There was ‘violence’ against women in Istanbul's Taksim Square on March 8, the International Women’s Day. Women who wanted to demonstrate Feminist Night  March, were beaten and taken into custody. 34 women, not less! We did not expect a bouquet or a message of congratulations. It would be good if we had not been beaten and returned to our houses.

On March 8, the International Women's Day, women tried to emphasize the struggle of women around the streets across Turkey. They organized many demonstrations, they danced the halay, they commemorated the women who were murdered, and they expressed their voices against injustices we  are being exposed to. Well, we had a demonstration with expected end in İstanbul that I mentioned above. Even if we were released after a while, was that necessary? No, in this article, I will not talk about the women's rights, gender inequality, femicide, or injustices we have been exposed to. I have already mentioned about these topics a lot in my previous articles. I will continue to stubbornly mention them in my further articles. In this article, let me say that I will talk about the attempts of some mastiffs or trolls to incite misogyny with false information against this demonstration: night march of the feminists in İstanbul. I will start with this question: What have these women done to you? As far as I can follow on Twitter, hundreds of comments have been made regarding the #FeminstNightMarch hashtag in Turkish. There were such unbelievable comments. Some examples:

  • It is not feminism, it is like antagonism to men.
  • 'So-called' 8 March International Women's Day!
  • These are always CHP’s (Republican People's Party-main opposition party) mentality and HDP’s (Peoples’ Democratic Party-opposing party) plot. Here is only hostilities against the state!
  • These women are with other women due to lack of men. They are horny, rabid and immoral people.
  • Why are these feminist women always ugly?
  • In my eyes, feminism = dishonesty
  • Feminist means to lose all sense of shame.
  • Feminism is immoral.
  • Feminists are the women who are on the shelf. If they find the charismatic men with money, there will be no feminism. They will be housewives and have children.
  • I think there should be no divorce. Even the divorce should be banned after getting married!
  • Do not do separatism under a feminist mask

And many others I read one by one and I did not want to continue writing more since they have been getting on my nerves. Anyway, there are many comments made by women that hurt me and made me feel down. Some of the examples:

  • Fu… your feminism.
  • We are against feminists who are anti-religious, anti-state and anti-family.
  • Man make houses, women make homes. But these women only destroy the homes.
  • We are the same sex, but our difference is 'we are human'.
  • The most important duty of a woman is 'motherhood'.

And many more… Many commentators are stuck with a few banners that were opened up for sarcastically. According to them, these banners were immoral! They were incompatible with feminism. In my opinion, the group that reacted to this march are the people who belittle the women and their place in society; who justify violence to women, even brazen violence out and see violence naturally. Is it not this group that instills this in their children and causes this violence to continue in society? Our concern is not to engage in divisiveness or not to hate all men, of course. Our sole concern is just to live. Our concern is just to stay away from violence. Our concern is not to earn less money although we do the same job with or even more than men. Our concern is not to have to constantly "care for ourselves" in public transportation. Our concern is to be able to walk alone at any time and any street we want. Our concern is to say ‘no’ if we do not want to do something. Our concern is to decide by ourselves on how we live, whether we wear the headscarf or shorts, or we are the believer or non-believer people. In short, our concern is to stand up against violence, exploitation of labor, harassment and sexism. Now that I have expressed our concern, I am asking this question again now. What have these women ever done to you?