Fast Fashion and Feminism
By Ariana Lim
March is Women’s History Month! This month is dedicated to empowering women and learning about the incredible stories of women all around the world. However, we also need to acknowledge that women have been oppressed in many forms throughout history — through traditional gender roles, pay gaps, the inability to vote, the silencing of sexual assault allegations, the lack of representation in politics, sports, and STEM fields… honestly, the list could go on forever. It’s important to note that these issues have evolved over time as a result of many factors. In fact, lots of gender-based issues differ around the world. For example, abortion-related deaths are the most common in Africa, whereas the United States is one of only three countries that do not mandate maternity leave. These issues are extremely prominent in history and most of them are still relevant today. A gender-based issue that we will be discussing today is fast fashion.
Fast fashion is not a new issue — in fact, the term was coined around 30 years ago by the New York Times. And since then, its ties to environmental and social issues have been largely documented. In a previous blog post, we’ve discussed why fast fashion is unsustainable from an environmental perspective, but today we’re talking about its connection to feminism.
Firstly, fast fashion is a gender issue because most of the workers in this industry are women. Currently, 75 million people around the world are making our clothes. 80% of those people are women aged 18–24. Oftentimes, these women don’t receive living wages and work in unethical conditions.
1. Wage: The majority of garment workers are grossly underpaid. In fact, the majority of them around the world earn less than $3 a day. Oftentimes, they don’t make enough money to cover their basic needs or provide for their families. To put things into perspective, on average, a major fashion CEO will make in 4 days what a female garment worker in Bangladesh will make in her entire lifetime. Some workers don’t even receive compensation for overtime, sick, or maternity leaves. In some cases, they may even be fired if they are found to be pregnant.
2. Work conditions: Unsurprisingly, as a factory tries to minimize costs, the work conditions are far less than ideal. Workers often work for long hours a day with few breaks. To add to that, some of the factory buildings themselves are unsafe. A famous example that comes to mind is the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh in 2013. According to government reports, the building owner had illegally constructed upper floors in the factory to hire more workers. What’s more — when cracks started to appear in the building, an engineer inspected it and warned that it was unsafe. The building owner disregarded these warnings and still called workers back the following day — the day the building collapsed. Over 1,000 people were killed in the collapse; 80% of them were women.
3. Sexual harassment: Lastly, nearly one in three female garment workers reported experiencing sexual harassment in their workplace over a 12-month period. This includes physical, verbal, and non-verbal actions. This workplace harassment causes serious emotional and psychological distress, ultimately creating an unsafe and uncomfortable environment.
“There is an absence of a minimum level of protective or preventative measures in the garment industry, like a standard policy for sexual harassment across the industry, or recognition and action against sexual harassment from senior levels of management. As a result, women workers reported they have little means to protect themselves or to receive appropriate support from factory management and duty bearers in the community.” -care.org
On the other end, fast fashion also promotes consumerism. This is largely related to social expectations for women to dress or appear a certain way. Society has placed extremely rigorous standards that women are expected to conform to. This includes keeping up with all the current trends and unrealistic “beauty standards” (which are also extremely Eurocentric, might I add). Even a large retailer like Brandy Melville still sells “one-size-fits-most” clothing. These clothes are tiny, y’all. Clothing brands are perpetuating harmful beliefs to women about looking or dressing in a certain way.
All this does not mean that ethical or “slow-fashion” brands don’t also promote these beliefs. In fact, many ethical clothing brands are not size-inclusive. Thrift stores don’t often sell clothes in sizes larger than X-Large. Also, not all sustainable brands are ethical. This just goes to say that nothing is ever black-and-white. Not one option is better than the other, and it’s unreasonable to make assumptions about a woman based on her clothes.
So, what can we do?
If you want tips for how you can avoid buying from fast fashion brands, I encourage you to read our previous blog post about fast fashion. Here are three more suggestions for you:
1. Support women-owned fashion businesses. Despite being largely targeted towards women, the fast fashion industry is male-dominated. Take a look at this visual we made of the ten best-performing CEOs in the fashion industry in 2016 according to FashionUnited. Supporting women-owned businesses empowers female entrepreneurs. Bonus points if the business is sustainable!
2. Talk to others about fast fashion. It’s one thing for people to listen to a stranger talk about these issues, but the message is much more meaningful when it comes from someone they care about. For example, just a few years ago, my mom disliked the idea of shopping second-hand. However, after dragging her to the thrift store with me a few times and explaining why it’s a great alternative to large retailers, she developed an appreciation for it!
3. Lastly, hold brands accountable. Putting pressure on these brands to treat their workers better and to employ more sustainable practices can have a really great impact. At the end of the day, these businesses want money, so if enough of their customers demand change, they have no choice but to comply.
