ZEYNEP PEHLİVAN

İzmir - As many organizations advocating for women's rights keep arguing on feminism, they also keep using art, which is a part of life. As women, we sometimes neglect our inner journey while trying to maintain our lives in hard conditions or defending our rights. Sometimes, we want a break to breathe in the non-stop injustice atmosphere. We desire to have fun and to organize by having fun against the difficulties imposed us everywhere. Of course, we are getting tired while keeping our struggle and trying to find solutions on how to deal with the attacks against us. Our neglect of ourselves often reinforces this tiredness. Fortunately, art has an important function that gives us power at this point.

Women's Defense Network (Turkish: Kadın Savunma Ağı), which has been active in Turkey for three years and a year in İzmir province, support a form of organization that allows women to have fun while organizing themselves. The women have fun by learning Balfolk dance while talking about issues such as child abuse and the right to alimony.

An independent organization, Women’s Defense Network works on not only feminist self-defense but also awareness and consciousness. They discuss the issues such as “Methods to combat violence” and “Why we face violence” during their workshops organized for 10 or 15 women. Besides that, they organize workshops about body, sexuality, and dance.

We can exist as long as we produce

Gizem Coşkun, a member of the Women’s Defense Network, states that dance and music support their journey to know more about their bodies and to have peace of mind. Gizem tells us how the Balfolk dance helps them as follows;

“These workshops help us to love our bodies. Women need such kinds of workshops. We also have political rhetoric about the attacks against women's rights. The work for women's defense is in fact a point where practice and theory meet each other. The struggle and political stance are very important for the women's movement. Creating the women’s movement and turning anger into a struggle support the introversion of each woman and awareness raised by them. For this reason, knowing more about our bodies mean knowing more about ourselves. As women, we have faced many things but every woman has to make this inner journey to understand how to deal with these things. That's why these artistic workshops are so important. We can exist as long as we produce.”

“We need music and dance”

Women’s Defense Network has organized camps for women in the Dikili district of İzmir province during summers and women have learned Balfolk during the workshops. In the camp women also focus on issues such as ecofeminism, climate crisis, feminist strikes, and women's resistance in the world and they also join the workshops. About 300 women and 60 children join these workshops. Gizem says, “We have fun, laugh, and discuss altogether.” Gizem also talks about the last workshop they organized and she says;

“We only danced and had fun on the last day of the camp. Our friends organized a workshop to teach Balfolk that day. First, our friends organized an event at Yoğurtçular Park in Istanbul on that day. Then, they performed Balfolk at the opening of Mor Mekan in Ankara. We gathered at Kordon in İzmir to learn Balfolk. The women also needed to have fun.”