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TW: SA
Written by: Rosie Eckl (she/her)
It is clear that second-hand shopping has become hugely popular over the past few years. Some of us may have grown up hunting for bargains in charity shops, even when it wasn't ‘cool’. Here in Edinburgh, you only have to lift up your head whilst you’re rifling through the racks of the local charity shop to see plenty of other like-minded students looking for the latest trend. It’s clear to see that amongst our demographic is a large number of people who share a passion and interest in ethical shopping.
This upsurge in second-hand shopping on your local high street, whether in the form of charity shops or the occasional overpriced vintage shop, has been accompanied by an insane growth in online selling websites, the most popular being Ebay, Depop and Vinted.
I myself have been known to spend a whole afternoon trawling through hundreds of items before finding the perfect baby tee.
I think it’s likely that most of us are doing this with an awareness of the social justice issues that accompany high street fast fashion retailers, that would otherwise offer a cheap and straightforward alternative. It would certainly be easier than the aforementioned option. After setting myself a challenge to buy fewer new clothes, I made a conscious effort to learn about the working conditions and environments that garment workers experience as a result of intense demand for fashion.
The majority of garment workers worldwide are women. In Bangladesh for instance, women make up 80% of the garment workforce. For this reason, fashion is a deeply feminist issue. As most of us will know from our own experience, gendered power dynamics are present in most parts of life, and particularly in the workplace. This is acutely true of garment factories, where often managers are male, and hold total power over a majoritively female workforce. There have been hundreds of counts of sexual assault where female workers have been inappropriately and abusively taken advantage of, by their male employers. Given the financial and social precarity that many of these women face, as well as cultural norms of ‘putting up’ with sexual assault, they often have little choice but to remain working.
We are all aware of how misogyny interacts with daily life. For female garment workers, sweatshops enhance all of the challenges that women face outside of work. This relates to female reproductive rights; UNICEF reported that many pregnant women are forced to work, even when working becomes dangerously unsafe for some. Taking time off work in the form of maternity leave often has detrimental consequences to the stability of working positions and, since sweatshops often exploit policy loopholes, they get away without offering employees the benefits they are allocated by law.
The global fashion manufacturing industry, which helps to fuel economies around the world, is driven by women who are employed on exploitative terms; Bangladesh has experienced rapid financial gain as a result of the dependency of the global North on its cheap labour.
Despite the pessimistic tone of this post so far, I think it's important to acknowledge that young women are able to begin their careers by entering garment work. To an extent, it can be argued that the fashion industry provides women with a form of career related agency, and can offer financial empowerment. However, there is much to be desired when it comes to the working conditions of factories, and global initiatives must do better to protect the rights and pay of garment workers.
In the mean time, it is essential for feminism to incorporate the struggles of women all around the world, including the women who are working behind closed doors to feed the habits and lifestyles of others. Whether you enjoy spending time looking for pre-loved clothing, or love what you find in a high street store, I think we need to look at our new jeans not only as ‘an item’, but also as a product of hours of work by hard working women. They represent more than something new to hang in your wardrobe.
Rosie Eckl
1st Year