Fifty years after the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women voting rights, the National Organization for Woman sponsored the “Women's Strike for Peace and Equality” on August 26, 1970. Time magazine observed two days earlier that “virtually all of the nation’s systems — industry, unions, the professions, the military, the universities, even the organizations of the New Left — [were] quintessentially masculine establishments.” This strike by women (who would cease cooking and cleaning) was meant to call attention to women’s unequal roles in domestic labor. The strike was the brainchild of Betty Friedan who came up with the slogan, “Don't iron while the strike is hot.”

Such feminist actions led to the passage of Title IX in 1972 and the legalization of abortion in 1973. This quilt is based on a black-and-white photograph taken of the New York City demonstration march, and is given the proportions of a Polaroid photo of that time.