‘I use poetry to talk about the truth’: independent publishers give women in the Philippines a voice
- Small, independent publishing houses have sprouted in the Philippines in recent years championing women’s voices
- They say their work is more important than ever under the authoritarian presidency of Rodrigo Duterte
Faye Cura’s white T-shirt says it all. Emblazoned with the words “Feminista: Lumilikha, Lumalaban, Lumalaya” – Feminist: Creating, Fighting, Liberating – the garment is a limited-edition item produced by the independent women’s publishing collective Gantala Press, co-founded by Cura.
One of a group of dedicated friends and like-minded Filipino women who established the publishing house, run by an all-woman team, Cura believes there is a battle to be fought on behalf of female workers in the Philippines, who are often underpaid, disregarded and marginalised.
“As feminists, we recognise that women experience abuse and discrimination based on their gender,” she says. “If all women experience this, just imagine what female farmers or workers go through. And we aim to change these conditions.”
With a name that loosely translates to “spinning wheel”, Gantala publishes books on the plight of Filipinos who are marginalised and exploited, with a particular emphasis on peasant women and minimum-wage earners.
Five years after Gantala’s launch, the independent outfit is at the forefront of a wave of women publishers, including small presses, and women who self-publish, concentrating on texts that mainstream publishers avoid either on commercial grounds or for ideological reasons.