They Are Doing Feminism Here, Your Honor!

We don’t often get to hear about the rights of women rights advocates. What do they experience as they struggle against right violations or they make solidarity with victims? What kind of violations do they face? Are they subjected to male violence as well?

Meriç Eyüboğlu, one of the feminist attorneys of Immediate Action Against Women Murders Group, told bianet that the violence faced by women rights advocates had several dimensions. 

Women face violence, other women head to have solidarity with them and  at a moment during the hearing, they are subjected to sexist attacks and insults. Those assaults come sometimes from the perpetrators sometimes from defense attorneys…

On the other hand, what do violent men, their advocates think about the fact that feminists follow these cases?

“They usually call us ‘women’s rights’.  Whenever we get into the courtroom, ‘women’s rights are here,’ they say. Then they say the following: ‘Women rights influence our hearing’, ‘Women rights cause false news reporting’.

“One of the arguments we hear most is ‘This is not a woman murder!’. Other than that, they say ‘They turned this into a women’s TV show’”. 

“What does it have to do with violence? This is just a murder case”

The defenses made by feminist advocates are heard through this sexist perspective and it returns to them with assaults and insults. 

“Therefore, the violent man, his relatives and people of law confront us as a whole. Sometimes one by one, sometimes all together.”

Not feminist, “associations of Mrs”

What kind of discourse are women’s rights advocates face?

First of all, they are subjected to sexist insults by suspects and their relatives in every hearing. Other interesting things happen as well. For instance, feminists are accused of discrimination.  Another one is being accused of feminism. Of course, every court doesn’t understand the word  feminist. “The court registered ‘feminist’ as ‘association of Mrs’ once!” said Eyüboğlu. 

Women solidarity as important as court ruling 

Women rights advocacy is not limited to hearings. It should be remembered that feminists take their solidarity with violence victims beyond courtrooms. 

Eyüboğlu describes their solidarity with violence, harassment, rape victims as a journey.

“You take on a different journey with these women. Some sort of companionship, sometimes equal status, and sharing their pain. This is another dimension of what’s going on. 

Reminding that cases of this sort took years to complete, Eyüboğlu said the following: “If this journey changes something for us or them, then it is meaningful.”

“Families are not subjects of our politics”

On the other hand, there is also a dimension about the families of violence victim women. How do feminists related to them? 

“For us, the subject of these cases are women and not the family. Therefore, we don’t have the habit to walk along with the family in the legal struggle. We already follow up these cases because male violence and women murders are political. Therefore, we keep a distance with families. Because families are likely not to intervene the male violence, or tell their daughters to ‘manage their husbands’, or force them to compromise their husbands when victim women apply to shelters. This is the mentality in our country. We also think differently in the matters of ‘honor’ and general perspective on family. However, we refrain from managing them or politicizing their pain.” (ÇT/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.