Through films, Verse began translating feminist ideas into visual storytelling. Photo from Exile Hub. Used with permission.
Exile Hub is one of Global Voices’ partners in Southeast Asia, emerging in response to the 2021 coup in Myanmar, focusing on empowering journalists and human rights defenders. This edited article is republished under a content partnership agreement.
As a Burmese filmmaker shaped by her grandmother’s quiet defiance, Verse uses storytelling to challenge gender bias and uplift women whose voices are too often erased.
Verse began her professional journey in 2018 as a reporter at a local news agency in Myanmar. She dreamed of covering political news, but quickly encountered systemic gender bias. During a major assignment, male reporters were sent to Nay Pyi Taw to cover parliament-related matters, and she was told to stay behind.
She recalled the moment: “I was told women weren’t given those opportunities. I could not accept a workplace that denied my growth simply because I was a woman.”
She left journalism and joined a women’s rights organization, shifting her focus to human rights and feminist advocacy.
Before Verse ever stepped into a newsroom or picked up a camera, she grew up watching her grandmother quietly defy the rules of her time. A tough, respected Rakhine woman running a sawmill business, working daily among men, and refusing to bend to the gender norms imposed on her.
Verse talks about her grandma proudly: “She never once told me, ‘you’re a girl, so you can’t do this.’ She taught me that actions have consequences, but gender should never be a limitation.”
Her grandmother’s philosophy became the backbone of Verse’s feminist worldview. Even in small everyday acts, her grandmother pushed against societal expectations. While the neighborhood insisted women must hide their underwear under the longyi when drying laundry, her grandmother thought differently. From a health perspective, she said underwear needed sunlight to prevent bacteria. So she just hung them in front of the house. She never believed being a woman meant you had less dignity.
Growing up under such influence, Verse absorbed feminism not through books but through lived experience with a woman who modeled resilience, pride, and equality long before Verse learned the word “feminist.”
In 2020, Verse attended Yangon Film School, where she began translating feminist ideas into visual storytelling. The classroom itself became another frontline of gender bias. Six male and six female students attended. One day, a male classmate asked her an inappropriate question rooted in a harmful cultural myth about girls with arm hair or slight mustaches being “sexually provocative.”
She was hurt and angry, but she chose a different response.
During a group discussion in class, Verse brought the incident forward, sparking an honest conversation about how students should respond when they encounter verbal harassment. Her courage led the film school to introduce its first-ever zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment.