This is a fight for “AKP keep your hands off from our lives and living spaces” and this fight first began with the intervention to our, the women’s lives. This means this is primarily our anger. This is firstly women’s revolt.

As saying “We leave neither the nights nor the streets!”, we meant also the parks.

As saying “Women are everywhere, on the panzers, by the rivers”, we were anticipating today. Exactly two years ago, during the Hopa events on May 31 shouting this slogan has a meaning since Dilşat stepped on to the panzer.

As saying women we meant all of us, trans-women too… Trans-women who calmly and gently warned the protestors shouting as “You all are sons of bitch” and made the slogans suddenly change as “Tayyip, resign!” by saying “We are bitches too and here, friends. Bitches are not bad people”

And finally, the half of the people or maybe more in the “rebel zone”-Gezi Park is women. On top of that we did not come after it was saved. We set up the tents and faced with a counter-operation at 5:00 in the morning. We clashed at the barricades and acquired the Gezi Park through organizing the resistance starting from the quarters up to the town square.

Why? Because this is a fight for “AKP keep your hands off from our lives and living spaces” and this fight first began with the intervention to our, the women’s lives. This means this is primarily our anger. This is firstly women’s revolt. Besides, we had the rehearsal to generate this revolt.

As middle class and poor women, we met at the streets for days against colonization of our bodies and for saying “my life, my decision”. The reason why we are at Gezi Parkı is the same: caesarean section “regulation”, prohibition of morning after pills, directives about how many children we shall give birth, announcement about how we shall behave in metro, at what age we shall get married, till what age we shall study, when and where we shall wear headscarf, what we have to do to be a “goodwife”, “good mother” and cheap labor force for the employer… We know the government who tells us to be a “lady” instead of opposing war and have been feeling the oppression deeply for 11 years.

Because when we say “vagina” Arınç gets embarrassed (!), when we do not have three children Tayyip gets furious and when we get pregnant the employer fires us.

In this resistance too we are in the front rank of the barricades and in the face of the panzers. Because in every moments of our lives we are as close as to death at least at that time. Because minimum 5 people of us are being killed everyday… Because we rehearse that violence with the “police” at home.

We are up front the clashes despite and against the swears, harassments of the police and every kinds of violence. Because harassment is an institutional attack which has been supported by Tayyip himself as manly and governmently and have to be destroyed by the first-hand although it becomes an ordinary course of action in our lives.

As everyone is going to Taksim, Kızılay and other town squares for their future and children, we are showing that we are not mothers acting like the way it is imposed on us in the resistance area. Also for the first time we can comfortably leave our children whom we cannot send to the kindergartens as a result of the irresponsible behavior of our employers and AKP municipalities at home and go out for resistance.

We are resisting for our children not like mothers but like “women militants” against the government who has been expecting us to “raise children” and to act as “social mothers” to die in wars and to be cheap labor force for capital.

The women who shielded themselves to Gezi Parkı against AKP aggression at the first moment of the resistance, stood against the gases, pressure water and police batons united with the women who saw the police violence and opened their houses to the protestors. Now we are all in the streets as students, housewives and workers and saying “Never without our decision.” We are capturing the streets for freedom as long as the Gezi Parkı resistance transforms to resistance against fascism. We are freeing both streets and ourselves. We are winning both the nights and town squares. Women who were in the center of clashes till morning and slept in the town square are winning equality with the resistance. We are walking alone with self-confidence by making eyes at the marks we left during the clashes in the cities where we were walking restlessly before.

While exploring the magical power of solidarity we saw what women solidarity in reality. Because while running from the gas bombs hand in hand we did not know each other, but when we stopped we were smiling at each other. We were worrying about the ones who got their period. We were talking about that tampons were not safe enough during the clashes. When we heard that feminists covered the abusive graffiti with purple sprays we glanced and understood each other.

We caught this magic with thousands of women now. How Leyla from Tortum, who once went out to defend their water and river, eloped when she was forced to get married, the women who go out to the streets today will not stay at their homes.

Now, assurance for the unsecured women is: Resistance!

The only remedy for the women under violence is: Resistance!

The place where the women tried to be locked at home/family would find freedom is at: Resistance!

The thing that women – the most injured party from the wars– have found is: Resistance!

We are not leaving the front line of the barricades, the parks, the town squares and the nights!

Çeviri: Ceren Yıldız