Activists from several feminist groups gathered in Istanbul on Monday in protest over male violence against women and the concealment of the male violence under the cover of Valentine’s Day and in the name of ‘love’.
Banners at the protest read: ‘Love is an old lie that seizes our labour’, ‘The shadow cast upon my freedom isn’t love but violence’, “We accept neither your murdering love nor your misery pay rise’, ‘We don’t want presents but we do want to live’.
Protestors chanted slogans, ‘Women are strong together’, ‘The world would shake if women were free’, and ‘Long live the solidarity of women.’
A representative of one of the feminist groups, Bilen Sevda Köken, made an address emphasising the exploitation of woman’s labour and her body, and the legitimisation of male violence in the name of ‘love’.
Köken said that the word ‘love’ has become the ‘excuse’ and the means for the ‘normalisation’ of violence and exploitation.
“We have eaten an ‘apple’ together; then they try to put us under pressure in the name of blind love, love to death or crazy and jealous lover. Because of all the work at home involving laundry, cooking, dish washing or childcare, women work for hours more than men every single day, and it simply becomes invisible.”
