8 March 2023: Demonstration in Heidelberg under the motto "Not our war - our solidarity against your weapons!"

Various Heidelberg groups, including the Feminist Alliance, Die Falken Heidelberg, Die LINKE Heidelberg and Care Revolution Heidelberg, called for a demonstration on 8 March. The motto: "Not our war - our solidarity against your weapons!" We document here some photos and the call.

"It is no coincidence that "war" in German is masculine. Male power and capital interests are the driving force behind acts of war - including Russia's war against Ukraine, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Yemen. It is often ignored that, in addition to soldiers who are killed, women and those marginalised by patriarchy are particularly harmed by war and have to bear its consequences in a special way.

At the same time, the German state and German defence companies such as Rheinmetall earn money from arms exports. Weapons are waste driven to perfection, the capitalist production of destruction. War is not only a catastrophe for people, animals and the environment, but also a complete waste of resources in the midst of multiple crises.

If women remain in the affected countries, they are not only threatened by the acute danger of death, but also by sexualised violence. Sexualised violence is deliberately used as a weapon of war. Even where gender stereotypes, sexist role assignments and systematic discrimination have already been partially suppressed, they flare up again with war: The "heroic man" uses brutal force to conquer what "needs to be conquered", and the women who "belong" to the opposing party right along with them.

Even when women flee, they expose themselves to great danger: Women who are fleeing or have fled are particularly vulnerable. Men, human traffickers, pimps and clients are increasingly exploiting this situation.

War is deeply anti-feminist, it reproduces gender stereotypes and degrades people to objects: Men are supposed to fight as soldiers and destroy their bodies, women are supposed to serve as production centres for new soldiers. For the most part, war does not respect human life created by women and must be resolutely opposed in the feminist struggle

The lack of healthcare caused by the war in Ukraine is an example of the danger to women: An above-average number of poverty-stricken women there are exploited through surrogate motherhood. The war situation results in increased maternal mortality and means that the babies "ordered" there are not "collected".

Another example is the catastrophic emergency situation in Kurdistan, Syria and Turkey: the ongoing warfare there already made it difficult to provide people with sufficient supplies of essentials such as food, water and medicine. Now tens of thousands have died as a result of the devastating earthquakes, countless other people are living in an acute catastrophe and humanitarian support is being made more difficult for political reasons, particularly in the Kurdish regions.

In order to support the women who are particularly vulnerable in this situation, we are calling for an immediate halt to deportations, a simplified asylum procedure and sufficient humanitarian aid to reach all affected areas. We also demand the disarmament of German arms companies. Instead of 100 billion for war, we demand 100 billion for social peace worldwide!

This is not the war of us women*, war cannot be in our interest! We are resolutely opposed to Germany's involvement in war, to the profits of the German war industry, to the simmering war rhetoric, to armament and to the destruction and devastation of wars. Nation-state wars for peace do not exist! For an end to all wars worldwide!"