Opening Speech

Hello everyone!

We, the Feministisches Bündnis 8.März Halle, are very happy that you have found your way here and that we will take our demands to the streets together on the 8th of March in 2022 and that we will make ourselves heard and stand in solidarity with each other.

The 8th of March is not a holiday for us, it is a feminist day of struggle, and this year’s motto is „Feminism is good for everyone“.

If feminism does not stand up for the rights and concerns of all people, including Muslim people, sex workers, Black, indigenous, people of colour, refugees, disabled people, trans, inter, agender and non-binary people, then that feminism is simply not feminism.

When it comes to equality, white cis women are not the only ones who experience structural sexism. Intersections of discrimination and social positions, such as class, age, origin, or religion, must also be considered. Multiple discrimination must not only be acknowledged, but the needs of the people who experience it must be considered.

For that, we need critical feminist action and debates that deal with actual anti-racist, anti-patriarchal and empowering content.

For many of us discrimination is part of everyday life. At the same time, we make and have different experiences with discrimination and experience different forms of violence. We have diverse bodies and life stories. What unites us is the struggle against structures that make us unfree, inflict pain on us, oppress us, exploit us and dictate how we have to live.

A structural rethinking is needed for a society based on equality and solidarity. We do not want a rigid division into women and men, but recognition and gender justice for all.

We want to decide for ourselves!

About our bodies, about our ways of life. We fight for the liberation of all genders and for people who reject the category of gender at all.

We want everyone to have equal access to housing, work, education, politics, health and support structures. First of all, health care must be detached from profit orientation and from stigmas towards marginalized people.

We demand better medical care for trans, inter and non-binary people. We demand better access to psychotherapeutic treatment that is funded by the state insurance, so that this is not a privilege of rich people. People, who want to have children or who specifically do not want to have children also need holistic, good care and the freedom of choice.

The system we live in is also based on the exploitation of labor. We demand a rethinking of the value of work and working conditions. Care work, as a supporting element of our society, must also be considered, rewarded and supported by politics and economy. Capitalist structures exploit people and the environment. This cannot continue and we need the willingness to consequently oppose these conditions and developments.

Patriarchal power structures are being questioned more nowadays, yet they continue to exist everywhere, including within our own ranks. We need to ask ourselves why, despite awareness, participation, consent and acceptance, these hierarchies continue to be reproduced.

I would like to conclude by reading a short text by an activist:

As an ally, some of the best forms of empowering others is listening, believing, reflecting, researching, and supporting. If I never thought about what is being shared with me, it’s a privilege. My privileges blind me from understanding individual’s oppression and their reality. So, I will listen without interrupting, take time to reflect, do my research to better understand and support others; by being critical and making changes in my everyday life, institutions I work within, and self. I will not sit back and accept the way our society oppresses some and profits others. I want us to all rise to a more equal future and to feel empowered to do so, and if that means I must give up some of my privileges then I will do just that.

In view of the current situation, we as a collective would like to comment on the war in Ukraine.

We were in the middle of the preparation for the 8th of March, when Putin and the Kremlin regime suddenly and brutally began military attacks on Ukraine in the night from the 23rd to the 24th of February.

We stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and all people all over the world and not only in Europe, who have to flee and are exposed to a war with heavy weapons. In the last days there were especially countless civil actions to help people in Ukraine. Nevertheless, it is not only the task of civil engagement to provide humanitarian aid.

Calls for solidarity and peace on one hand and on the other hand a gigantic financial „investment“ of the German government in the military of 100 billion euros – that doesn’t make sense to us.

„We are against patriarchal militarism and want a feminist foreign policy that focuses on human security and human rights.“

 because „Feminism is good for all and smash patriarchy!!!!“