Kaos GL Calls For the 3rd International Feminist Forum

Kaos GL calls feminist formations in Turkey, in the Mediterranean, in North Africa, in the Balkan countries and in the Middle East to work together in their feminist endeavors.

 

Feminist Forums, organized by Kaos GL as a part of International Meetings Against Homophobia (in dedication to IDAHO events around the world) since 2006, has turned into an international forum in 2012.

 

Kaos GL, the host of the Forum on the dates of March 14-15-16, has declared the following call. 

 

Here is the call prepared by Prof. Dr. Simten Coşar of Kaos GL Advisory Board and Hacettepe University Faculty of Communication.

Despite the achievements of the feminist struggle in twentieth century and the fact that feminist politics does not only pertain to women in biological terms, but also encompasses the subjects who claim freedom, the backlash that feminists have been experiencing in different ways throughout the world in the twenty first century know, see and reveal how, where, through which means and by whom conservative social structures, neoliberal policies and the entire heterosexist practices, which are becoming thicker, more visible and effective, are operated. This call gains more urgency when one considers the fact that conservative governments that manipulate feminist gains one by one, absorb them at the expense of feminism become widespread throughout the world.

 

In this state of affairs, we need to talk through and with feminist politics over and over again, to reproduce it and act in line with it.

 

In this state of affairs, we need to re-consider and act against the façade of the public-private distinction, the touchability of the allegedly untouchable maleist intimacy and the necessity to touch it, and the feminist ethics vis-à-vis the monopolistic claims of the conservative morals.

 

In this state of affairs, while distancing from the wishful thinking “let the world be feminist,” we need to search for how to come to terms with non-feminist and feminist states of being feminist.

 

Kaos GL’s 3^rd International Feminist Forum aims at offering a platform for the reassessment of the current state of feminist struggle, the historical-social context in which it has grown, worked, and been limited, the attempts to dissolve feminism in maleist socio-political structures, and finally, where and how counter feminist stances against these restrictive contexts and structures are, can and will be forged.  

 

In brief, we would like to call feminist formations in Turkey, in the Mediterranean, in the Balkan countries and in the Middle East to work together in their feminist endeavors.