'We are the necessary cry. Feminism is changing everything.' "We are a feminist tornado that feeds on the breath of the women that were, fills the lungs of the women that we are and releases a breath of air towards the future of the women that are to come." Thus begins the manifesto of the 8M Commission of the Feminist Movement of Madrid that will be read in the march for International Women's Day.
Of all the marches that Madrid is hosting today, March 8, one of the cities in the world with the highest concentration of people in 2018 and 2019, two stand out: the one considered the main demonstration, called by the 8M Commission; and the one called by the Feminist Movement of Madrid. After two years marked by restrictions due to the pandemic, 2023 presents itself as a new opportunity to fill the streets with purple and push all the demands of feminism as far as possible. [Route, schedule and traffic cuts of the 8M demonstration in Madrid]
"We are a feminist tornado that feeds on the breath of the women that were, fills the lungs of the women that we are and releases a breath of air towards the future of the women that are to come."
"After more than forty years calling us to this March 8, as a day of feminist struggle, we have come to destroy the injustices of a system that continues to look at us from above and with superiority."
"We are a feminist tornado that comes from the past, that originates from the struggles of our ancestors. The tornado that summons us here today comes to us with the memory of the Latin, Filipino, Riffian, Moroccan, Saharawi and Guinean women who faced the Spanish colonialism, of those retaliated against by Francoism, of those violated by its Board of Trustees, of the disappeared, the exiled, the imprisoned, the silenced, the forgotten, of the women who never stopped searching, of the Roma women marginalized and despised by a Spain that was declared imperial, white and Catholic. We demand for each and every one that the truth be clarified, that justice be done and that the damage caused be repaired".
"We are the feminist tornado that is charged with rage and the memory of women and children murdered and assaulted by patriarchal violence, of the ignored murders at sea and at the borders, of the murders in residences for the elderly, of daily suicides, which are also murders".
"We are a feminist tornado made up of the energy of all the bodies in struggle, of people with functional diversity, of precarious, fat, crazy, psychiatrized and questioned women. We are dissidence and rage, diversity and embrace. We are the migrants, the racialized, black and brown. We are trans, intersex and non-binary, we are dykes and bisexual, we are mothers and grandmothers, single-parent families, dissident families, family dissidents."
"We are the day laborers, the domestic and care workers, the shoe dressers, the hospital cleaners, the socio-sanitary workers, the kellys, the textile workers in struggle and all the women on strike. The care workers, the scholarship holders, the riders , the autonomous, false or true. We are the prostitutes. We are the undocumented, the expelled, the evicted, the victims of trafficking and sexual, agrarian, textile and care exploitation. We are the students, the unemployed, the retirees, the housewives. We are the ones criminalized for fighting and the ones who are not going to stop."
"We are a global tornado, we hug our sisters from all over the world with whom we cry for peace: Ukrainians and Russians, Syrians and Turks, Palestinians and Yemenis, Sudanese and Malians. This tornado demands the cessation of all wars to put life in the center. Revolt against the violence that our Peruvian companions are suffering. We join all the refugees, migrants and those displaced by wars and natural disasters, by the consequences of extractivism and capitalist and colonial voracity. The defense of peace, sovereignty and the planet has a woman's face: Berta Cáceres, Marielle Franco, Ahed Tamimi or Mahsa Amini set fire to this tornado in the feminist revolution that shouts "Woman, life, freedom" with the Iranian, Kurdish, and Afghans, fight with all Muslim and Arab women, who demand to decide over their bodies and their lives".
"We say it more forcefully than ever this March 8, 2023, in which we have to repeat the obvious: that we are fighting against a capitalist, racist and imperialist patriarchy that silences the massacre at the Melilla fence, ignores the deaths in the Mediterranean , justifies femicides and vicarious violence, hatred and violence against women (whether cis or trans) and LGTBIQA people, denies obstetric violence and questions our sexual freedom.A patriarchy, ally of the right and the extreme right , which disputes to the point of exhaustion those rights of ours -such as abortion- that we have achieved by fighting; a patriarchy that feeds hate speech towards trans people and that today disguises its obsession with reducing our autonomy, our agency and our concern for women our freedom."
"We are the feminist tornado that will uproot the deep roots of sexist violence, raising our voices for those murdered, those who suffer violence from their partners or ex-partners, those who are raped or sexually assaulted, those who suffer at home, at work , the street, public spaces, in the couple, the family, society and in state institutions".
"We are the feminist tornado that will devastate that rape culture that silences our voices, doubts our word, accuses us of what we suffer, imposing a longer skirt or greater resistance on us, and that justifies the aggressors for having a supposed nature irrepressible, stripping them of their responsibility".
"This feminist tornado charges us with the necessary energy to continue fighting in the streets until sexist violence disappears. The progress we are making so that our consent is at the center, so that our decisions matter, so that our desire is taken into account and so that the bodies of women cannot be assaulted or raped, it is achieved thanks to all of us who shouted yesterday, today and always: "Sister, I do believe you!" A true cultural change is necessary, with educational measures , of protection and authentic reparation for all women, children and adolescents threatened and that eliminates, once and for all, the retrograde patriarchal bias of justice".
"We shout: It's not just femicides that kill us! Because a capitalist system that feminizes, makes care precarious and makes care invisible, that cuts public services, that excludes us, also kills us. Increases in food, health exclusion and cuts in healthcare, evictions and the price of housing, miserable wages and non-existent aid, the CIES, global warming, pollution, energy poverty, prejudices... A precariousness kills us that steals our dreams, the time and mental health.
"This feminist tornado comes to put an end to this neoliberal government of the Community of Madrid that is at war against its people. Faced with its asphalt, we want trees; faced with its privatization, we want public schools; faced with its cuts, we want primary care centers, and health personnel; in the face of your speculation, we want decent housing; in the face of your Francoist plaques, we want the memory of women; in the face of your contamination, we want public transport; in the face of your bullfights, we want social centers; in the face of your objection, we want to abort in the health public, in the face of its murderous silences, we want our trans pride. And, above all, this unstoppable tornado dances diverse and full of strength because Madrid is chotis, reggaeton, cumbia, kizomba, techno and the dance of the lion".
"Our feminist tornado will clean up the skies, rivers and seas, reduce emissions and global warming. Meanwhile, it will pedestrianise access to cabbage, make bike lanes and cities accessible to all, defend parks and health centers, It will protect street sweepers from the heat, restore electricity to La Cañada, open social services to all who need them, invest in the Violence Victim Assistance Network Our feminist tornado will tear down walls and borders. Meanwhile, will press for asylum appointments to be available, for the extraordinary regularization of people in an irregular administrative situation to be approved now, and for legislation against racism to be passed".
"Our feminist tornado will put an end to binaryism, patriarchy and sexual oppression. Meanwhile, it will defend tooth and nail the rights of trans children and adolescents, the recognition of non-binary people and an affective sexual education that builds a society without violence in which we can express ourselves with freedom and desire".
"From all corners, urban and rural, from all neighborhoods and all towns, from all struggles, from all bodies, from all existences and capacities, from all generations, feminists invoke the tornado that is already revolutionizing everything. This tornado will not stop until we have a Madrid and a world in which we all fit, all, all".
"We are a feminist tornado. From the 8M Commission of the Madrid Feminist Movement we shout loudly, here we are the feminists! Here we are, the transfeminists!"
"We are the necessary cry. Feminism is changing everything."
[CLICK TO DOWNLOAD IN PDF THE MANIFESTO OF THE 8M COMMISSION OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT OF MADRID]
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