On Monday 7 March at 19.00 CET – on the eve of International Women’s Day – S&D President Iratxe Garcia Perez, Mayor of Ovanåker (Sweden) Yoomi Renström, and LBT* campaigner Dragana Todorovic will join Rainbow Rose President Camila Garfias and PES Women President Zita Gurmai for a Twitter Spaces to launch Reclaim your space – a feminist outcry for equality.

Reclaim your space is a new campaign created jointly by PES Women – an organisation that promotes gender equality and women’s representation both inside and outside the Party of European Socialists (PES) – and Rainbow Rose – the LGBTI Network of the PES.

Media are invited to follow the launch of Reclaim your space on Twitter Spaces from 19.00 CET on Monday 7 March.

Ahead of International Women’s Day (8 March), the discussion will ask: how can society reclaim spaces for women? What are the obstacles for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LBT*) women?

In Europe today, women* - and especially LBT* women – face persistent inequalities and growing harassment at home, in workspaces, in the streets, in online spaces, and in the public discourse.

President of Rainbow Rose Camila Garfias said:

“Our political family has always been side by side with the feminist and the LGBTIQ movement. The pandemic and its consequences have led to an increasing number of attacks against women* and LBT* women. Our goals are to promote equality, inclusiveness, and diversity through a European feminist movement, with the representation of a strong LBT* community. This is the aim of our campaign: to raise awareness but also to call for action.”

PES Women President Zita Gurmai said:

“We have a clear message for society as a whole: we need a feminist outcry for equality. Women* deserve to be an equal part of society, loving who they want to love, doing, wearing, saying, whatever they wish. We will not stop until all women* in all their diveristy can reclaim their space – especially seeing the backlash on women’s rights in certain EU countries.”

As part of the campaign, PES Women and Rainbow Rose are encouraging people to share a visual or video of spaces in their community that they would like to reclaim, using the hashtag #reclaimyourspace and #proudfeminist.

Notes for editors

About the campaign

• For more information, visit https://reclaim-your-space.mailchimpsites.com/
• * The gender star* in the campaign’s communication indicates that not only women and men, but all genders and gender identities are addressed and included.

About the PES

• All 27 EU member states are represented by their progressive parties at the PES, which brings together 33 socialist, social democratic, labour and democratic parties as full members. Together with 12 associate parties and 12 observer parties from outside the EU, we fight for a better and more progressive Europe.
• The President of the PES is Sergei Stanishev.
• The Socialists & Democrats Group in the European Parliament is the parliamentary group of the PES.

Media images

Free-to-use, media-quality photographs are available on the PES Media Centre: https://media-pes.eu/