Glamour has partnered with The Center for Investigative Reporting and Glassbreaker Films on a series of short films that feature portraits of a diverse, powerful group of women who are making waves and confronting the status quo. The stories cover a range of distinctive figures—from a police officer fighting racism from within her department to a politician being touted as the next Democratic nominee for president of the United States—all directed by women. See all the films here.
A placard outside Eva Galperin’s office at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to protecting civil liberties on the Internet, reads “Outrage Fairy.”
Though Galperin’s actual title is director of cybersecurity, she has dedicated her career to defending people around the world—particularly activists and journalists—who dare to speak out against their governments on the Internet.
In countries like Syria and Kazakhstan, where dissidents have been jailed and killed, Galperin’s security research can be a matter of saving lives.
“I find state-sponsored malware, and then I take it apart and write reports on what I found and hopefully hold the states responsible,” says Galperin, in this short film directed by Olivia Merrion.
She says fleeing from the Soviet Union to the United States with her family as a child has inspired her work.
“Coming from a family that fought the Nazis in World War II, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do if my government suddenly became really interested in restricting civil liberties,” says Galperin.
Though the 2017 election underlined America’s vulnerability to cyberattacks and data theft, protecting the privacy of individuals, which she says is the first thing authoritarian regimes try to strip from their citizens, has always been her mission.
“There are a lot of people who sort of woke up the day after the election and said ‘What am I going to do,’” says Galperin. “I don’t wonder that. I know what I’m going to do every day. I’ve got a game plan. I’m going to fight.”
Glassbreaker Films is funded by the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.
