TAPESTRY: Voices on Feminist Legacy
Josefina Gerónimo: Mujerismo Influence
As a Chicana, my life has been shaped by a feminist legacy rooted in my bilingual, bicultural, binational, and biliterate experiences. I mourn the [February 2025] loss of Paquita la del Barrio, a trailblazing artist who defied misogyny through her music. I’ve been inspired by feminist writers like Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moragá, whose works have informed my understanding of intersectional identity. Through my studies of Critical Race Theory and Latin Critical Theory, I’ve deepened my commitment to Mujerismo.
At 38, I’ve come to realize that my mother’s decision to bring me to the U.S. was motivated by her desire to escape gender-based violence. I honor my grandmother’s resilience and mathematical prowess, which paved the way for my independence as a woman of color. I stand on the shoulders of Native women from across Turtle Island, drawing on their ancestral wisdom to defend my childfree life and challenge patriarchal norms. I celebrate my intersecting identities and the feminist legacy that has shaped me.
Lilly Mercer: On Collective Power
In the most challenging moments of my life, I try to avoid feeling bad by comparing my struggles to those of others. This approach has not benefited me, and I have taken it to extremes.
When my leg became infected after I had skin cancer removed, I thought, well, worst case, I’ll only have one leg. Some people have none. When my mom died, everyone focused on how horrible her death was; I thought, at least she was terrific while she was alive and felt guilt for others who never had wonderful mothers.
My approach was silly. I ignored my grief as much as possible. Let’s face it, somewhere out there, someone is suffering more than I am — probably missing a leg and a mom!
Even now, I am in the sixth month since my mom’s passing, and I notice other friends who used to vent with me hold back and say, “But that’s nothing compared to your year.”
My mom’s best friend has seven lemon-sized tumors. Her house in California almost burned down yesterday. I texted her to say I wish I could hug her and take away some of her pain. She replied, “I wish I could call your mom right now. I can’t imagine how hard today and every day is for you.” Her house is at risk, and she’s undergoing chemo, but my suffering is seen as worse.
Who knew grief had a hierarchy?
When I learned about my mom’s friend, my heart ached for her. In the past, I would have viewed my tears as a sign of weakness, shaped by a societal narrative that equates crying with frailty. However, I’ve come to understand that this is a genuine strength. My ability to empathize allows me to be fully present with others during their struggles.
When my girlfriends enveloped me in their tears after my mom passed away, I felt a surge of unity and strength in our shared womanhood. In moments of deep love, we strive to alleviate each other’s pain through attentive listening and by creating space to understand how we can offer our support.
It is truly beautiful that I can reach out to my girlfriends, knowing they will embrace my vulnerability with open hearts if I am feeling low. They listen without judgment, provide guidance when I seek it, and stand beside me in my emotional journey. Together, we share and navigate the complexities of our feelings, reaffirming the strength of our connections. As a woman surrounded by supportive female friends, I genuinely feel rich.
There’s no value in comparing who has hurt more, even though it is hard not to do. In reality, we are extending a powerful compassion to one another. Acknowledging my pain as it arises, and navigating through it, is essential. Ultimately, life is about finding balance — an ideal that’s easier to articulate than to achieve.
Mission: Women’s Prison Book Project
For 30 years, Women’s Prison Book Project has continued to provide women, trans, and gender-expansive people in prison with free reading materials on many topics including education (dictionaries, GED books, etc.), health, fiction, law, self-help, and crafts. We are an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that seeks to build connections with those behind the walls and to educate those on the outside about the realities of the prison system. Each week, we prepare and mail approximately 140 packages.
To get involved, email womensprisonbookproject@gmail.com to join our volunteer sign-up list, or find our donation page on GiveMN.org to help with postage and other costs.
Publisher’s Commentary Coming Soon
I recently gave a talk about Minnesota suffrage leader Clara Ueland, who gathered 40 women to her Minneapolis home in 1913 to organize a suffrage club based on sisterhood and motherhood, because “the best thing that a nation can do is to raise a better set of children.” She said that the “hardest lesson in this one thousand years — and one not completely learned yet — is that it is not safe to leave government in the hands of one man or a group of men, and that one class cannot judge wisely or decide fairly for the whole.”
Dominique Murray: on Courage
Lately it seems as if we are traveling back in time; as a society it appears as if we are moving backwards. The attack on DEI is also an attack on the movement and progress towards women’s liberation. Now more than ever we need courage. We need it from one another, and we need it from our leadership.
This moment in history challenges us to be creative, to develop solutions that help us support each other. But how do we do that? We unite, and we demonstrate radical resistance.
What does that resistance look like? It looks like us taking care of one another. This framework of community care and mutual support has been used throughout history, from the Civil Rights Movement to the Jim Crow era, and into the Feminist Movement. Through these movements, we learn the importance of allyship, community, and innovation.
Maya Angelou once said “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” To truly know better means not ignoring the threat to women’s liberation, especially for women of color. Knowing better means supporting women of color by adapting an intersectional approach to develop and support solutions that address the unique challenges women of color face when race, gender, class, and socioeconomic status intersect.
This is hard to do in the political landscape right now because those with the heart and courage to carry out this important work don’t always get a seat at the table, but there are things we can do as individuals within our own communities to continue moving forward. We can show up to support our local nonprofits, advocates, community organizers, and leaders who are committed to creating equity and access. Now more than ever we can lean on one another, embracing the power of unity, solidarity, and strength.
From the Archives, to Today
February 2004
One of the things that really stood out in the data, said Jane Ransom, president of the Women’s Foundation, was the size and persistence of the wage gap. “I was a feminist in the ‘70s and we went around wearing buttons saying 69 cents to highlight the outrageous national 69 cents to the dollar wage gap. And here we are in 2004 in Minnesota, where women are making under 60 cents on the dollar. So for me, that’s one factor that speaks volumes about why almost 40 percent of single females in the state are living in poverty. It really highlights how shameful it is that the Legislature relaxed the implementation of the state’s pay equity law in the last legislative session.”
Patti Tanji, president of the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota, cited a client employed as an administrator in the construction industry who had access to payroll data and knew her paycheck was about $25,000 less than men who did part-time seasonal work. …. Regular attempts are made to repeal or weaken the 1984 local government pay equity law, Tanji said. As Tanji put it, “We can do this one person at a time — or we can do this collectively through public policy.”
Step: Women’s Economic Security Act of 2014
The Minnesota Women’s Economic Security Act (WESA) became law on Mother’s Day 2014. It is a combination of 14 provisions designed to address gender equity, create new training and entrepreneurship opportunities for women, and prohibit discrimination on the basis of family status. The law protects employees’ discussion about wages; requires certain state government contractors to certify compliance with pay equity laws; provides unemployment benefits for victims of sexual assault, domestic abuse, or stalking; offers rights to care for family and expansion of parental leave; enhances rights and protections for pregnant and nursing mothers; and provides discrimination protections for family status. Several workplace protections are enforced by the Department of Labor and Industry.
Update: March 12, 2025 news release
Today, the Equal Pay Today campaign, a project of Equal Rights Advocates, released its 2025-2026 Policy Agenda outlining a comprehensive strategy to advance pay equity and strengthen workplace protections for women across the country.
In response to recent unprecedented federal attacks on women’s rights and working families’ economic security, the agenda identifies key federal and state legislative priorities to close persistent wage gaps, enhance anti-discrimination enforcement, address workplace harassment, raise minimum wages, and expand paid leave and caregiver protections. The agenda reflects the work and effort of 50+ Equal Pay Today state, federal, and tribal partner organizations across the country on the frontlines serving women, workers, and families.
Said Deborah J. Vagins, National Campaign Director for Equal Rights Advocates and Director of Equal Pay Today. “When the federal government abandons its responsibility to enforce anti-discrimination laws, women — particularly women of color — pay the price. Our policy agenda provides a roadmap for states, advocates, and lawmakers to advance equity, despite these challenges, and defend against harmful rollbacks.”
In the first six weeks of the Trump administration, officials have rescinded Executive Order 11246, which for nearly 60 years prohibited federal contractors from discriminating against workers; fired commissioners at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in an unprecedented breach of its independence; paused federal grants that support economic advancement for women; and eliminated federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that helped address workplace disparities.
Equal Pay Today’s 2025-2026 Policy Agenda focuses on four strategic areas:
- Strengthening pay equity and employment discrimination enforcement, including advocating for the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Fair Pay Act, and the Salary Transparency Act at the federal level, while supporting state-level salary range transparency and anti-discrimination legislation.
- Expanding workplace harassment protections that promote income security, including the BE HEARD in the Workplace Act and the Sunlight in Workplace Harassment Act federally, alongside state-level bills that extend filing deadlines and expand coverage of anti-discrimination laws.
- Raising minimum wages and eliminating subminimum wages through the federal Raise the Wage Act and state legislation that would gradually increase minimum wages and eliminate carve-outs for tipped workers, workers with disabilities, and young workers.
- Implementing paid leave and family caregiver protections via federal bills like the Healthy Families Act and FAMILY Act, along with state legislation that recognizes diverse family structures and provides adequate leave for family care.
“While we face unprecedented federal rollbacks, our state-level work demonstrates that progress is still possible,” said Jessica Ramey Stender, Policy Director and Deputy Legal Director at Equal Rights Advocates. “With 44 states having passed some form of fair pay legislation in recent years, we know that the fight for economic justice continues in communities across the country.”
Noreen Farrell, Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates, said, “Our current wage gaps — where Black women earn just 64 cents and Latinas only 51 cents for every dollar paid to white men — risk worsening without robust enforcement, which is why our policy agenda focuses on both immediate defenses and long-term structural solutions.”
The Campaign’s Steering and Policy Committees include Equal Rights Advocates, Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, Women Employed, Women’s Law Project, National Women’s Law Center, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, National Partnership for Women and Families, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, American Association of University Women, National Black Worker Center, and Justice for Migrant Women.
Mission: WomenVenture
As WomenVenture navigates uncertainty around funding, policy updates, and executive orders targeting marginalized communities, we continue to support our clients with resources they need to build and sustain small businesses while extending empathy during these challenging times.
As a nearly 50-year-old nonprofit organization, Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and Women’s Business Center, WomenVenture is on track to serve more than 1,000 women in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin this year. We are privileged to be a part of thousands of stories of progress and tenacity. Entrepreneurs in Minnesota prove there is no slowing down in 2025.
Prioritizing continued collaboration with leaders across all sectors is necessary to improve Minnesota’s economic security for women through capital access, business resources, affordable child care, and health care. We must work together to secure a future where everyone can build profitable businesses and livable wages to support their family, employees, and communities.
Examples of WomenVenture’s mission at work include clients Inkwell Booksellers and Roots Birth Center. They continue to grow their businesses while providing comfort and sense of belonging to their communities.
As we celebrate Minnesota Women’s Press 40th anniversary, we are honored that they are a WomenVenture client and continue to uplift all people especially small business owners and entrepreneurs.
For 2025 coverage, Minnesota Women’s Press earned a community leadership award, three photography awards, and four editorial awards, including for coverage of social issues and for our Spring 2025 “Know Your Rights” special section supported by Unidos MN. Our publisher was named Journalist of the Year by Violence Free Minnesota for gender-based violence coverage.
