Social Dangers of Fast Fashion
In our previous post about fast fashion, we discussed how it affects our planet (see the post here). In reality, this topic is tightly connected with people, because what is taken from the environment is also taken from us and future generations. What’s more, in many cases the great bargain we find in a fast fashion store is being paid for by the people who make those cheap garments. This is a complex and sensitive topic and one riddled with exceptions, but there are some basic facts we can cover. So while this post is relatively short and simplistic, we have added links to websites at the end, where you can dive deeper into this very real concern for our planet and the people who live on it.
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Worker Exploitation: The two main characteristics of fast fashion are cheap prices and very fast turnaround times. Neither of those would be possible without the people who make those clothes. To find low-wage workers, as well as looser labor and environmental laws, large fast fashion brands, outsource production to countries whose economies are heavily reliant on garment manufacturing and are home to cheap labor and loose environmental restrictions. Bangladesh is a prime example of a country like this. Almost 5,000 clothing factories operating in Bangladesh generated 86.6% of the country’s total export value in 2019 according to The Observatory of Economic Complexity. In countries like Bangladesh, fast fashion brands can impose pressure on factories for low prices and fast turnaround and that comes at a cost for workers. The cost for workers is not just low pay, which in many cases is not enough to meet their basic needs. In many cases, they also work in an abusive environment, in unsuitable conditions. Poor lighting, toxic chemicals, old machinery, and crowded workspaces in many workplaces make these factories dangerous and unhealthy. In the past decade, the safety conditions have been improved, there is, however, still an immense amount of work that has to be done (Guardian, 2021).
Women: Fast fashion also hinders the global fight for gender equality. Women workers make up more than 70% of the total workforce in the fashion industry (Fashion Revolution, 2021). It is not uncommon that these women are single mothers or the main breadwinners in their household, yet their wages are lower than those of men while their working hours and the production quotas for them are higher (Menzel, A., Woodruff, C. 2019). Compounding this problem is the fact that women’s access to education is generally more limited than men's, so they are even more likely to work in low-wage jobs such as cut and sewing. In many cases, women are discriminated against in job interviews with intrusive questions about their families and plan to have children. Some factories go as far as to hire unmarried women or even require them to sign a document that they agree not to have children during the term of their employment. Of the 74 million textile workers worldwide, 80% are women of color. This channels into not only gender-based discrimination but also racism.
Culture appropriation: Fast Fashion brands are not only known for stealing designs and patterns from other brands but also using design motifs from indigenous communities without sharing the benefit with them. Traditional motifs are part of indigenous identity: environment, history, and unique worldviews of the community, and very often, sacred symbolism. What should be collective property, becomes exploited for the fast and cheap gain of brands that do not take time to pay tribute to craftsmanship and heritage. Here you can read an article, about how Mexico’s ministry of culture is speaking about and against brands like Zara, or Anthropologie using indigenous patterns and designs without care or understanding of their significance for communities they originate from.
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To learn more about this topic, please check out:
Fashion Revolution: https://www.fashionrevolution.org/
Slow Factory: https://slowfactory.earth/
True Cost Movie: https://truecostmovie.com/
Labour Behind the Label: https://labourbehindthelabel.org/
