GABRIELA: Fighting Patriarchy and Imperialism

by Amee Chew
5/4/07

On March 11, in honor of International Women's Day, INCITE! Boston Women of Color Against Violence held a film screening and fundraiser for GABRIELA, a mass-based women's organization in the Philippines. A packed audience of over 70 viewed a documentary on GABRIELA's activities, called "Fight Without Fear!," produced by local organizer Darlene Lombos.

GABRIELA works to free women from all forms of oppression, whether intimate violence, landlessness and economic exploitation, lack of reproductive healthcare – or state violence and foreign domination by the U.S. Its branches organize sectors that include rural women, the urban poor, students, minority Moro women, and former "Comfort Women."

As an especially remarkable treat, two representatives from Gabriela Network, a support organization for GABRIELA based in the U.S., were present at the event to provide incisive political analysis and historical context to the film.

We have a lot to learn from Global South women's organizing. Lombos' background as an organizer rather than professional film-maker meant her documentary explored many aspects of GABRIELA particularly relevant to activists – foregrounding the group's combination of service provision, cultural works, political education, grassroots struggle, and nation-wide networking.

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