the only form of existence. Heterosexism, based on men’s active-authoritarian character and women’s passive-emotional character, is rebuilt again and again. People other than those attracted to the opposite sex are marginalised and treated as sick and deviant. Hatred, anxiety and fear of homosexuals, in other words homophobia, are spread. We reject the compulsory heterosexuality imposed on all of us. Compulsory heterosexuality is a crime against humanity.
WE DO NOT OBEY HETEROSEXISM!
Today is March 8… March 8 became a historic day centuries ago through working women’s struggle for better wages and living conditions, through their rebellion demanding that women not be the poorest of the poor. Today we see attempts to make its meaning forgotten and empty it of its content. The state, the media, capital and men today regard March 8 not as a day of struggle but as a “commercial” day, like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. In fact, they want to use our words and gains to suppress our oppression and our rebellion against the order of male domination.
WE DO NOT OBEY THE MALE-DOMINATED ORDER!
We want March 8, the day we intensify our struggle against patriarchy, to become a day of paid leave, and this March 8 we call on all women to rise up and struggle.