The feminist movement in the United States and abroad was a social and political movement that sought to establish equality for women. The movement transformed the lives of many individual women and exerted a profound effect upon American society throughout the twentieth century. While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote, the second-wave feminism of the women’s rights movement touched on every area of women’s experience; including politics, work, the family, and sexuality.
The triangle shirtwaist factory was highly known to be a sweatshop. Approximately 500 people worked there and long hours with low wages and unsafe working conditions were heavily involved. Immigrant women were seen most in the factory, working forcibly through the unsanitary environment. Furthermore, on March 25, 1911, one of the most known tragedies in history occurred. A fire began and due to the factory not having any sprinklers installed, it spread within just minutes. Many workers were desperate for their safety, finding any way to escape including jumping to their death. Even though firefighters arrived at the scene, their fire hoses and ladders could only reach the seventh floor, leaving workers completely helpless. Many of them continued choosing their fate by jumping out the windows instead of dying from the flames. This fire quickly became very effective as some workers inside were left to burn to death or died from too much smoke inhalation. By the devastation, a total of 146 people were pronounced dead. This tragedy surfaced every single day, and according to the video I watched, was considered the deadliest workplace disaster in NYC history. This ignited and sparked many new regulations and served a prime example for our future workplaces to be more cautious. This tragic event was key in allowing progress toward safe working conditions. The Sullivan-Hoey prevention law was passed which mandatorily requires all factories have sprinklers installed.
Equal rights, regardless of sex, has always been an extremely important and active topic across the United States. The Equal Rights Amendment took a lot of time to gain real momentum and widespread support. After women earned the right to vote in 1920, the National Woman’s party worked heavily in the direction of taking further steps. According to Jessica Neuwirth, once they got the right to vote, they wanted to get all the other rights they should have. Many attempts and protests were done yet the Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 failed due to major consequences. Furthermore, Phyllis Schlafly was extremely controversial and defended the idea of women being able to freely be in the home as a wife and mother. She discussed the ERA eventually leading to women being drafted into the military and she made many think twice about this decision. Many debate if this would affect women to this day and affect violence against women, others believe it may have more of an impact and Coberly states “passing a constitutional amendment does not automatically invalidate anything.” Overall, this is still a current topic and reoccurring issue around different areas, and equal rights as well as the protection of women has become more and more important.
