At Women’s Foundation California, we know policy is a tool for freedom—and last week, we witnessed that truth in action.
At our 2025 Legislative Reception, we gathered not just to hand out awards or spotlight bills—but to name and celebrate a truth that feels more urgent by the day and was so beautifully articulated by Irene Kao in her acceptance speech: “Feminism is the opposite of fascism.”
Where fascism thrives on control, isolation, and fear—feminism insists on community, autonomy, and joy. And on this night, joy was in the room.
This year, we honored three changemakers whose work exemplifies what it means to lead with courage, innovation, and deep commitment to community. And we uplifted four powerful bills authored by Solís Policy Institute fellows and alums—each one a declaration of possibility, equity, and liberation.
Courage California and Irene Kao received the Cindy Marano Leadership Award because they understand that real political power comes from community—especially communities that are so often left out of the conversation. They’ve shown what it looks like to lead across movements, across election cycles, and across differences.
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And Assemblymember Isaac Bryan—our Champion Award recipient—has been doing something rare in politics: showing up consistently, with integrity. Whether mentoring our Solís Policy Institute fellows or authoring bills to protect reproductive autonomy and fair labor for incarcerated workers, he’s not just legislating. He’s listening. And building.
Alongside them, we celebrated four bills authored by SPI fellows and alums—bills addressing gender-based violence, housing security, health care discrimination, and the cost of dignity behind bars. None of these policies were dreamed up in isolation. They come from lived experience, from community, from people who know the stakes and have the courage to imagine something better.
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That’s the through line of the night: imagination as strategy. Policy as a tool, not a finish line. Leadership as a collective act.
We left the room not with easy answers, but with deep conviction. The future is already being written—in the voices of survivors, in the strategies of organizers, in the legislation that refuses to accept the status quo.
All we have to do is keep writing. Together.