Response 7

In this snapshot, we see a woman working in a factory making shirts and she is also wearing a mask. In the shirts that she’s making, we see the red text says “Smash the Patriarchy”. The artist Odile Brée illustrates the concept of how female workers work long hours for less wages due to the difficult issues. The text itself actually sends a message to the viewer that the economy is harsh towards women workers which allows the patriarchies to take advantage of them and make them work long hours. According to the first video from the History channel, “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” explains the past situations of immigrant women who were forced to work long, consuming hours in the sweatshop without any safety conditions. On the date of March 25, 1911, the workers were about to finish up their jobs and a fire exploded inside the factory. The workers were terrified, so they attempted to escape but most of them were trapped in the building. Some of these workers threw themselves off the building to avoid being incinerated and they died from the impact from the fall. Their bodies were on the ground from the aftermath of the fall so their families can identify them and be mourned by them. How I felt about the snapshot is that there is not much to say about it other than the fact that women work for hours in the factory with unfair conditions. I feel guilty for the female workers from the video who were being treated unfairly by the patriarchy. The solution against patriarchy is to protest and regain our rights for the female workers. In the second video “Triangle Returns” discusses about 100 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory incident, workers in the country of Bangladesh have had already repeated history when a fire broke out in the building during the day. There are some things that happened that make a parallel connection to the incident that happened 100 years earlier. Workers jumped off from the burning building themselves. The video mentions sweatshops that worked in and being paid 35 cents an hour. The workers were dissatisfied about its conditions and the laws needed to protect them from the harsh environment. From the article called “Virginia Just Became… ERA” by author Tara Law, the story talks about the harsh realities of the Amendment due to continuous fights in courts and the U.S. legislature since the legislators were the ones responsible for passing the amendment more than 30 years ago.  Another thing mentioned in the article is that there is a solution that helps protest  against violence towards women, lower wages and maternity leave. Women who are either pregnant, sick or having emergency issues do not have to work that long hours because they deserve to have their rights being protected. The connection to the snapshot is that people worked at factories and needed equal rights and protected by the law through the department of labor. What I felt about this revelation of the patriarchy system is that they should have defended the female workers from the harsh rules of unregulated conditions that the system laid for them and the female workers could get the justice they deserve.

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