by Nina Somera

Isis International’s founder Marilee Karl has been given the 2017 Women Have Wings award

There is a boundless energy as she grips the handles and turns to whatever direction she desires. It is her walker that slows her down. Her mobility may have taken the toll of toiling for years, but not her mind and spirit.

At 80, Marilee Karl lives by herself in a Strasbourg apartment, near her daughter Alice and 3 young grand-daughters. Surrounded by the most interesting books among literature lovers and more interestingly, rare materials on Southern feminist movement-building, the voracious and critical reader in her can easily be linked to her solid and uncompromising voice as a story-teller.

Her self-awareness about power, including her own power, is manifested in her leadership, especially when Isis International moved to Manila in 1991. She has always known the beauty of co-creation ever since she founded Isis with an equally brilliant comrade Jane Cottingham in 1974. It was clear to her that feminist analyses, leadership, solidarity and actions earn much more authenticity in contexts where oppression is concentrated. Just a few years after setting up the Manila office, she closed down the Rome office. With Isis in Manila, she embraced all possible hopes and risks for an organisation that she founded with all energy and passion of her youth and passion for justice.

Isis International has become such an institution, much bigger than how Marilee and Jane had ever imagined on the night that they were scribbling possible names for the organisation over bottles of beer. From a tiny room of the International Documentation Centre (IDOC), Isis branched into three offices in Chile, Uganda and the Philippines, with each office having a unique function and autonomous governance. There was a period when Isis' media platforms lent profile to upcoming feminist organisations who wanted to be known and be linked to a growing network of feminists and women’s rights organisations.

Isis information and communication focus, gave wings to successful networks which continue to this day. For example, It also became a place which accommodated the young women’s innovative ideas as well as rough edges. Such opportunity contributed to the wings of so many women who have made names for themselves elsewhere and founded similar spaces which support their visions. These women can be found in many areas of work within and outside the women’s movement.Throughout the series of crises and shocks that have rocked Isis International over the years, Marilee has made herself available for advice and hands on support. While being there for Isis, she has never held on to the organization for the sake of holding on.

More than 40 years since Isis was founded, Marilee remains a pillar of support. In Isis International, she is spearheading the digitisation of Isis historical archives which document Southern feminist movement building since the 1970s. The Feminist Archives is one of the flagship projects of Isis International as it to a new name and renewed focus. Long after it sheds off the name Isis International and takes on a new one, it will certainly continue to have the force of Marilee Karl under its wings .

Marilee Karl is a recipient of the 2017 Women Have Wings award.