The future is female: Woman, Life, Freedom
In Ukraine, women fight against a murderous system that comes from Russia. Against rape and deportation. In Iran, women are fighting against compulsory headscarves and access to the education system. In Sudan, women fight against female genital mutilation. The list goes on for a long time. The physical integrity of women is not guaranteed in many countries around the world. Women are not free. Courageous women fight against it. The visually stunning impressions of the resistance are female and that is important.
What all these women have in common is the fight against reactionary ideas about femininity. Women as subservient objects of history. The female body as an instrument of control. Many women object to this. They take their future into their own hands and risk a lot. Ultimately, their own life.
The struggle of women is as broad and diverse as the problems are different. In Ukraine, women take up arms against the marauding Russian invaders. They don't want to watch how their get raped. How their children get kidnapped. Their loved ones die. They fight for their lives. For the freedom of their country. It is a struggle in which the woman herself is attacked. Women in Ukraine have chosen not to stand by and do nothing. They meet with broad acceptance in Ukrainian society. Similar to Israel, an armed woman in uniform is no longer an exotic example. It is part of the reality of society. A society in which women and men stand up for each other equally. Women in Ukraine became a symbol of the
female struggle.
The same can also be observed in other countries. In Iran, protests were sparked by the tragic death of a young woman at the hands of the Iranian regime. Iranian women are rebelling against the clerical-fascist regime. They burn their headscarves. They demonstrate loudly and aggressively and are not intimidated by the murderous regime. They are not only loud for their own needs - they are loud for all women in Iran. For all women in the Middle East. Their fight is one for justice and equality. Against the constraints of a patriarchal organized system. A system of oppression. The focus of the protests is the slogan Jin, Jiyan, Azadî: women, live freedom. Women are the focus of the protests. Women are the protest. The call for freedom.
Women are also fighting in the western world. Public rallies are taking place in many cities today. The world is not perfect and neither are western countries. Murders of women, rapes, reactionary ideas about femininity and many other problems are omnipresent. Together many fight against it and together our coexistence gets better from year to year - at least in the context of feminist concerns.
March 8 marks the International Women's Day. On this day we should look to the future. The Future of Equality. The future of women. And that future is marked by struggle. The fight for freedom. This also applies in the western states. Equal pay for equal work, the recognition of reproductive work, the fight against femicide. There are problems in the West and women are fighting against them. But it also and above all applies to the repressive systems of the authoritarian states. This fight effects us all all.
Christian Gruber
Chief correspondence eastern Europe Freedom Today
