Nothing in the reality of life is meaningless. Everything carries meaning within itself. Therefore, taking on the power of meaning is extremely important for us. By embracing our own meaning, we also create our greatest difference.
Our meaning, especially as women, is to reach our roots, our existence, our society, and freedom. Our meaning is our perspective on life and our strongest way of expressing the truth. It is the balance between emotion and reason. At the same time, it is the ability to see beauty and to create it. These qualities belong more to the existence of women, because women stand out through their power of creation and their ability to use the language of truth.
Spring, the season of life, in its deepest sense, is also for women the season of struggle and the elevation of values. Life brought socialization with it, and around socialization the most ancient life values and measures of humanity developed. Socialization created consciousness, morality, and aesthetics around women. This socialization in itself delicately wove the shared culture of societies. Life, society, culture, and beauty flourished most strongly in spring around humanity’s search for meaning and gained the power of meaning. Yet in the same period, the dominant male mentality wanted to eliminate women’s voices, their partnerships, their demands for justice, their love, and their organization. It sought to silence women completely.
The brutality that occurred on March 8, 1857, was a result of this destructive attitude. Thousands of women working alongside men under the harshest conditions in textile workshops were not receiving the same pay as men for their labor. The work was the same, but women’s labor was not valued equally. Women went on strike and stopped work in order to sell their labor as an equal right. This action was extremely important for making women’s labor visible and for recognizing its value. This situation was seen as a major threat by employers and capitalists. Even though they did the same work, women’s labor was not considered as valuable as men’s labor. Cheap labor kept turning between the gears of workshops and factories.
Women opened the path to freedom step by step through struggle
Women’s demand for equal pay was seen as a great danger for capital, and every form of pressure and violence was used to break the strike. Because the success of this demand would have dealt a major blow to capitalists and set an example everywhere. For this reason, the most brutal methods were used against women’s action. The doors of the workshops were locked and, as a symbol of inhuman brutality, the factories where the women worked were set on fire. The fire burned everything in its path; it destroyed both the living and the lifeless. As a result of this terrible massacre, dozens of women became victims of a dirty and blood-sucking mentality. The mentality that once burned thousands of women under the name of “witchcraft” this time used fire against the courage and intelligence of women demanding their rights. Burning women was in fact the desire to eliminate women’s existence; it was an attempt to destroy it.
However, the will of women, which has the power to rebuild the world thousands of times through its own existence, transformed this pain into the spring of its own existence. The fire that burned women’s bodies took its place in our memory as women in the most painful way. But at the same time it became our strongest and most meaningful power. March 8 became the spring and solidarity of all women; through this solidarity women opened the path to freedom step by step. This burning pain became the strongest milestone of a long and wide-ranging struggle. March 8 turned into a day when women’s struggle grows stronger every year. But the greatest struggle became women coming together. Women who were meant to be locked into cages held their greatest gatherings on March 8. March 8 became a field of struggle, a field of accountability, a meeting ground, and a space of honorable enthusiasm and self-confidence for women.
On the eve of this year’s March 8, under the leadership of Abdullah Öcalan [Rêber Apo], the most devoted companion of women, we Kurdish women once again turn toward building a life worthy of our core values. Previously, with the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,” women around the world embraced the meaning of women’s existence. The emotion and enthusiasm created by this uprising shook systems. Reviving this enthusiasm once again came to the agenda through Öcalan’s call of February 27, 2025 for Peace and a Democratic Society, which places women’s freedom at the center of building a living space. This call by Öcalan should be embraced and strengthened most of all by women. Because life, society, and peace are the existence of women, and they also have a place in our ancient social culture. On these days of deep historical meaning, we greet March 8 and celebrate the achievements of women. With the strength we draw from Öcalan’s call, we will turn March 8 into a celebration of freedom, life, and hope.
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