Not a single butterfly accompanied Rosalie, the beautiful one, when she hurled herself out of the ninth-floor window, fleeing from the flames devouring the sewing factory where she worked in downtown Manhattan.

That day, the 25th of March of 1911, was a Saturday, but in those days the weekend consisted of only one day, and the fire safety measures we have today did not exist then either – 27 buckets of water were all the protection available at the clothing workshop called the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

The disaster left one 120 women sewers, almost all of them teenage immigrants, carbonized or broken against the pavement below the factory windows. Six of the victims, at their burial, could be identified only by a number. At long last, after years of investigation, their names were made known two weeks ago.

This tragedy is known as "the fire that changed America," since it was immediately followed by the passage of laws mandating better working conditions and fire prevention systems for the protection of workers, and it was the making of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).

It is good to remember these things in these times when unions are in the sights of conservative forces in several states, to recognize the importance of communal action in protecting worker's rights and lives.

It is good to remember these things because this is Women's History Month.

My mother, an artist with a needle, a master of the Merrow and the Singer who is now sewing for the angels, labored for years in one of those little factories called sweatshops, where every summer she lost weight whether she wanted to or not, for there was no air conditioning. And where her talent, worthy of haute couture, was dribbled away sewing sleeves on rain jackets all day long – "pisué" she called it, piecework.

But even better than remembering these things is learning the lessons they offer and not waiting for more women to die from the deplorable conditions in their workplaces, or from domestic violence.

Nowadays, violence against women is a world-wide phenomenon that reaches far beyond social class or level of education. Violence against women is the equivalent of those fires and industrial poisonings of yesteryear. The saddest and most deplorable aspect of this situation is that in spite of the laws and the international agencies of the United Nations, and the editorials and opinion columns like this one, every minute of every hour of every single day, somewhere in the world another woman is carbonized in the flames of sexual violation, asphyxiated by the smoke of physical mistreatment, thrown through the window of irrational femicide, enslaved by religion and custom.

Perhaps, as many say, education is the solution, but for certain, right up to the present minute a doctorate will not save a woman from the fists of her boyfriend or husband or some sick sexual predator lurking in a park.

Perhaps what women need is a world-wide organization with collective bargaining rights, and perhaps finally they need to declare themselves on general strike.

Perhaps that's how things will change, and the butterflies will accompany us as we stroll through Central Park.