Gülseren Onanç, the Founding President of the SES Association, reflects on the SES 2021 Women of the Year Awards, celebrates the women and movements that have been inspirational for gender equality and women’s rights in 2021.
Gülseren Onanç
We follow the traces of courage, solidarity and change in the SES Equality and Solidarity Association’s news website, the Equality, Justice, Women Platform. We review the world from a feminist perspective, follow those who question the patriarchal system and declare that a different system is possible. We compile news on the women’s movement, gender equality and peace and security that inspire young women with their resistance and egalitarian stance. We focus on stories that support women’s solidarity and convey news about career achievements. We are inspired by the stories of brave women who resist and give us hope for the future.
In a way, we collect the stars to spread hope in the world.
In 2021, we collected stories of women and shared them with our followers through our newsletters and social media accounts. In the twenty-first year of the twenty-first century, we wanted to select twenty-one of the hundreds of women as the “SES Women of the Year” and express our gratitude to them in front of the public. We identified women and movements from Turkey and the world who set an example with their pioneering, egalitarian and feminist stance in the struggle for women’s rights. We have nominated these inspiring women that contributed to women’s solidarity by resisting systematic oppression. Then we submitted the list to the approval of women in Turkey by creating a survey that 690 women participated. With this broad participation, we selected the twenty-one names and movements.
We held an award ceremony to honour the recipients at the Pera Museum last Thursday, January 20. Due to the pandemic, we invited a limited number of people. The event was attended by representatives of the women’s movement, journalists, activists, politicians, and writers. Despite the Omicron variant, our guests who attended our ceremony gave us strength. It turned into a joyful celebration with the wonderful presentation of the esteemed journalist and women’s rights defender Özlem Gürses.
The awards had an international dimension. Women resisting the Taliban in Afghanistan, challenging the planned quarry to be built in Rize-İkizdere, the mayor of Paris, the only female mukhtar of Diyarbakır were all selected “women of the year”. What they all have in common is that they struggle against the dominant system and build an egalitarian world. Each of these women’s stories is a story of resistance, struggle and hope.
Here is the list of selected women:
- Women from İkizdere, who are resisting against the plan to build a stone quarry in the İkizdere province of Rize
- Afghan women bravely fighting for their equal rights to education, work and political participation against the Taliban
- Emine Şenyaşar, who has been holding a vigil in front of the Urfa Courthouse for months, demanding that the murderers of her husband and sons be tried
- The White Wednesday Movement, which is following the activism of removing headscarves in public places in Iran and defying the bans of the Islamist regime
- MacKenzie Scott, who donated $2.7 billion to non-governmental organizations working on arts, and education, combating racism, and inequality
- Elif Vatanoğlu Lutz, the first woman from Turkey to receive the Gusi Peace Prize, known as Asia’s Nobel and given to people who contribute to world peace
- Boğaziçi University students who inspired the feminist movement while fighting for a free and autonomous university
- Polish women activists resisting the abortion ban against the conservative government and the Catholic church
- Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, who announced her candidacy for the French presidential election in 2022.
- Elisa Loncón Antileo on behalf of women fighting for a feminist constitution in Chile
- Actress Ezgi Mola, who reacted to femicides from her social media account
- Özlem Türeci, who stated that the coronavirus vaccine was developed thanks to gender equality
- Turkey’s National Women’s Volleyball Team, for showing solidarity and, displaying a self-confident struggle
- Busenaz Sürmeneli, who brought Turkey the first Olympic championship in women’s boxing.
- Çiğdem Toker, who presents an important example of journalism that is focused on benefiting the public
- Dilek Demir, the mukhtar that saved 40 girls from child marriage with the “wish box” she set up in her office
- Merve Akpınar, who said, “I will change the fate of the girls in my village”
- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and African director general in the history of the World Trade Organization
- Hacer Foggo, who has been persistently fighting for poverty to
- Artist and LGBTI+ activist Liana Georgi, for her courage by standing up to the police in the Pride Parade
- Hülya Gülbahar, who pioneered the establishment of the Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK) and EŞİK, which emerged as an example of solidarity from the women’s movement
Stories of hope for a better future
The story of each award-winning woman was a story of hope for the future. The struggle of Afghan women, Polish women, women from İkizdere and women from Boğaziçi University continues. As Ayşe Albayrak, who received an award on behalf of the women resisting in Rize-İkizdere, said: “The resistance continues. They continue to destroy; we continue to resist. Let’s see who will win? We will continue to resist until the last tree.”
Hacer Foggo’s invitation to broaden solidarity was also significant. She is conducting a persistent struggle to prevent poverty in her work at the Deep Poverty Network, of which she is the founder.
Century of Women
Hülya Gülbahar received the SES Women of the Year award on behalf of EŞİK. Gülbahar, who has devoted her life to the struggle for women’s rights, said, “Wherever there is oppression, wherever there is injustice, there is resistance, there is a struggle. Women have been at the forefront of this struggle throughout history, and they will continue to be.”
As SES Equality and Solidarity Association, we will continue to raise the voice of the women of the 21st century who resist oppression and injustice. We will compile the stars that shed light and hope in this dark world and deliver them to you.
We are already excited to gather the stars again and present them to you as the voice of women.