IN ALL areas of life, we will continue to resist discrimination, poverty, male and state violence and grow our organised struggle.

We call on all women to welcome March 8 with revolution on the streets.

The new wave of attacks by the Turkish regime can only be repelled by expanding the ranks of anti-fascist resistance and struggle. Women must be prepared to meet this challenge head on.

This March 8, women all over the world, whose labours give life to all humanity, will strike for their demands; filling the streets in furious protest against the exploitation and aggression of the patriarchal states, and demonstrating that those who created capitalism by their labour have the power to overthrow it.

In the recent period, all important victories over fascism have been won by uniting with the struggle against the patriarchal structures and sexist oppression of the state.

Inversely, as the fascist regime attacked the women’s movement, individual and isolated attacks by men against women also increased — empowered and encouraged by reactionary government policy.

From the struggle to protect the Istanbul Convention, to the resistance against the “Women’s University,” conflicts around women’s liberation have been among the most vivid and dynamic channels of the recent anti-fascist struggle.

All other major political and social agendas have been inextricably tied to the questions of patriarchy and male domination.

Fascist-in-chief President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government flunkies, in particular the warmonger [Interior Minister] Suleyman Soylu, have sought to escalate the conflict using psychological warfare and misogynistic rhetoric.

As revelations of torture and strip-searching exposed the true face of the state and its gendarmes, the duty of defending these violent fascist excesses fell to female AKP spokesperson Ozlem Zengin. 

And attacks on the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were once again focused on its female leaders and pioneers; as Pervin Buldan, Huda Kaya, Dilan Dirayet Tasdemir were subject to a political and judicial mass lynching.

But women will not leave the streets in the face of such aggression. In the new phase of struggle, beginning with the massacre at Suruc in July 2015 in which 33 young people — most ESP members — were killed by an Isis suicide bomb, their movement has become an unstoppable political force of widespread, continuous and unified resistance against the regime.

It has prevented the enactment of government legislation to give amnesty to child rapists and the planned annulment of the Istanbul Convention; policies which will continue to be a subject of struggle in the coming period.

The regime will attempt to adapt and renew its efforts to destroy the achievements of the Istanbul Convention, as part of a wider bid to expand the scope of patriarchal domination and violence.

This includes the plans for a new constitution, which will amount to nothing more than a package of legislative attacks focused on the consolidation of the Erdogan’s fascist palace regime and the liquidation of the HDP.

The Bogazici resistance, workers’ strikes, anti-femicide struggles and the recent defeat of the Turkish military in the Gare mountains have combined to force the regime into a defensive position.

Backed into such a corner, it will maintain and double down on its most aggressively reactionary and chauvinist policies.

A new wave of patriarchal attacks by the Turkish regime can only be repelled by expanding the ranks of anti-fascist resistance and struggle; the women’s movement finds itself tasked with the primary responsibility for advancing these efforts.

It has kept pace with the masses, successfully harnessing their anger and dynamism with varied and adaptable forms of struggle, but in order to increase their demands and defend their victories from usurpation, this energy must be transformed into an organised force. Women must be ready to meet this challenge head on.

The victories won, experiences gained and dynamic consciousness fostered in the minds of fighting women are the pride of our movement.

We now face the responsibility of cultivating the growing rage and revolt of the female sex into a more holistic perspective of struggle: the women’s liberation movement must be aimed directly at the defeat of the fascist power. 

The AKP-MHP government is responsible for femicide, exploitation, women’s poverty, misogynistic and homophobic attacks. It must be made the primary concrete target of the anger and rebellion of the women masses. 

Having knocked fascism one or two steps back with this or that struggle, the task of following through with a concerted offensive is an urgent one.

It is necessary to present the overthrow of fascism, not just in connection with individual AKP-MHP attacks; but as the pivotal element of all political agendas including war, poverty and sexual freedom.

This can be achieved by combining the will of fighting women within the framework of a unified anti-fascist front: a leading outlet to give the masses confidence and transform women’s anger into a real destructive force.

The misogynistic attacks of fascism are targeted at all women: Turkish, Kurdish, Alevi, socialist, feminist, organised, disorganised and otherwise. The possibilities are great for a united struggle in the form of an anti-fascist women’s front on this basis.

The strength of the women’s street resistance on March 8, telescoping powerfully into Newroz, the Kurdish new year, on March 21, will keep the Istanbul Convention annulment off the table and set the aggressors well back in their campaign against HDP. Let’s take to the streets in the spirit of rebellion and destroy this regime for good.