On November 25, International Day against Male Violence, the Steilas Feminist Union Feminist Secretariat has published a poster: Our body is a battlefield, and all the schools in Hego Euskal Herria have received it. We wish to denounce the violence suffered by women and children in armed conflicts.

In the context of war, gender roles are intensified by violence, since, in general, armed conflicts involve a hierarchical asymmetry of roles: masculine privileges are reinforced by denying everything feminine.

This year, the situation in Palestine is causing us a great deal of damage, because we believe it is a planned genocide: homes, hospitals, schools, universities are being destroyed, they have no access to water or food, they are forced to move around and the bombs are causing terrible terror. The educational community continues to raise its voice with solidarity, organizing various activities and mobilizations and demanding a ceasefire.

Women have been and are part of the conflicts as nurses, caregivers, mothers, daughters or active wrestlers. During the war, women and girls are often part of the civilian population, but, like men and boys, they can be victims of various injustices such as torture, indiscriminate aggressions, murders, threats, kidnappings, enforced disappearances, arrests, imprisonment, sexual violence, transfers and forced recruitment. They have to maintain and care for the lives of children, the elderly, the sick, etc., but in times of conflict these tasks become very complicated and often dangerous (destruction of housing or farmland, lack of food supply, dependence on NGOs, rising prices, etc.). ). ).

Unfortunately, the death of civilians occurs more when highly accurate technology and weaponry is used to distinguish military and civilian destinations, or to distinguish military territory and “protected” civilian territory (schools, universities...), so it is clear that armaments have also changed their destinies. In the First World War, civilian casualties rose to 5 per cent, compared with 66 per cent in the Second World War, and rose to 90 per cent today. Thus, we are witnessing a genocide in which the victims, in their broadest sense (killed, disappeared, displaced, unattended...), are mainly women and minors.

As an educational community, we also find worrying the rise in the values of militarism in the gaming industry, video clips, etc., which extol destruction, invasion, but also machismo and racism.

The hegemonic media, which underscore the value of war and action, and which present the conflict as a robocop-game against the values of wisdom and negotiation, also contribute.

Patriarchy is the greatest battlefield for women, where we suffer different forms of violence, although we do not experience armed conflict. And so we get it with this slogan. Not a war that destroys us, not a peace that oppresses us; this is not our peace. Women ' s participation is once again very low or non-existent in areas where conflicts are decided for geopolitical and economic reasons.

Only warlords win: the rich whites of the North and South of the world, the financiers, the political leaders or the energy, arms and security corporations. In multilateral organisations (UN, NATO, EU), speeches promoting public and political opinion in favour of war are being normalised. They accept and promote the production of thousands of tons of weapons and the sending of thousands of tons of weapons from our ports to fuel conflicts, according to the motto The War begins here.

According to Gayatri Spivak, the team of winners carries out sexual rape as a “metonymic celebration of the acquisition of the territory.” Rita Segato continues with this idea of territorial expression: they appropriate the body of women to use and abuse it, which is a clear expression of the ability of domination that the aggressor seeks in the body of women. The majority of victims suffer in silence because of the difficulties involved in denouncing them, leading to a double patriarchal condemnation of victims of sexual crimes.

We must stop presenting women victims of war only as victims, because they are still alive; they are also active women after having experienced specific violence, and they must have a voice to express and share their experience.

In wars, every human right is violated, starting with the fundamental right to life. At the moment, we cannot live by ignoring the wars that other people are suffering, who have, like us, the right to equality, to freedom and to happiness, under the same material conditions.

We reject decisions involving an increase in arms for the conflict and an increase in the military budgets. We reject the speeches that, in the name of security, reinforce authoritarian and militarisation logics. Not on our behalf! There are many of us who say no to war, imperialism, patriarchy, authoritarianism and militarism. The body of women, our bodies, is not a battlefield, not a territory of conquests.

Marije Etxebarria Ezpeleta and Ana Pérez, members of the Steilas Feminist Secretariat.