International Womens Day Sees Feminists Take To Madrid´s Streets

Movimiento Feminista de Madrid and the 8M Womens Movement organised major protests yesterday, Sunday 8th March, to mark International Women’s Day and calling for an end to gender inequality, discrimination and violence against women.

Marching under the slogan of ‘Friends, feminists will stop fascism,’ demonstrators expressed solidarity with women affected by wars in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza and calling for peace and chanted ‘no to war’, while slogans and manifestos also highlighted other demands related to migration policies, armed conflicts, and regimes that enslave women and girls and oppress their rights.

In central Madrid, the streets were awash with purple in a feminist tide where one of the most frequently chanted slogans was ‘Let fascism tremble — feminism is here’, alongside others such as ‘Not one step back in the fight for equality’ and ‘Against hatred, feminism; against machismo, feminism.’

According to the Madrid authororities some 35,000 people took part in the demonstrations though organise insist the figures were closer to 160,000 participants.

One of the key platforms of the Madrid Feminist Movement is the abolition of prostitution and demonstrators repeated the chants;  ‘My body is not for rent’ and ‘No woman is born to be a prostitute.’

Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz said they were mobilising in solidarity with Iranian women. We stand in defence of peace and of all the women of the world,’ It is within our power to stop the war, to stop the barbarity, and to win rights. We proclaim ourselves in defence of peace, in defence of the Iranian people, in defence of Iranian women.’

‘There is no democracy without feminist democracy,’ said Díaz. ‘Let’s move forward with optimism and peace in the world.’

Other members of the coalition goverment also attended the marches including Podemos leaders Irene Montero and Ione Belarra.

Demonstrators took to the streets in other parts of Spain including Barcelona which saw an estimated 100,000 marching.

Protesters in Santiago de Compostela marched under the slogan ‘Fighting for our dignity’, demonstrators in Toledo shouted ‘They will not silence us’, and participants in Palma declared ‘Without women there is no revolution’.

The largest demonstrations in Andalucia took place in Seville, where two parallel marches were held. In the Basque Country, thousands of women and men also took to the streets in favour of equality and against ‘imperialism’ and the ‘instrumentalisation‘ of feminism ‘to legitimise wars’.