The 8th of march as international womens day has lost none of it's relevance and urgency. That's why it's important for us that a broad variety of feminist actions are happening. Yet it's important to question what is included under the label of „feminism“ for example what perspectives are overlooked and what oppressive systems are ignored.
We consider ourselfes to be part of a radical leftist queer feminist scene. We are white-german, experience varying degrees of discrimination and privilege in connection to the social classes we come from, are cis (not trans), able-bodied (conform mostly to the social norm of „healthy“) and were lucky enough to go to uni.
Out of this perspectives we want to voice a critique of some of the groups calling for the demonstration and their understanding of feminism.
We want to strengthen a radical leftist perspective of the 8th of march. That means to us to fight patriachal and racist structures, and other oppressive systems who are a structural component of the state and get constantly replicated upheld by the state.
The term Patriarchy is used to describe the dominance from men* over women*. Often this analysis comes from a white, gender-binary, academic perspective, in which other numerous and interweaving power relations are not taken into account. Multiple discriminations for example that of Women of Color, the enforcement of gender binary and capitalist exploitation are made invisible. Patriarchy is always interweaved with other power relations and thereby can only be conceptualized and fought against when all are fought against together.
The political parties who also, amongst others, called for this demonstration are representatives of the state. But this state – and thus all political parties – perpetuate these power relations and thereby legitimatise oppression. Germany's borders and fortress Europe are upheld through state policy. German military interventions use “women’s rights“ as a justification, therefore presenting the oppression of women as a problem of ‘other’ cultures.
Through nationalism and German supremacy in the current crisis, images of “self-imposed poverty” are produced and maintained. The “savings policy” (Sparpolitik), mainly decided by Germany, systematically keeps competitiveness of the southern countries of Europe down in order to maintain Germany’s own wealth and economic vitality, and acts as a “warning signal” to other states in economic crisis.
Thus a murderous, racist, colonial, capitalist status-quo is reproduced and expanded.
In addition, the state actively promotes the bourgeois white heterosexual nuclear family, and therefore certain role models and stereotypes. For example, people who don't conform to gender binary bullshit are systematically and institutionally discriminated against.
For us, this is why political parties and the state are incompatible with a radical leftist, queer-feminist, emancipatory perspective.
The white academic sections of the queer-feminist radical leftist scene have done too little in recent years to help organise the 8th of March and often don't manage to break out of white dominated academic circles and cliques – we include ourselves in this critique.
That is also why it's important for us to not bash the demo. It's important to bring feminist topics onto the streets and therefore into public consciousness. To organise such a big and broad demonstration is a shit load of work!
However, we have decided not to actively participate in the demo, but instead to „drop“ some critical-solidarity notifications.
- For a feminism that reflects on and engages critically against racisms. In solidarity with Women in Exile and all PoC.
- For a feminism that engages Inter*- and Trans* positions. In solidarity with the Inter* und Trans* Block*
- For a feminism that is in solidarity with the FatupBlock and their aims
- For a feminism that is in solidarity with the sexworker-block and their aims
- In solidarity with all emancipatory blocks on this demo, of whom were not known at the time of writing
- For a radical leftist feminism without political parties that fights oppressive structures, power relations and the state
- For a feminism beyond binary gender concepts, that includes all forms of sexuality