In this week’s videos and reading we see similarities between suffrage, labor rights and the equal rights amendment. Labor rights ties into sufferage because of the mass amount of women working in industrial factories. When the workplace is not safe, the people who are affected want to protest for labor rights- but this will not work unless women have the right to participate in voting elections. That is when the equal rights ammendment comes into play. In order for women to vote and have a political standing, the govermnent must recognize that women play a major role in the workforce and their safety needs to be a top priority. We see examples of this in the reading when the ERA’s success fails due to the lack of widespread support. The members were focused on gaining workplace safety, but were also concerned that if doing so, this would limit the amount of hours women could work. Because of this, the ERA was put on hold for a long time before it would resurface.

Labor rights are major issues of gender justice because of the simple fact that these industrial factories were mostly made up of women. Once the workplace became more inclusive, it allowed for women to make their own money for themselves and their families as opposed to men being the sole bread winners. In the early 1900s many women wanted to work rather than be the usual stay at home mother, therefore when the triangle shirtwaste factory fire occured, mostly women and children were affected by the lack of safety. We saw in the first video the uproar that commenced after so many women died due to the locked doors and faulty exits- a huge protest was held afterward to spread awareness of the injustice women face when working for these major cooperations.

In the second video we watched this week we see the same neglect to sweatshop workers when another fire broke out in a Bangladesh sweatshop. I constantly see infographics all over social media stopping the support of fast fashion brands such as Shien, Forever21 and Zara. These brands pay their workers less than a dollar an hour to produce garnments that sell for 10x that amount. It is really hard to navigate fast fashion when you would rather buy clothes for a good price over something really expensive, but it is important to remember the people who make these products are not being treated properly. Now that there are laws in place to protect the workers it helps to create a safe work environement, but there are still so many articles and photos showcasing the mistreatment of garnment workers who manufacture products for the United States.