EqualityQuilt

Meet the New Intern!

  My name is Suma Setty, and I'm excited for this opportunity to work with the Consortium this Winter/Spring. I'm an unfortunate native of Oak Brook, IL, but, thankfully, was able to escape after high school. I'm a senior at Macalester College majoring in Political Science and Environmental Studies. I briefly co-chaired the college's primary feminist organization Feminists in Action-Students Together Against Rape and Sexual Assault (FIA-STARSA), and continue to be involved in my final year.

 Feminism, for me, was ever present in my household. I am inspired by the strong women and men who have raised me and hope to live up to their expectations while fulfilling my own dreams. I have more recently discovered an academic interest in feminist theory and am simultaneously a fan of Angela Davis and Tyra Banks (is this possible?!).  Growing out of a recent frustration with Palin-esque images in the media, I decided to take my interest and passion in feminism off campus and into the community at the Minnesota Women's Building.

After graduation, I hope to continue my involvement in women' s empowerment, working with organizations dedicated to the interests of women of all backgrounds and orientations. I am interested in causes that promote environmental justice as well, encapsulating the intersections between race, gender, the environment, and civic rights. This internship and my interests seem to match quite well and I look forward to the rest of my time at the Consortium.

Our Masthead - Women's Work Is Never Done

Here's a quick review of our masthead.  Starting on left, the first image and several others across are from a Victorian crazy quilt made by Bonnie's great-grandmother many decades ago in upstate New York.  Many thanks to my dear sister Judith Peace Greenberg for preserving it and sending the photos.  Next is part of a star quilt made by the Dakota women of Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Poplar, Montana, where I was growing up about 45 years ago - now in my living room at home. Then more crazy quilt.  Next is a comforter knitted by my late mother-in-law Cilka Zakelj, who came to America as a refugee from Communist Yugoslavia in 1948.  Will it be too much information if I say I sleep beneath this comforter every night?  After more crazy quilt, there's an embroidered tree from a Hmong pillow, made in the 1980s by one of the women who resettled in Minnesota then. Then part of a woven wool purse brought to Minnesota from Ecuador by Silvia Ontaneda's mom.  And then more crazy quilt. 

Please feel free to send images of your favorite stitchery - one more way to honor women's heritage.  We are never alone in working for better lives for all women and their families.   One small patch, one small stitch at a time, together we can achieve equality and justice for everyone.  - Bonnie

Hello Cyber Women and Friends!

Welcome to the launch of the Minnesota Women's Consortium blog!  Our purpose here is the same as our mission in the less-cyber-world:  to achieve equality & justice for all women & girls, by connecting organizations & individuals sharing that goal.  Except here in cyberspace we will work on that with way fewer in-person meetings. Now we can interact with a new friend writing us from Warroad to the northwest, Caledonia to the southeast, and YOU, and maybe St. Paul-native astronaut Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper will