Press Statement of the 14th Feminist Night March – March 8, 2016, Istanbul
Since March 8, 2015, we women have continued to defend our lives and rights at home, at work, at school and on the streets; we have strengthened our struggle and solidarity against the family, male bosses and the violence of the male state. While war and conflict intensified in the region and in Turkey, the government’s rhetoric, admonitions and social policies forcing women to be “self-sacrificing,” that is, confined to “family” life; the exploitation of labor, violence and harassment at work and at home; the imposition of a uniform way of life through “motherhood, heterosexuality, Muslimness and Turkishness”; unabated femicides and hate killings targeting trans people continued to narrow the space for women and trans people to live and be free. On the other hand, the growing number and determination of feminists defending their lives and peace by resisting male violence convinced us once again that there is no turning back from our feminist struggle.
We stand for life; we say let the guns fall silent!
Against the increasing hatred and polarization in the war into which the country and the region have been dragged since last March 8, we feminists declare that we stand for life and once again stress the urgency of silencing the guns! We know that bombs exploding across Turkey and war bring only violence, death and destruction that is difficult to repair. Where displaying the bodies of murdered women is deemed a victory and women’s underwear is put on display in besieged homes, it is very clear that war feeds on male domination and further strengthens it. We feminists stand for social peace! As women and trans people living in this country, we remind those responsible that they must act immediately for peace before committing any more crimes!
We insist on feminist struggle for our labor, our identities and our bodies!
Another consequence of the atmosphere of war in Turkey and the region today is that all other political moves are rendered invisible. Yet we feminists continue to resist the oppression of women’s labor, identities and bodies in our everyday and political lives. We are aware of all your family policies that aim to imprison women in the family, undermine equality between women and men under the name of divorce commissions, and strive not to prevent male violence but to keep it inside homes, out of sight! In defiance of those forcing women to give birth, we say, “We give birth if we want to, and do not if we do not want to!” In defiance of those closing nurseries to condemn women who have given birth to their homes, and those rendering women’s labor invisible both at home and at work, we claim our labor! We resist practices that leave women facing temporary work and a lack of social security! Whoever they may be, to those interfering with what time we go out, what we wear, what we do and what we experience with whom, we say, “It’s my life, what’s it to you!” In short, we continue to oppose every attempt to control our lives, our labor and our sexuality. We women continue to organize our lives through feminism!
We claim our lives!
Against the restriction of our spaces, ongoing male-dominated policies, and men who organize themselves through war, harassment, hatred and violence, we claim our lives! At home, in the workplace and on the streets, we defend ourselves against the oppression, harassment and rape we face, expose violence and expand women’s solidarity. We know the road from a slap to murder and make no concessions to male violence. We force the judiciary, law enforcement and other state bodies that fail to fulfill their duties against male violence to act, to intervene instead of watching violence. In the face of the threat of death from men and the violence we have endured for years, we defend our lives and exercise our right to self-defense. We refuse confinement to homes and oppressive family structures and build our own lives. We go to school, oppose forced marriage at an early age or later, work and stand on our own feet. We live together as “girls and boys,” fall in love woman to woman, laugh out loud, divorce, live single if we want to, do not give birth if we do not want to, abandon neither the nights nor the streets nor the squares, and claim our lives despite every obstruction!
We are expanding our feminist struggle!
Despite the growing violence and repression in the country, the masculinity they seek to glorify, and men trying to seize our lives, we women and trans people expand our solidarity. At times like these we hold even more firmly to feminist struggle. We fill public spaces, squares and streets, defend our lives and freedom against the male-dominated system that seeks to separate us, and come together in feminist struggle!
Long live March 8!
Long live our feminist struggle!