Seeing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory reminded me of when my class did a mock trial of the actual court case after the fire occurred. My class was the only class to win on the defense side, which defended the workers. I played the role of Kate Alterman, one of the workers who had run through the fire, resulting in a burn scar on her neck. She was one of the victims placed on trial as a witness for the defense side. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed to find out that it didn’t necessarily work like real life. The workers lost the case again due to the bosses’ power imbalance over them. They had money, and the workers didn’t.

Furthermore, it was disappointing to see one hundred years later, after the fire, another fire broke out in a sweatshop in Bangladesh. In places where the community is much poorer compared to America, they are put in secrecy to work and work until their last breath. The change we see now is only the tip of the iceberg, but not much change has happened deep down. It all stems back to power imbalance and capitalism. I’d go deeper into that, but I don’t know much about politics. We constantly fight for equal rights every day, even though we get shut down repeatedly. “the laws that we have enacted are not sufficient to protect against sex discrimination in all avenues.” (Tara Law, 7, on ERA). This quote shows again that this is only a tiny portion of all that needs to be done. What we’ve done right now isn’t enough for all that needs to be accomplished. Which again is very disappointing.