Women get their own newspaper
Saturday, March 8, 2008
ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News
Women like to have their voices heard and their words read, so with this aim women's organizations and the Education Personnel Labor Union (Türk Eğitim-Sen) Secretariat for Women have prepared a newspaper and a magazine to celebrate the women's struggle.
�There has been a rising feminist movement in the streets. We only wanted to gather what we have done within the past year in a newspaper,� said Filiz Karakuş, one of the feminists in charge of the �Feminist Newspaper.� The paper, which was first published on March 1, recounts what has been done in the name of feminism in the past year.
A number of feminist organizations joined hands with independent feminists for the project. The organizations include Mor Çatı, Amargi, Pazartesi Dergisi, the Socialist Feminist Collective, Fitne Ficur and Filmmor. �Apart from these organizations, unaffiliated independent feminists also worked on this project,� said Karakuş, adding that she is a member of the Socialist Feminist Collective.
She identified the women workers' strike at the pharmaceutical company Novamed, the support of licensed prostitutes in the general elections, the 20th year of the campaign against violence against women, distributing purple pins on Istanbul's busy İstiklal Street against sexual harassment and the feminist stance against the Social Security and General Health Insurance Law as some of the activities that feminists have held within the past year.
When asked whether this newspaper will become a regular publication, Karakuş said, �we did not plan for it ahead of time. We would like to continue. We will be holding a forum on March 16. We will decide whether to turn it into a regular publication then.�
Another publication is a magazine prepared and published by Eğitim-Sen. �Women� (�Kadın�) is prepared by the Union's Secretariat for Women after the initiative of the Secretariat's President Elif Akgül Ateş and the union's expert Handan Çağlayan.
�Just like the other publications of the union, the magazine primarily targets union members. It is distributed free-of-charge and sent to women's organizations, academics and the press via mail,� said Çağlayan.
It is not the first of such publications by the union. �I have been working here for the past year-and-a-half and this is the fourth such magazine I helped prepare,� she said, adding, �even though it is not a periodical, �Women' is published twice a year for special days such as the Women's Day on March 8 and the Stop Violence Against Women Day on Nov. 25.�
The aim of the magazine is to promote gender equality, to instill consciousness of their rights among women, help them organize, and convey the union's views on gender equality, said Çağlayan. �The rate of women in the education field, in which Eğitim-Sen operates in, is quite high. This rate is also reflected in the union's members, 44 percent of who are women. Of course, this situation is also reflected on the union's policies in social gender equality,� she added.
The �Women� magazine can also be found on the union's Web site. Meanwhile, the Feminist Newspaper is available at the Mor Çatı Women's Shelter Foundation in Beyoğlu, Istanbul and costs YTL 2.
© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr
Have you visited We are the Turks lately?
Sema Karaoglu, Founder Meltem Birkegren, Director
www.DofA.org
www.wearetheturks.org
Daughters of Atat�rk is proud to promote Turkish Heritage across the globe. Mustafa Kemal Atat�rk shaped the legacy we proudly inherited.
His integrity and dynamism and vision constantly inspires us. We are thankful to him for walking the untrodden path, achieving the unimaginable dream, living the eternal vision. We are the Turks, we are the future of Turkey.
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder