Women, my sisters, how many more of us must die before we wake up?

We have entered the week of March 8th, International Women's Day, a day that in our country has been reduced to "flowers, insects, and butterflies," treated by many local municipalities as a category for those who make pickles, jams, or survive on handicrafts, and targeted by many brands as an attractive consumer commodity for their advertising arrows.

First, let us emphasize this clearly;

March 8th is not "Women's Day," it is "International Working Women's Day."

It is an important achievement gained at the end of a struggle for rights that working women paid for with their lives.

On March 8, 1857, in a textile factory in New York, working women laboring under harsh conditions went on strike, calling for equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, and improvements in working conditions.

During the strike, a fire broke out in the textile factory, and 129 women burned to death. This tragedy resonated deeply with the public in the US and around the world. It sparked the awakening of all working women globally.

Following the tragedy, governments and local administrations were forced to make partial improvements to labor laws.

In 1908, in New York, 15 thousand working women went on a national strike with demands for shorter working hours and equal pay for equal work. The Socialist Party of America declared March 8th as National Women's Day. This organized resistance spread across the entire world.

In these lands, International Working Women's Day was celebrated for the first time in 1921.

Exactly 100 years later, the United Nations declared March 8th as "International Women's Day."

March 8th should be celebrated as a day when awareness of women's rights is raised, social consciousness is developed, and women's economic, political, and social achievements are honored based on human rights!

While we are going through a period where women's right to life is being violated, while we witness news of brutally committed femicides every day, while we walk nervously in the dark of the evening on the streets of our city, and while violence runs rampant, the diamond advertisements dumped into our faces from screens make me sick to my stomach.

In the last 20 years, a stadium full of women has been slaughtered by men. Society continues its life as if nothing has happened. Many municipalities celebrate March 8th International Working Women's Day in a mood of "let's dance and have fun," just to please women and look charming to them.

Yet, every March 8th, the image of Münevver Karabulut, whose body was found dismembered in a trash container when she was still a high school student, passes before our eyes.

The memory of Güldünya Töre, who was wounded by a custom-killing bullet and then murdered while receiving treatment in the hospital under police protection, comes to mind.

The image of Özgecan Arslan's burned, lifeless body comes to mind.

Şule Çet, who was thrown from the 20th floor of a plaza, comes to mind.

Pınar Gültekin, who was burned alive, comes to mind.

The timid gazes of thousands of women whose names we do not know, living under the fear of being murdered, come to mind.

March 8th is not a day to "dance and have fun." In my country, where a new one is added to femicides every day and the men who kill are released in a short time with "good conduct" reductions, March 8th should now be celebrated as a day of commemoration and awareness. There should be a black ribbon in the corner of the screens. Female programmers should go on air with a black ribbon. Pressure should be applied to lawmakers in a visible way, in every medium. Let us address the government, which puts religion in front of us at every opportunity, with the Quran's Surah Al-Ma'idah;

"And whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely."

Bring the Istanbul Convention back to life to keep women alive.

One signature will save thousands of lives.

And women, my peers, my sisters,

How many more of us must die before we wake up?