I’m not one of the pessimists. Despite all, I still think there is much to celebrate in a day like this. I accept, there is still a long, really long way for gender equality, yet we should cherish the ones who devoted their life against sexism, patriarchal social scheme, discrimination in employment and all other forms of oppression. The problem I am having with this day is different. It’s about what people think of it nowadays. My discontent is with the lost political flavour of this day. If this day becomes nothing more than distributing flowers like it’s Valentine’s Day in the perceptions of ‘most’ of the people, then I feel like I lost the 8th of March.Congratulations! Transformation of the day from fighting for the rights of women labourers to distributing flowers to women in labour is done! Yet, I do not wish to confine this day to its original purpose; it should be definitely more than that. The question is how? How to restore the political flavour of International Women’s Day? How to emancipate the day from this patriarchal scheme, let alone emancipating people from it? I know activists, feminists and people who have devoted themselves to this cause strive hard for this, and we all have a long way awaiting us. Again and again, we find ourselves fighting against the reproduction of the domination, and can’t reach the source of it most of the time, yet it’s not the time to be a pessimist!
Yusuf Yuksekdag
Political Science MA
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